Link to the work page: https://prj.gamer.com.tw/acgaward/2021/demo.php?t=3&sn=30
Shi Xiao’s predecessor was actually the “MMW” team that was founded in the Zhidian Educational Game Talent Cultivation Room four years ago. Although they tried game development at that time, it was only for motivation, the content of meeting the needs of competitions or projects was far greater than interest. As a result, but also because of this opportunity, they have strengthened their idea of continuing to try game development.
Then, through the process of member withdrawal and new members joining, MMW gradually disappeared and replaced by a team named “Laogai Xiongji”. Laogai Xiongji gathered a group of people who really like games. At this stage, the team tried to develop larger projects than before. For example, the casual mobile game “Textile Story” and the small multiplayer online game “Ailem ~ Sacred Tank Civilization~” were placed, and the tower defense game “Don’t Go Into That Hole” was developed through cooperation with others. Even if these projects are in the embryonic stage in the end, they have laid the foundation stone for the establishment of the game.
The original team was not very optimistic about this idea, but unexpectedly many people liked it. Regrettably, the concept of bead fights was slowly modified into the current “rib” due to many practical considerations such as implementation and design, and the original shadow is almost invisible. However, the concept of “bead fights” is still Make the members feel knowing smile.
In fact, in the early version, the concept of “drive” originally only existed in battle. Players could only drive the enemy or drive themselves, and it was not applied to exploration. But in the process of communicating with the predecessors, it was discovered that this design made the core of “drive” very unobvious. Combat and exploration are more like two completely different games, which also makes the existence of the edge dispensable. In order to improve this part, the team decided to integrate the design of “edge” and “drive” into the exploration process, and make the “drive” element in the battle more obvious, so it is possible to use the drive platform to attack the BOSS, or to use the drive to snatch the BOSS weapon the design of. Although this design takes a lot of time and effort, it also makes the core of the game more obvious and adds a lot of features to the BOSS battle.
The reason why I chose to use the pixel art style to make the game is because the members in charge of art have their own art styles, and they also have their own drawing logic. It takes a lot to get everyone to agree on the art performance. Time cost. Moreover, they did not want the cooperation model to develop toward an efficiency-oriented factory model, so they finally decided not to focus on general 2D performance, but instead chose a pixel style with relatively few influencing factors. Later, the main art member even compiled the technical documents of the drawing process for other members to refer to and reduce the time cost of subsequent modification.
Speaking of the biggest challenge encountered in the production process, Shi Xiao believed that it was “very fun to verify the core” and “continue to maintain development momentum.” Regarding the former, they mentioned that the team’s own game development experience is not much, so it can be said to be stumbled all the way in this area. Fortunately, there are many seniors on this road who give the team advice and spend time, energy, and brainpower to help correct the early stage. Imperfect executable files.
In addition, what Shi Xiao felt most memorable during the production process was actually about “starting a business.” In the summer vacation when the development was just started, the team’s instructor put forward the idea of ”entrepreneurship” and let the members discuss it for a long time. During that time, the members repeatedly thought, explained and fought with their families, until the moment when they decided to start a business and continue to develop the game after graduation, in addition to basic development, Shi Xiao began to prepare for the business.
At the beginning of the business, the team had to face the problem of funding. For this reason, the team’s planning stepped on the path of no return to writing plans. They wrote two or three plans in a row, and were in the loop of game design and writing plans every day. However, as a result of the hard work, only one plan was passed, and the level design and mechanism design did not spend enough time to learn design methods and improvements. “It was really miserable at that time, but it was so risky that there were all those Word documents in italics, so that we can live now, which is really great!” They lamented the experience at that time.
In addition, the work that impressed the members of Shi Xiao in the competition was “Anya”. They said that they really liked the special effects design of “Anya” in the Boss stage, so they followed the author’s Twitter. At the same time, they are also regretful that they could not hold a tea party due to the epidemic, and now look forward to communicating with other teams.
Finally, talking about any suggestions for creators who want to step into game development, Shi Xiao said: “Good morning, hello, I still need to work for ten hours today, and encourage each other.”
More about the award-winning report of the “Bahamut 2021 ACG Creation Contest”
Bahamut 2021 ACG Creation Contest “Animation Group” Interview Report
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Gold Award: Run for life (published)
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Silver Award: Absent Parents’ Conference (coming soon)
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Bronze Award and Special Award from the Institute of Cultural Policy: Everett College (published)
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Special Award from the Institute of Cultural Policy: One Zero Foot (coming soon)
Bahamut 2021 ACG Creation Contest “Comic Group” Interview Report
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Golden Reward and Special Award from the Institute of Cultural Policy: Take me home! (Published)
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Silver Award and Special Award of the Institute of Cultural Policy: You who can’t be human. (Coming soon)
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Bronze Award: Angel Xiaojian (published)
Bahamut 2021 ACG Creation Contest “Game Group” Interview Report
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