Video of puzzle playing clip
Grape Jun contacted Zhang Shen, the producer of "City of God", and he told us about the development origin, gameplay and the process of getting on the Steam green light.
The origin of development: a long-cherished wish after ups and downs
In fact, Zhang Shen has been developing games for more than ten years.
Since 1999, Zhang Shen has worked in Zhiguan and Shanda, and started his own business as a private server and a page tour. In 2013, he felt that the mobile game market was full of gold, so he came out to start a business and made an infringing card-based cottage mobile game. This hand tour has achieved good results, and it is said that there are about 50 million running water throughout the year. At that time, the company once expanded to more than 100 people.
After that, they added distribution business and set up five products, but they couldn’t make any money. Gradually, the monthly income of their first product is only a few hundred thousand, and the R&D team has become the biggest redundancy. "The gold rush is over, we don’t have core competitiveness, and we have to give away a Ferrari every month …" In desperation, the team began to disband, leaving only a few people.
In March this year, Zhang Wei went to Japan to visit companies such as Glory and Bandai Nanmeng Palace, and felt their spirit of playing games for decades, and finally realized a problem:
"I’m not suitable for a speculator, and following the trend can’t give me a sense of security. When the company is big, I feel awkward, but in fact I am not me. "
As Zhang Wei said, "It’s really inspiring to let go of the company and fame." One day, he saw a police car in the homestay next to Lake Biwa, and suddenly he was inspired. I stayed up all night and wrote a long planning case of "City of God".
Play: sandbox crime with high degree of freedom
At first, Zhang Shen’s idea was very huge. The gameplay includes both simulated management, RPG and SLG；; The scene has both a large-scale sandbox city and several detailed room strongholds; Warden, zombies, even a dog will all become the protagonists of the game. "You will gradually learn about the past of every criminal, such as the dog was the son of a scientist before he was assassinated …"
However, unlike many independent developers who are passionate and want to realize all their ideals with one game, the rationality of controlling products still prevails. "I want to launch a decent version in at least one year. Because of my money, the flowing water of my previous works, plus the financing I got in February, may only be enough for my brothers to spend a year. " So, he is going to split the grand world into three games that are related to each other but play differently.
The same is true of art and music solutions. "We don’t have the experience and funds to do 3 D. If we don’t do well, we will become a short board; 2D art is not outstanding enough. And pixels neither add points nor subtract points. " In addition, this team of only eight people did not outsource sound effects. Zhang Shen personally composed 16 BGM songs. "I can’t tell my feelings and the outsourcing team can’t understand them, so I’ll do it myself."
In the first-generation game being produced, namely "City of God: Prison Empire", players have to play the role of the warden who has just taken over a prison. In order to support themselves, they start to build cells, accept criminals, and start processing factories from clothing to drugs and firearms to make profits.
prison
With the improvement of the prison level, players will find more criminals with different specialties such as blasting, firearms, driving and stealing. Players can do whatever they like, build functional buildings, and let them drink, gamble and prostitute … Once criminals have trust in players, they can enter the big map, commit crimes for players and generate greater profits.
Bars, casinos, brothels and so on.
City of God has a huge sandbox map. "We have designed personality hobbies for each resident; Every car can rob; Players can also change their styles in barbershops and clothing stores. The difference from GTA is that every room in the game can be visited and random levels are generated; Players can also make drugs and even conduct international trade after investing in public facilities. " At the same time, the game may also add social elements of buying and selling resources among players in products such as Hay Day and Sim City.
Racing, hostage-taking, confrontation with the police, gang fighting, bank robbery and sneaking in correspond to different ways of playing. QTE, team configuration, diving, solving puzzles, etc. will all be added to the criminal process as light gameplay. Zhang Shen is also working hard to make the gameplay have a multiplication effect. "Criminals can be recruited not only through human resources systems and side tasks, but also through framing. For example, if you want to build a drug processing factory, you must first get a scientist. To get a scientist, you need to send criminals into his room, put drugs at home, and frame him for imprisonment. "
Town map
As shown in the video at the beginning of the article, City of God already has a Demo that shows how to solve puzzles. In Demo, players have to solve various puzzles, sneak in or even shoot through security guards, steal money and run away in a limited time. Of course, this Demo is a bit stiff because there is no other gameplay and narrative supplement.
Climb the Steam green light: almost like a dream.
Zhang Wei said that pixels and crime themes are definitely not very popular in China, and it is even difficult to pass the trial. Therefore, it is almost the only way for them to board the Steam green light in advance and meet the global Steam players as soon as possible.
The road to green light is not smooth. At first, many foreigners would directly comment: "China game is a cottage game, which is rubbish, so I ordered NO directly!" Some people will compare the game with other products.
But later, Zhang Shen introduced the game over and over again in SteamCN, forums and post bars, communicated with players, and showed many details of the circle powder:
Warden! Please ask your purchasing manager to buy shower gel instead of soap. This will greatly reduce the death rate of your prisoners in the bathroom.
If you want to rob or steal during rush hours, it is recommended to plan ahead. In order to avoid traffic jams during running. …
Gradually, the interface of "City of God" received more than 700 replies. Many Russians still ask why there is no Russian version. Finally, this game got the sixth place. During the days of voting, the whole team was half asleep: "Is this fucking true?" There are even players from the Foreign Languages Institute of the United States, New Zealand, Canada and China who responded to their call and participated in the English-speaking process of the game without pay.
Zhang Wei said that at present, the completion progress of "City of God" is about 40%. With the experience of previous projects, the technical difficulty is not great. Prison internal construction, big map and random checkpoint development tools have also been completed. Next March, a complete Demo will be released. In June, E3 will be exhibited, officially released and landed on the Steam platform. Now they have also participated in the PS competition, seeking opportunities to cooperate with Sony and board the mainframe. As for the mobile version, it will be further away.
In Grape King’s view, the biggest problem of "City of God" lies in the diversity of gameplay and the huge structure. Zhang Shen also admitted that "the team is still doing subtraction to find a balance point that can keep the fun of playing without affecting the overall structure."
In Zhang Wei’s view, The City of God is not in a hurry. After all, it takes three generations of games to present his plan completely. He said with a smile, it doesn’t matter that the first work was scolded, the second work was scolded, and the third work was scolded.
"If you do the fourth part, someone will always say yes."
Attached is the introduction page of "City of God" PS Contest:
http://zhongchou.modian.com/item/1511.html