Game Development: I Built a Game Empire

Compared with ordinary players, they mainly focus on the experience and feelings brought by the game content to judge the quality of a game.

Professional game designers think more about why a game can make players feel fun and interesting from the design perspective of the game itself.

What are the benefits of designing in this way?

There is no doubt that"Dark Souls" is one of the best.

Just like most manufacturers have studied a design concept of"League of Legends" before

《Dark Souls is a game that seems to have subverted the perception of game designers in the industry.

It has also been studied repeatedly.

In the end, these game designers basically determined several aspects of the success of"Dark Soul".

First of all, the first point is a quality of the game itself.

This is the cornerstone of everything

《"Dark Soul" has an extremely high art design, which vividly interprets the dark style and plot.

Including the game's music and actions, even if it cannot be said to be the top level in the industry, it is definitely top-notch.

This is the cornerstone of a successful game.

Then there’s Dark Souls’ rich combat system.

In"Dark Soul", there are a wide variety of weapons, and these weapons do not only have different attributes.

Their attack methods and even attack rhythms are all different.

Players can choose faster and more flexible daggers and straight swords, which can allow players to consume less energy when attacking.

Similarly, players can also give up flexibility and pursue more powerful lethality, using weapons such as swords, hammers, and axes.

No matter what kind of weapon it is, it will have its own advantages and disadvantages, and these shortcomings require players to use their own operations to make up for them.

It can be said that although"Dark Soul" is an ARPG game, many players ridicule the combat method of"Dark Soul" as a turn-based game.

But the combat system of"Dark Souls" itself is definitely quite hardcore.

Especially in the case of PVP instead of fighting monsters in the game, players can clearly feel the specialness of it.

If you want to play well, you need to have a strong grasp of skills, and even need to predict the enemy's attack method.

Making good use of special combat system mechanisms such as rolling, shield counterattack, and backstab will bring great changes to the battle.

The last and most important point.

That is a level design created with the combat system.

If there is no third point, then"Dark Soul" can only be regarded as a fairly good ACT action game, not even an ARPG.

But the almost perfect level design concept directly distinguishes"Dark Soul" from other ARPG games.

In the past, ARPG games were basically driven by numerical values. The main gameplay content was to build around talent books and equipment, which is the so-called routine.

But whether it is equipment-driven or skill-driven.

Essentially it can all be attributed to numerical values.

As the level difficulty advances, players will never be able to defeat the final BOSS at level 1 and with novice equipment.

This is the biggest feature of numerically driven games.

"Dark Souls" is different. It is a purely level-driven game.

What hinders players is not the value, but the level. This is the biggest feature of"Dark Soul" and other ARPGs.

Therefore, previous APRG games brought players the core experience of upgrading and understanding a story in the process of upgrading.

The way these games maintain difficulty is to add a large number of miscellaneous soldiers, elite monsters, or improve the attributes of monsters.

This leads to a phenomenon where the difficulty felt by players is due to malicious enhancement rather than the ingenuity of the design.

The player attributes are sufficient, and there is no sense of achievement in defeating them.

If the attributes are not enough to defeat you, you will feel frustrated.

Dark Souls is completely different.

Carry out an ingenious design of game monsters and BOSS, and design various traps.

In"Dark Soul", players are generally in a 1V1 situation, and in a small number of cases, 1V2 and 1V3 situations will occur.

They can fight at the same time, as long as the players do not attract the hatred of other monsters.

Basically no more than 4 at the same time.

This kind of design gives players a feeling that is actually a gameplay similar to decryption.

That's why it is said that"Dark Soul" is a game with level driving as its core.

Players try to challenge monsters bit by bit and resolve traps bit by bit.

Repeatedly try monster attacks and defeat them.

Including players resurrecting in the bonfire after death in the game, and monsters along the way will be refreshed.

This is equivalent to the player failing in the decryption process and returning to the starting point, rather than saying that they can get over it bit by bit.

This way it's not much different from other games.

Secondly, it is a design curve of difficulty.

Countless players say that"Dark Souls" is painful and difficult.

But its difficulty is not truly unreasonable.

Its purpose is not simply to make players suffer.

Continuously fail, then learn experience, gain growth, and finally defeat the BOSS to get a full sense of accomplishment.

This is the positive feedback brought by"Dark Souls".

At the same time, there is no mini map setting, which allows players to feel the exquisite map design in the game.

Although"Dark Souls" is not an open world, it makes players feel very free.

Because"Dark Souls" allows players to explore multiple routes.

Different areas also have different difficulties."Dark Souls" does not force players to play the game in a certain way.

More of it is just a guide. If the player is strong enough, he can use the dancer as the second BOSS. After defeating him, he can enter the advanced map of Los Angeles.

At the same time, coupled with fragmented narrative techniques, the shocking story of the soul world is presented to players bit by bit.

It also takes the exploration of the game to the extreme.

When the game industry analyzes these core points of"Dark Soul".

It makes people feel amazed.

Designs like"Dark Souls" are also respectfully called"soul-like designs" by designers in the game industry.

It is no surprise that if there is a game designed like Dark Souls in the future, it will definitely be called a 'Souls LIKE game'.