This is not a BUG, ​​this is a game feature

Chapter 21 Art is not cost-effective

Xuefu Book Garden, Room 302, Building A.

Zhang Xiaojuan opened the studio door with a bag of snacks and Coke.

As soon as she entered the room, she saw Chen Ba sitting blankly in front of the computer screen with dull eyes.

"What's wrong with Brother Ba?"

"His expression of being hopeless in this life...couldn't it be that he's lost in love?"

"You think too much!"

Reaching out and taking out a bag of potato chips from the bag that Zhang Xiaojuan was carrying, Yang Dong denied her guess: "How can a person who has no partner fall out of love?"

"Yes!" Zhang Xiaojuan nodded.

The room was so big, even though they deliberately lowered their voices when talking, Chen Ba still heard it.

But he didn't care.

Because at this time, he was looking at the system panel in his mind and was lost in thought.

[Game Name: Surrender Simulator]

[Planning: 88 (can be upgraded)]

[Program: 91 (can be upgraded)]

[Art: 78 (can be improved)]

[… Comprehensive score: 72]

The art score is much higher than that of "Hanchuang Kudu Simulator", which Chen Ba expected, after all, he made a lot of money.

If krypton gold can’t make you stronger, what’s the point of krypton gold?
The program score has also increased, but only the planning score has remained unchanged, with almost no improvement compared to the previous game.

This is also very reasonable.

After all, the creativity of "The Living Simulator", including the core gameplay mechanics and even the numerical framework, are all the Plus version of the previous game "The Cold Reading Simulator".

But why...

On the premise that the scores of all items have increased, the overall score has actually decreased?

Chen Ba couldn't understand.

"Household Simulator" obviously beats the previous game in every aspect, but the overall score is so low. What exactly is the problem?

The higher the score, the lower the score?
You are leaving TP where you are!
"Perhaps the overall score is not higher, but lower, better?"

Chen Ba thought of a possibility, but shook his head, denying this obviously unreasonable guess.

If you don't understand, you don't want to.

Whether it is 91 points or 72 points, they are all the same in his opinion. The key is the core scores of planning, programming, art and music.

"The art score is slightly low, but if you want to continue to improve, you have to spend money. After all, the studio currently does not have the ability to independently design art..."

Chen Ba scratched his head.

In the system toolbar, there are auxiliary functions that can optimize art design and generate specific art resources, but they are in an "unlocked" state and cannot be used at all.

If you want to improve, you can only spend money.

But after thinking about it for a while, he felt that it was not cost-effective to continue to spend money to increase the art score. After all, the original painting of the game became more expensive as the price increased.

Take a simple example.

Assuming that the original game paintings are rated on a scale of 1-100, works with a score below 50 are worthless.

So the market situation is that only works that score about 70-80 points can barely meet the commercial standards.

And above 80 points, 85 points is one price, and 90 points is another price...

When the score reaches 90 or above, every difference in the score may cause the price of the work to differ several times. It is not impossible that even a difference of one point may lead to a price difference of one digit.

Therefore, raising art points with krypton gold is a big loss in Chen Ba's opinion, especially for Tianba Game Studio, which has just started and has limited funds.

"Then give me points for planning!"

"Just let me see what other aspects of game planning are worth optimizing..."

In addition to automatically generating core code and reducing development pressure, Chen Ba believes that "checking for leaks and filling gaps" is also a key part of the system's benefits.

Through the system, he can clearly see the deficiencies in the game, and then make targeted modifications and debugging.

This is simply awesome!You know, many game producers will fall into the dilemma of being "obsessed with the authorities".

Others may be able to point out the problem, but for the person developing the game, he may not necessarily be able to make the most correct judgment and be aware of the problem with the game.

“It feels like writing a novel and asking a professional editor all the time.”

“If there is something wrong in your writing, he will point it out immediately and tell you how to modify it so that readers will like it...”

Chen Ba called up the secondary page.

The above shows that "The Survival Simulator" has a very high degree of freedom score, with a score of 94, which is considered the leader in similar "strong plot" games.

However, as a game that is strong on plot but weak on operation, and focuses on a sense of substitution and immersion, the plot score and numerical score are a little less interesting.

"Brother Dong!"

After seeing this, Chen Ba immediately closed the system page and asked Yang Dong, who was crunching potato chips crazily, "Where is the plot text?"

"Let me take a look... As for the plot text, according to the current development progress, it should be written in the first semester of the third year of high school."

"Wrote so much?"

Chen Ba frowned.

He thought that since he didn't write much, it would be easier to revise it this way.But now that I have written it in the first semester of my senior year of high school, it is more troublesome to revise it.

Opening the plot text shared by Yang Dong, Chen Ba glanced at the main events:
The uncle was fired from his job due to poor performance at work. He became depressed and drank heavily all day long. His temper became increasingly violent and he beat and scolded the protagonist at every turn.

On the contrary, my aunt, because her new lipstick marketing plan was a great success, she was recognized by the company's senior management, and she was promoted to the head of the marketing department. She spends less and less time at home...

The uncle suspects that the aunt is having an affair with the handsome boss of a cosmetics company. Coupled with the fact that the aunt goes home less and less, conflicts between the couple gradually emerge.

As the person brought by the aunt, the protagonist can only be caught in the middle and act as the uncle's emotional trash can...

"Will the relationship between uncle and aunt break up in the follow-up, and then the protagonist is homeless and doesn't want his parents to worry about it, so he can only stay at the restaurant owner's house where he works part-time?"

"Yes! The outline is like this."

Seeing Chen Ba's serious eyes, Yang Dong put down the potato chip bag in his hand and asked, "What, do you think something is wrong?"

"The conflict is not intense enough, and the emotional setting is not very good..."

After pondering for a moment, Chen Ba held his chin and said: "The aunt and uncle had a quarrel and a cold war, and no one paid attention to the protagonist. I think this part can be described in depth."

Yang Dong straightened his posture: "How to describe it in depth?"

"Arrange a few special events, such as the protagonist wandering the streets and seeing that other people have homes to return to, but he doesn't know where to go at night."

"Or maybe the classmates are complaining about the strict control at home. Parents have to take care of this and that. They are envious of the protagonist's freedom..."

In fact, Chen Ba is not a professional in plot design, but he knows how to incite players' emotions.

A game plot that can arouse emotional resonance among players is a good plot!
The plot of "Simulator" has many sub-lines. Because there are many route choices, the creation and portrayal of the emotional resonance of the main line is ignored.

No wonder the score is low!
There are so many route choices, but none of them resonate emotionally with the players. So what’s the point of having so many route choices?
"There are also numerical values..."

Chen Ba did not forget that the numerical score displayed on the system's second-level page was also very low.

The problem is clear at a glance, that is, it is too easy to improve "self-esteem"!
There are many events and props to enhance self-esteem, among which props that increase self-esteem are too "supermodel".

After digging through trash cans for a semester, my self-esteem almost hit rock bottom. But when I used the money from selling scraps to buy a pair of sneakers, my self-esteem skyrocketed. Is this reasonable?
"The self-esteem value given by the props needs to be adjusted downward, so that players cannot play too easily."

Chen Ba warned: "Self-esteem is the core value of the game. If players don't take it seriously and think that it doesn't matter if they lose a little bit, and they can get it back by just buying some props while working, then it will be boring."

Yang Dong nodded.

It's true, it's such an easy way to restore your self-esteem.

Many players, apart from having no money in their pockets at the beginning and therefore playing with fear, become less concerned about their "self-esteem" in the middle and late stages of the game.

Simply too slack!

In the early stage, I was afraid of all kinds of worries, for fear that a wrong choice would make my self-esteem go crazy. This does not need to be changed.

But in the later period, after players gained some money in their pockets through "self-reliance", their self-esteem was too cheap.

This needs to be adjusted!
There are two ways. The first is to modify the "prices" in the game to make props that restore self-esteem more difficult to obtain and more expensive.

The second is to directly adjust the value. An item that originally could restore 20 points of self-esteem can now only restore 10 or even 5 points...

In this way, even in the late stages of the game, players will still not dare to act too recklessly and will be more cautious when making key choices.

Perfect numerical balance!
(End of this chapter)