Interview with flyingdaggers team: not impetuous, do your best to make a real original game!

Abstract:This year's GDC China Game Developer Conference has just concluded, and the flyingdaggers team just returned from Shanghai and accepted our interview. As the first game of the team, I won the best art Award from the China independent game Festival (IMG) professional group in China. This is perhaps the greatest award to the two of you for their hard work over the past 18 months. Let's walk into them together...

Flyingdaggers-Lighting Studio "sparklet Studio"

Flyingdaggers, a Chinese mobile game from creation, art design to music production, is regarded as a flying knife in China. As a player of the game, the most impressive addition to the fascinating plot design and epic dubbing of the game itself is the commendable artistic effect. This is why, coupled with the game's own level design and plot logic, the "high price" marked as $2.99 has never been affected by Chinese players, however, such a high level of game comes from Chinese players, and it is only two big boys next to each other.

This year's GDC China Game Developer Conference has just concluded, and the flyingdaggers team just returned from Shanghai and accepted our interview. As the first game of the team, I won the best art Award from the China independent game Festival (IMG) professional group in China. This is perhaps the greatest award to the two of you for their hard work over the past 18 months.

Sparklet studio: Art (Li Yuan) and Program (Zhang ziming)

Csdn: we are currently paying close attention to the benefits of flyingdaggers. let's first talk about the development and status of flyingdaggers?

Our game was not launched for a long time. It was only about three months since its launch in September 5, but the entire development cycle was 18 months. After the game was released, it was ignored. The game was released with a revenue of more than $800 in the month, and the next month saw a significant decline. During the whole process, we did not have a full promotion work, and we have not invested much in the promotion. We just recently contacted a publisher friend in Germany, it has been promoted in Brazil, Spain and other countries, and the effect is not very obvious. In general, this game is not a good game. We focus more on the game itself.

Csdn: What are the main problems? Let's talk about the differences between you in comparison to "Gong Bao's grandmother.

The promotion of this game is well done, and they have done a lot of work in this area. We are different from their priorities. The current market situation is that we all talk about promotion and how to talk about products first. What is important is to make money. Of course, our game is very different from Grandma in terms of design and gameplay. Grandma's game is designed for mobile devices and is easy to use. The original design of the flying knife is to create a classic perfect horizontal panel arcade game, keeping a lot of the original gamepad mode. It is very quick for players who experienced playing games when they were young, however, it is difficult for novice players who have never played games before, or who just want to entertain themselves in time.

Therefore, we have also modified the operation method of the game to reduce the unfamiliar feeling of operation. In the initial version, it was a one-click operation. Now it is changed to a dual-virtual joystick with no finger covering. Improved the gaming experience.

Csdn: how difficult is customs clearance games? Players will not play after customs clearance, or it is too difficult to play. How do you solve the loss of users?

The first version of Apsara stack is very difficult. The difficulty of our game may rise sharply when it reaches around 50%, and the difficulty will fall back when it reaches the highest point. Many players who started to play our game said: it's hard to break the eggs. In the first version, you need to click the screen when throwing a flying knife. When you click a knife, you need to continuously click the screen when opening a dart. We later changed this method.

Zi Ming said that he was impressed by the first rating of the game. A girl gave only two stars, indicating that she could not play. However, for game developers, the difficulty of the game is not sensitive to us. However, even if the modulation is lower, players who get started for the first time will still feel frustrated, in later versions, we deliberately reduced the difficulty and improved the control mode.

Csdn: Why do you want to make such a game? Where is the game inspired?

At first we didn't plan to make such a game, and the original idea of the game was not that complicated. I used to do embedded development. I had game development experience. After I resigned, I planned to create a small game, and the Development started quickly, but later I felt that there were too many playable puzzle games on the App Store, which were relatively simple. Why don't we make a heavy action game? Even a small number of people. After cooperating with Li Yuan, we continued to modify and brainstorm, which made us feel that we must pay for what we did and make an original game seriously.

Csdn: Why the framework of Cocos2d-iPhone? Have you made a comparison?

Zi Ming said, in fact, at first I wrote the framework myself. Due to my work experience, I always wanted to start from the bottom layer, hoping that everything would be under my control. However, in the subsequent development process, one of them had to design and make the game, and constantly modify and maintain the framework, making the work quite heavy. It is also the reason for the game itself, cocos2d is more suitable for us, we chose the Objetive-C based Cocos2d-iPhone framework. Of course, the main reason is that cocos2d also uses the physical engine box2d, which is very convenient to transplant. Unity also has some considerations, but eventually it gives up because it is not suitable for our games.

Flyingdaggers game design manuscript

Csdn: The Art Design of flying knife is a big highlight. How can Li Yuan grasp the creation of this game? Let's talk about your experiences.

This is a natural process. It is also because of my own Fine Arts principles. I will constantly modify my own things, and I and Zi Ming will continue to discuss and determine the game levels, I will provide a variety of solutions, of course, there are also a lot of lost figures, I think that to make your own original work is to give players a good experience. Li Yuan admitted that what impressed GDC this time was that foreign developers made innovations in game design and planning, and many novel gameplay made people shine, all of which were completely entertainment-oriented. They are both conscientious and invested, which is very different from domestic developers. The domestic market is very impetuous, and we are eager to do things in the east and west. We are mainly due to the survival problem of the big environment. It is not easy to make better and original game products.

Yan Hui, music creator of flyingdaggers (left in the front row)

Csdn: since it was an original game, how did we find a partner for the game's music? What is the experience?

We are still very lucky. Li Yuan said, "I really like Bao qiqiang" series of works, and I am very impressed by music. I found Bao Qiang's microblog and wrote a message. I didn't expect the other party to give me the contact information of the music producer. We are very grateful for this. In this way, we were very lucky to contact our producers. When talking about cooperation, the music offer was still very difficult to accept, but after seeing our game demo, I was very appreciative, and I liked it very much, so our cooperation began. He successively made more than 10 original Epic-style music for us, and we were very flattered. Later, we had a great deal of cooperation with him, and made constant comments and revisions very seriously. We felt that it was very important to meet the right people. We were like a team. Thank you, Mr. Min Hui from mutisound music studio!

Csdn: How did your team work? We all know that it is very difficult to find partners.

Li Yuan and I met each other in a group. The conversation was speculative, and they all came out in the same city to get to know each other. I thought everyone had the same idea, and that was just a coincidence. At the beginning, design was a colleague from a previous company, but because he was a plane engineer, it was not suitable for game design. At that time, he suffered from finding an art partner. Li Yuan was very strong in this regard. At the beginning, I could not even catch up with the progress of art. He made a picture very quickly. Of course, more modifications were made when we planned the game together. I think the most important thing about finding a partner is not how strong the individual abilities are. The most important thing is that the two people share the same idea and goal. It is important to work together seriously.

Csdn: the domestic independent development model is not yet mature. Should more people be encouraged to do it on their own?

We encourage everyone to do it by themselves. After all, we have grown up in such a helpless and similar life. Maybe we should live once. Even if we fail, at least this sense of accomplishment and realism are rare.

Csdn: What are the future plans for flyingdaggers? Let's talk about how you feel when you come along.

What we need to do next is to make a free version that matches it. The number of levels will be relatively small and easy, so that players can truly feel the joy of playing our game, cultivate players' patience and love for the game. There are not many levels in the free version. It depends on whether the player will spend money to upgrade the full version. We will continue to observe.

Zi Ming said that my family gave me the greatest motivation to care about and understand me along the way. I promised my girlfriend that we would get married after three months, but three months became 18 months, I am very grateful to them. We have also paid a lot for the game. If we don't contact our family for a long time, we will focus on our own games. Many times we have worked for over hours a week. Li Yuan hasn't rested for over 40 hours, keep painting there, keep changing, just for better! I sincerely thank my family and lover for their understanding. Of course, I am lucky to have a good partner and do what I like.

Conclusion:Ziming makes people feel talkative, and they can feel their feelings for their products in their eyes. Li Yuan is a gentle person, focusing on thinking and quality. However, they share a common feature, that is, their affirmation of their own values and their persistence in their dreams. This may be what impressed me most in this interview. This is the group's pursuit of their own value and desire for perfection, representing the real value of domestic game development. However, in such a big environment, we still need to survive and continue to face the problems of profitability. These have all curbed our inspiration and innovation capabilities and changed our way of doing things. However, we will always admire those who dare to face their dreams and persistently move forward. the love and support of their families have aroused our inner dreams.