The Fantasy Entertainment Empire

In November, Allen, who was in New York, was already sitting in front of his TV, and in the TV screen in front of him, under the white steam, the game interface of "Steam Daming" had been slowly opened.

He is a game fan, and his favorite game in this life is the previous work of Dimension Entertainment, "Taiwu Painting Scroll 2".

At the beginning, when "Taiwu 2" was released, he played that game for the first time. At that time, he had just graduated from high school, and he had a chance to travel, but he chose the game.

After playing, he has no regrets at all.

Traveling or something, can it be as fun as "Taiwu 2"?

After this game, he has a good impression of China, an ancient country, that he wants to be. After he went to college, he even went to Chang'an, China once, and he felt very good.

Later, when Dimension Entertainment was preparing for the film script activity of "Taiwu Painted Scroll 2", his archive was still selected and became the archive for the last filming.

At that time, he was so happy that he was crazy. When the movie was released, he called his friends and asked a lot of people to watch it together.

This sense of accomplishment is simply overwhelming.

Originally, after playing Taiwu Scroll 2, he was already a fan of Dimension Entertainment, and now he has become their loyal fan.

In this way, when Dimension Entertainment releases a new work, that is, "Steam Daming", of course he wants to buy it!

And I don't know how to buy it myself, but amway others to buy it everywhere.

However, it's hard to say how effective his Amway is.

Whenever he talks about this work with other players who also play the game, the other party will always make a surprised expression, saying that he has been looking forward to this work for a long time.

Allen didn't think there was any particularly big surprise.

In the past half a year, as the release date of "Steam Daming" got closer and closer, they could always see the promotion of this work in various places.

On TV, they can always see the advertisement of this work; when shopping on the road, they can also see the eye-catching signs of "Steam Daming" in many iconic places; on various websites, there are also many advertisements. .

In addition to these publicity that can be directly advertised to a large number of audiences, the name of "Steam Daming" can always be seen on social media, on some professional game websites, and in the media.

The players are probably not very professional publicity practitioners. In their feelings, this work seems to be everywhere, and it is very hot.

Herd mentality is a very common and common psychological phenomenon. In this circle, when everyone shows a sense of expectation for a game work, many people who might not be too interested in it will choose to at least try it.

No matter what, in short, Allen is very proud of being able to play this game for the first time, becoming the first player, and buying the most high-end collector's edition game.

He took out his mobile phone to take a few photos, and hurriedly posted them on his social media account. He immediately entered the game state impatiently.

...

The opening of the game is a teaching level.

This teaching level is designed to be very interesting. From here, Allen probably learned the operation outline of "Steam Daming", and also understood the gameplay and upgrade system of this game, and at the same time figured out what kind of story this is telling.

The protagonist is a member of Jinyiwei. In Allen's understanding, this is a spy organization directly under the central government of the Ming Dynasty, but it is somewhat different from the spy organization in the usual impression.

And his first task was to 'ransack the house', arresting a dismissed court official.

The teaching level is not long, and in the second half, you can basically move freely.

However, this story made Allen, who had just started playing the game and was still in a state of excitement, feel as if he had been poured a basin of cold water.

Because the story is brutal.

The protagonist of Jin Yiwei doesn't seem to be playing a positive role. Among the information revealed in the story, the minister who was ransacked and imprisoned did not seem to be a bad person. And what the protagonist is going to do is also very cruel. The minister's daughter, that cute little girl, is going to be sent to the Jiaofang Division-in Allen's understanding, this is like an official brothel.

It's a fucking thing, at least it doesn't make Allen feel very beautiful.

But in the game, the mood of the protagonist is obviously struggling.

At the end of the tutorial level, he has a chance to let the girl go.

However, here is a choice to make.

In the previous publicity, Allen understood that this work of Dimension Entertainment, they call it a "free linear narrative game", which is also a huge selling point of the game.

The so-called linear narrative game is a game mode that directly opposes 'sandbox games' and 'open world'.

There are many masterpieces of open world game works, such as the famous "GTA" series, "The Elder Scrolls", including the "Taiwu Painting Scroll 2" before Dimension Entertainment, all of which are serious open worlds.

The biggest selling point of this kind of game is that it creates a virtual world for players to explore freely. Players can do what they want in this world, with a high degree of freedom to explore.

A linear narrative game, on the other hand, is based on a main story line, and each level is designed to allow players to pass through and tell a story. Among them, the masterpieces include the "Uncharted" series and "The Last of Us" (The Last of Us) series. Strictly speaking, "God of War 4" is also a linear plot.

Some people may think that God of War is a semi-open world game, but it is not. God of War 4 is a typical linear narrative game from beginning to end.

It has the law of linear narrative games, that is, the plot from A to B remains unchanged, and the monsters in the middle and the fighting process also remain unchanged. It just adds some side plots between A-B. But the great thing about Santa Monica is that you don't have to play it, because it won't affect your plot experience.

And if you don't hit the back, then obviously you can't go to the new map.

The game experience of these two types of games is of course completely different.

And Dimension Entertainment's "Steam Daming" is a serious linear narrative game. In the early stage of the game, starting from the teaching level, players are in such a main story, and basically there are not many exploration elements.

A game is a behavior or activity performed in a clearly defined time and space. It proceeds according to the rules of spontaneous acceptance. Such rules, once accepted, are absolutely binding. The purpose of play lies in the act of play itself. It is accompanied by feelings of tension and joy that are different from everyday life.

This is the same as playing chess, that is, within the time of the game, the chess pieces fall on the board, the rooks run rampant, and the horses move forward. If someone puts a piece off the board, or walks around blindly, your reaction is definitely to pick up the board and slap the stupid head hard.

For video games, linear, sandbox and open world are actually a combination of the game's "time", "space" and "rules", but the proportions of the three are different, creating different styles.

If we simply and roughly divide these three types, those that focus on "time" and "rules" are linear narrative games, while those that focus on "space" and "rules" are open world games, and those that focus on "space" and "time" It's called a sandbox game.

As the name of the linear narrative game suggests, you feel like walking a line when you play this game. Although there are occasional forks, there is always only one road that can lead to the end.

This type of game is a typical template of the earliest electronic games. Whether it is a top-down or horizontal version, an action game or an RPG, it is always impossible to escape the routine of defeating the BOSS after untold hardships and finally saving the world.

Of course, it’s not that a single routine is not good for playing. In fact, it is precisely because of this traditional and simple structure that linear narrative games have produced countless classics. In addition, this type of game has a long history, so almost all gamers will have a linear narrative game in their childhood memories.

The linear narrative game mode itself is actually a very stable and mature game system, which can be said to have reached perfection. But it is precisely because of perfection that it is difficult for current games to make major innovations based on the linear narrative game model.

Although later, with the qualifying of "Dragon Age", the game has a multi-ending mode, which enriches the player experience.

However, with the improvement of players' game IQ and the emergence of game products, linear narrative games have finally fallen into an awkward position: that is, most games, when players get them, they can probably guess the game mode. It is difficult to get an amazing feeling in the process of playing. In this case, a linear narrative game will inevitably make players feel bound and unfree.

As I said at the beginning, linear narrative games only have "time" and "rules". Players can choose to do things at different times, but in the end what you want to do is still the same, and you can't avoid it or change it.

In fact, in terms of gameplay, linear narrative games have no shortcomings, because even if there is a single mode, as humans, we still have countless stories to tell. In fact, most of the stories throughout the ages are similar to the routine, but there are still generations of people who enjoy it.

The story, this kind of thing itself is the most attractive. And generations of game designers have also been able to play well in linear narrative games. Innovation in gameplay, improvement in visual effects...

If the open world is like a stage built by the designer for the player to play on it, then the linear narrative game is like a beautiful stage play, with a director and actors, and the players enter the plot Among them, experience it for yourself.

It's hard to say which model is better.

But Dimension Entertainment's "Steam Ming Dynasty" is under the banner that they want to play out the linear narrative game mode.

This is actually what Alan, as a player, looked forward to the most before playing this game.

Dimension Entertainment: "This is a completely free linear narrative game with countless endings."

The so-called completely free linear narrative game focuses on the concept of gameplay like a linear narrative game. The game progresses step by step. Players will not have too many opportunities to explore freely, but immerse themselves in the game. In the main storyline, there is an ending.

But the embodiment of 'freedom' is that players can do almost everything they want in this linear plot.

This seems to be in direct conflict with the definition of linear narrative, but it is not.

In "Steam Daming", the most important "selling point" is the butterfly effect. At the moment, the protagonist in this story line can only act according to the development of the story, but how to act and what the purpose is are decided by the player himself. At the same time, every decision will change the following plot, forming the so-called 'butterfly effect', which affects the entire game world.

In the past, there were some works that used this selling point for publicity. For example, "Until Dawn" was promoted based on this selling point, so-called "butterfly effect", every decision will affect the ending, the game has hundreds of different endings and so on.

After actually playing, although this game is a high-quality product, it is well-made, and the horror and horror atmosphere is not bad. As an interactive movie game, it must be qualified. However, in the so-called "butterfly effect", what they did was quite disappointing.

The so-called different choices have different endings. In the final analysis, it is just a game with multiple endings. The so-called hundreds of different endings are only in such a short game process, different people survive or die. It can be roughly divided into three categories, the ending of the death of all members, the normal ending (some people died and some did not die), and the ending of all members surviving.

But "Steamstar" is a very different game.

What is the real butterfly effect? When you make a decision, it is very likely that the flow of the entire game will be different.

Moreover, this kind of decision is not just an option like in some games. Sometimes, the player's in-game operations, playing methods, and experiences will become the key factors that trigger a certain plot process.

For example, in Alan's game history, at the end of the teaching level, he couldn't bear it, and chose to let the minister's daughter go privately. As a result, during the operation, he was not skilled enough and was discovered by his colleagues. Then the girl was not only arrested, but also charged with a crime on his head, saying that he had something to do with this political case, and thrown into the police station. Go inside the imperial prison.

He thought that he had played a failed ending, but found that he hadn't.