Chapter 1156: How Should a Novice Designer Make a Game?
"This ending... what the hell!!"
Lin Xue was stunned. She thought the protagonist, after years of torment, had finally stepped out of the shadow of his wife's death, but it turned out he was going to commit suicide??
This ending was way too depressing. The protagonist only had two paths: either drown in the nightmare of his wife's death forever and never wake up, or kill himself?
Lin Xue felt completely off. After finishing this game, she just wanted to ditch everything and go listen to some stand-up comedy to lighten the mood...
...
Many of the contestants who participated in the design competition had already bought this game the moment it was released. They were quite curious about what Chen Mo meant by "a better idea for limiting vision." What exactly was it?
Then, while playing the game, they suddenly had a moment of realization. Right, "limiting vision" doesn't have to rely on traditional visual restrictions at all; it can be expressed through other means!
Traditional visual restrictions had already been pretty much exhausted. There were only so many types, and players were getting tired of them aesthetically.
For example: limiting the player's field of view through darkness, creating unexpected dangers through narrow spaces or door-opening kills, and so on.
By using these visual restrictions, combined with some special "methods to remove visual limits," designers could create a tense and relaxed horror experience for players.
For instance, the dark scenes and night-vision cameras in Outlast were a very classic approach, still studied by many horror game designers today.
But Choking took a unique path within the relatively rigid methods of horror game production. This was a complete victory of creativity.
Was Choking a difficult game to make?
These designers found after playing it that it wasn't hard at all.
Horror games are actually a genre that heavily tests art design. The more realistic the scenes, the stronger the horror atmosphere created for players.
To give these designers a fair competitive environment, Chen Mo had even opened up Thunder Game's art asset library for them, allowing free access to all high-precision horror game art materials.
Without these art assets, the horror games these designers made would definitely be an eyesore, and some good ideas wouldn't be able to shine at all.
Imagine if the art scenes in Outlast were all shoddily made, with stiff monster movements and crude textures—how much of the horror atmosphere would remain...
But Choking was a game that barely relied on art assets at all. All the terrifying levels were presented with simple lines, making it the crudest horror game in history.
These designers all understood that for someone of Chen Mo's level, he had almost unlimited resources and could naturally use top-tier art assets to create a high-quality game.
But for designers just entering the field, how could they make a game with solid quality and fresh ideas while saving as many resources as possible? That was incredibly difficult.
Chen Mo didn't use Choking to show off his skills or make it flashy. Instead, he used minimal resources and the most novel creativity to tell all novice designers how they should design games based on their own circumstances.
Many people felt while playing this game that it offered a completely different horror game experience?
Although they couldn't pinpoint exactly what was different, it clearly stood out from other horror games.
After thinking it over more carefully, these people suddenly understood.
It was because of the game's sound.
In other horror games, sound is only used to set the atmosphere.
For example, in Outlast, different scenes have different sound effects.
In quiet scenes, players can clearly hear their own footsteps, their nerves on high alert, and any slight rustling can trigger fear;
When being chased by monsters, accompanied by intense background music and monster roars, players can clearly hear their own rapid breathing and heartbeat, which spikes their adrenaline and brings extreme terror.
But Choking took a unique path, turning the sound used to create a horror atmosphere into a means for players to understand their surroundings. It was like merging sight and hearing into one.
Players constantly faced a choice: either don't make a sound to scout ahead, and be swallowed by the darkness, unable to move; or make sounds to explore, going against human survival instincts and potentially attracting monsters from the dark.
This unique visual limit gave Choking a series of distinctive gameplay mechanics. It was no longer a simple parkour game but combined puzzle-solving, exploration, and parkour, all while featuring a unique art style, offering players a completely different horror game experience.
Moreover, this game perfectly matched the features of next-generation VR.
Players could make any sound in the game, whether talking, coughing, or knocking on walls, and all these sounds would be emitted and could be used to scout ahead.
This further enhanced the player's immersion. They could even see how the volume of their voice affected the range of sound-wave exploration. Every time they made a sound, they had to carefully consider it and be cautious, unlike other horror games where they just had to stay quiet.
Of course, if someone asked, is Choking a horror game that surpasses the classics?
Obviously not.
Among the horror games Chen Mo had made, Choking was clearly the simplest and least scary, not comparable to games like Outlast or Silent Hill.
But Chen Mo made this game mainly to show all novice designers the infinite possibilities of game design.
Are novice designers, limited by various resources, bound to fail at making good games?
Of course not.
Using existing resources, digging into their own imagination and creativity, maximizing strengths and minimizing weaknesses, and making their work the best it can be—that's what a designer should do.
Or rather, what makes an excellent designer?
It's not about playing a good hand well, but playing a bad hand well.
An excellent designer can use brilliant creativity to make up for any shortcomings and create works that transcend their era. That's the most fascinating part of the game design industry.
These participating designers all sighed with emotion. The big shot really is a big shot. Even if he cripples his own skills, we still can't beat him...
It felt like something out of a fantasy novel, where the big shot says, "I'll suppress my level to fight you," and after the fight, it's still a total crush!
"What do we do? I feel like I'll never reach Serent's level... sigh."
Some participating designers felt like they had never doubted their lives as much as they did today...