Enlightenment of interstellar migration

The high-profile open-world mobile game "Magic Tower" has experienced half a month of wind and rain.

The battle report released by Perfect World showed that the first day's flow reached 50 million, and then it was announced that the first week's flow was 200 million. The magic tower remains at the TOP 10 of the iOS bestseller list, which is very strong.

From the product point of view, the magic tower, as a chaser of the open world circuit, still handed over its own answer sheet.

The positioning of "Magic Tower" is an open-world mobile game with light science fiction. It is not easy to present science fiction stories completely, and it is even more difficult to tell them well in open-world games.

The story of the game originated from an interstellar migration. The first earth humans came to "Ida Star" and tried to study the mysterious cosmic material "Primitive Energy" after coming into contact with it. But it also led to biochemical disasters, some humans, plants and so on. Mutated, uninfected dormant cabin was released to the surface of Ada. ...

The game advertises "light science fiction" and seems to incorporate the content of hard-core science fiction. Telling a slightly profound story with a two-dimensional painting style may make the content more acceptable.

Some small eggs in the game can be reflected. For example, there is a sentence in the voice file of the character "ene": "In order to protect the human species, some human beings must be sacrificed; In order to ensure your future, you must give up some freedom. " This line comes from the film Public Enemy of Machinery adapted from Asimov's I, Robot.

What is even more attractive is the setting of "going back in time". Haijiade, one of the forces in the game, used the primary energy to realize the time-space backtracking, but the experiment was very risky because he had not fully mastered the super-power characteristics. In the end, there was an accident in the "second backtracking", which caused confusion in the world line and some regions and roles were separated from Ida.

According to the idea of the project team, this setting later resembles the concept of multiverse. As players take risks in the game, they will gradually understand the goal of another force, the son of Ada: to go back for the third time and try to find the lost land and civilization. Is it gambling to restore the original state, or facing the reality and maintaining the status quo?

The story in Tower of Fantasy has the thinking of science fiction, and then the thought of multiverse can pave the way for long-term development. It can be said that the game plot has a good construction idea.

It is a big challenge to exert the charm of the open world in narrative. "Magic Tower" adopts a linear chapter narrative, and players unlock the regional areas one by one along the plot direction. This narrative method is still widely used by the most familiar MMORPG, which emphasizes "adventure" rather than "exploration" from previous plot experiences.

This method is conservative and can ensure that the player must receive the background setting information. In the main plot of the first chapter, the player was given the task of defusing the bomb, and in the process he experienced a time reversal. Players personally experienced the setting of the story background, and also laid the groundwork at the beginning of the story, so as not to make mistakes in subsequent stories.

The linear narrative of the game has the problem that the plot performance is slightly stiff, and it can be felt that the protagonist is pushed away by the plot during the game. Although "Fantasy Tower" has side missions, players can change the mission objectives at any time. However, due to the continuity of the plot, there is no clear node in the game to tell players that they can "do sideline business" or "explore the world to unlock the ruins", which inevitably leads to a certain sense of fragmentation in the experience.

In an ideal open world, exploring objects and sideline tasks can also be a good narrative tool. Since the theme of the story is post-apocalypse, it is a good way to realize fragmented narrative by using the dialogue in the side task and the objects in the scene. For example, we can finally understand people's psychological changes, and the objects in the scene can also map out the stories of the characters.

The Magic Tower made an attempt in this respect. In the ruins, players can find the experimental data in the scene and will not be rewarded for it. However, although the experimental data exist, the content is relatively empty. In the end, the experimental data itself is more valuable, and what it tells can't be well conveyed to players.

From the early stage of the game, the side quests did not play much role in depicting the doomsday world. Many players feedback that "the protagonist is too instrumental", and the protagonist turns into an enthusiastic person to solve neighborhood problems, but there are few plot contents that can shape NPC in the task.

Generally speaking, the fantasy tower has a large enough story frame and chooses the commonly used linear narrative in narrative. Perhaps because of cost considerations, it is a bit difficult to ask for rich details in a mobile game. The Magic Tower does not give everything in narrative, but chooses a more familiar and conservative narrative way.

Magic Tower combines the elements of the open world in gameplay, but it also retains the core framework of MMORPG.

As an open world game, the openness of the magic tower is reflected in the interactive content of the map. Exploration is one of the more encouraged ways of playing. There are many elements that can be collected on the map, including password boxes for various minerals, collections and supplies. In order to encourage players to explore the map carpet, the game also scattered at least 435 black cores and 72 gold cores (card-drawing props) in every corner of the map.

There are also some scenes with electronic password locks, and players need to find four password clues in the nearby area to solve the puzzle and get the treasure chest (of course, it may be most convenient to search for Raiders directly in the forum).

There are only 12 relics on the map, and players get treasure boxes and rewards through scene puzzles and battles. There are also leisure games such as pushing the ball into the door on the map, and the open world piled up with content will not seem too empty.

Resource collection and puzzle solving are basically single-player game experiences. The magic tower is regarded as the framework of MMORPG, mainly because it retains many social elements. For example, looking for an egg treasure chest on the map requires cooperation to solve puzzles (it is said that you can also replace teammates with elemental babies), team up to challenge the world BOSS, and challenge the copy of joint operations.

At first, in the perfect world 20 18 annual report, the positioning of the magic tower was described as "MMORPG in the open world". The game seeks a balance between the open world and MMORPG. If you want to complete the task in different ways in the game, the magic tower may not be open to that extent.

Then, as a MMORPG, the magic tower has indeed changed to improve its freedom. Players cultivate around a role in the game, but get rid of the conventional professional system. At present, the magic tower has released 14 export weapons, 3 defensive weapons and 3 auxiliary weapons. In the cooperative challenge, what kind of weapons players are equipped with is what kind of occupation. The emphasis on exporting weapons ensures that players can have a smooth game experience without socializing.

Character1* * can be equipped with three weapons. When the character attacks, it will charge the other two weapons. When it is full, it can use special skills to switch weapons. In this process, players are encouraged to switch weapons frequently. In the course of fighting, there are time-stop effects such as flying, air combo, using hook rope to approach the enemy, and evasion. It can be seen that the game wants to incorporate more ARPG action elements.

It is worth mentioning that the development system in the game combines weapon development and role development. Cultivating weapons is the same as ordinary MMORPG. The magic tower also binds weapons to mimicry characters, and every time a player gets a weapon in the game, he will unlock a character at the same time. Players can practice by giving gifts to characters, and they can get a certain degree of attribute bonus, but the improvement of game experience is not significant.

At present, the mimicry character is more like an attachment to a weapon, and it is also the place where the game can best reflect the second dimension. With the promotion of character level, you can also experience the background stories of two mimetic characters, and it is expected that more content will be added in the future. It's just that the characters you know have nothing to do with the characters you get. Even if you can understand the stories of the characters, it's hard to form a * * * song.

If Tower of Fantasy wants to win the hearts of secondary players and even create a new IP, how to build a content ecology around mimicry characters will be the focus.

As mentioned above, the Fantasy Tower chose science fiction stories as the theme of the story, and also integrated role training in the development of gameplay to attract secondary players. A subset of the game has many labels such as "science fiction", "second element", "open world" and "MMORPG", and its audience has become wider.

As can be seen from the art design, expanding the audience is exactly what Magic Tower wants to achieve. In the interview, the production team mentioned, "Will the last days be dark and disabled?" ? ..... If it is limited to some gloomy design ideas, it may be limited to artistic style design, and the audience may be narrowed. In the end, the Magic Tower adopted a relatively bright green wasteland style, which was different from other science fiction games.

The production team also mentioned that the character image design is also trying to be more suitable for science fiction and wasteland themes. For example, in order to meet the needs of combat armed forces, Haijiade's character image will increase the design of gel coat and the lightweight and armor of wrapping the body; In order to reflect the theme of wasteland, the characters also combine practical clothes such as overalls and goggles. The design concept sounds hard-core, but the actual artistic style is quite in line with the current secondary aesthetics.

Facing the open world and MMORPG, the magic tower chose both, but whether this choice is successful is still inconclusive. MMORPG's social content and daily heavy tasks undoubtedly disgust secondary players. In the subsequent update plan, the game repeatedly emphasized the "leisure" attribute of the new gameplay, striving to reduce the burden on players.

How to find out the needs of audience players needs constant adjustment. Admittedly, The Magic Tower is a step forward under the framework of MMORPG.