Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

Page 508

It's time for some alone time again.

Chapter 74 Alternative Sandbox Garden

After the Orleans storyline concludes.

The entire prologue actually leads to the core part.

The game has entered its second phase.

In this phase, in addition to the advancement of the storyline, more new gameplay content begins to be unlocked one by one, and various character development elements begin to appear in the game.

For a story-driven turn-based game, there are actually many templates for character development.

Especially in the country, the three most well-known swords are all turn-based games.

However, fate has a different trajectory in this regard.

They were relatively restrained and didn't create overly complex systems.

The reason is simple, as I've mentioned repeatedly before: this is a story-driven game.

Lin Li has always mentioned that every game has its own core, and the core of Destiny's Path is its storyline.

Since it revolves around the storyline, the character development aspect won't take up too much content.

The entire development system revolves around four parts.

These are the Stigmata (Command Seals) system, which is not yet unlocked, the Noble Phantasm system, and the character upgrades and weapon upgrades, which are already unlocked.

Compared to Command Seals, Noble Phantasms, character and weapon upgrades, these are quite basic.

As for the combat counter system, the various battlefield buffs, and the surprise attack bonuses from behind or to the side of monsters, these things are not complicated.

For Japanese players like Nakamura and Sugita Tomokazu, it's even more familiar. Japan has a lot of turn-based RPGs, and they grew up playing turn-based games.

The two had a very brief chat about the system before quickly returning to the plot.

Compared to the first phase, the plot of the second phase clearly begins to accelerate.

In terms of gameplay, the most noteworthy feature is the marching animation.

This is the biggest difference between Destiny's Path gameplay and other similar games.

Since it's a turn-based combat system, there are many different approaches to representing the large map.

For example, the collapsed railway uses a large miniature garden design.

Players can move relatively freely in several maps.

However, in the trajectory of fate, Spark did not adopt this model; to be precise, it did not adopt this system in the prologue.

This approach reduces the immersive experience of the story to some extent.

Therefore, the gameplay mechanics combine a small-scale garden with a large map.

The miniature garden is very simple.

For example, Orleans is a relatively large miniature world where players can wander around, accept quests, and even leave the city.

This vast area, if you don't walk to the edge of the map, you might even think it's an open world.

However, halfway through...

For example, for the long journey from Orleans to Lance, Starfire uses a large map mode, where players select the next destination on the map.

Encountering enemies along the way will lead to a battle mini-game, and the fusion of the world map and the mini-game utilizes certain dynamic events.

Please describe it in detail.

After Orleans is rescued, players can choose to go directly to Lance.

Alternatively, you can complete a side quest, which is the same as in history: first, go to the lord of Loche and request him to send armed forces to recapture the castles and towns along the Loire River, namely Meun, Beaugensie, and Jarno.

If you choose this side quest, the enemies will become weaker, and you'll also get a weapon.

However, due to time constraints, Nakamura did not choose this side route. Instead, he directly selected a small town along the Waal River on the map and set off.

After selecting "Start," Fate Track doesn't directly load the next map like many similar games, or draw a character's portrait on the map to move to the next region.

Instead, it entered an animation of an army marching.

Players can ride on horseback and watch the vast army marching forward. Of course, this scene is actually cyclical, and the player's movement range is limited to controlling the horse to move within the marching army.

In this environment, players can talk to Joan of Arc and various NPCs to trigger some plot events, and also prepare for battle.

Of course, you can also do nothing and go straight into battle.

After selecting battle, players will enter a battle animation where Joan of Arc raises a banner, orders the soldiers to form ranks and charge, and then the game officially enters the battle arena.

This approach maximizes the recreation of the battle atmosphere, allowing players to kill enemy soldiers directly with normal weapon attacks without having to enter a turn-based system.

Experience a true Dynasty Warriors adventure as a guest player. Of course, the player's target is not ordinary soldiers, but the enemy monsters. Find the enemy monsters, swing your weapon, and enter the battle.

Keep clearing monsters on the battlefield and eventually achieve victory.

This is the battle mode for the prologue of Destiny's Path.

The whole mode looks quite complicated, but it is actually very simple to implement. It is just a marching animation, fighting and facing the enemy, and entering the battle.

Compared to actually creating a long road for players to run through, this mode saves more art resources and allows players to better experience the atmosphere of a large battlefield.

As for whether many players will find this mode boring after the initial novelty wears off?

There's absolutely no need to worry.

Because of the art resources saved, Lin Li used them to enrich the gameplay. For example, the scenes in the marching animations are not static but change according to the scene and the weather.

Secondly, marching events sometimes intersect with the main storyline, and battles are not always well-prepared. There are surprise attacks, ambushes, and even encounters with monsters falling from the sky.

The combination of these elements creates a much stronger sense of experience and immersion compared to a story where the player leads a massive army forward, but the actual gameplay experience turns into the player running around alone on an empty map.

Furthermore, in events like entering Orleans, the marching animation, the battle mini-game, and Orleans are all connected.

Players truly experienced marching, fighting, and finally entering the city of Orléans to receive cheers with Joan of Arc.

Of course, this model is not suitable for all "worlds".

In fact, this kind of sandbox structure is currently only used in "military dungeons" like the prologue.

For example, Joan of Arc, or the future Artoria; as for other types of "worlds," different methods will be used to achieve immersion.

This is the advantage of sandboxes: they can be arranged and switched between sandboxes in various ways, just like blocks.

Of course, there are also disadvantages to doing this, namely that unlike Honkai Impact 3rd, you can't move freely between different maps.

However, Lin Li considered this sacrifice completely acceptable.

After all, the miniature world isn't a large map. Even if resources had to be distributed across different regions like in Honkai Impact 3rd, wouldn't we still need to add fast teleportation?

If you can't create engaging gameplay, what's the point of going back to the previous map?

Chapter 75 Master Love

Furthermore, in Destiny Trails, it's not entirely impossible to return to previous maps; for example, cities like Orleans can be returned to at any time.

anyway.

After several battles, the player and Joan of Arc defeated the final boss that descended from the sky, completing the second phase of the story.

They arrived in Reims and completed the coronation ceremony of the French king.

to here.

Basically, the entire plot still follows the historical reenactments, but soon, the plot of the third stage is completely different.

it's here.

At the very beginning of the third phase, the strong Nasu mushroom vibe was there.

First of all, there's the decryption-style narrative.

As the first work in the entire Fate universe, "Kara no Kyoukai" was also Nasu's first novel. It was initially serialized in a newspaper as a suspense novel.

Although Nasu did not use this method in his later works, the style was retained.

Specifically, in this section of the script for "The Trajectory of Destiny".

Joan of Arc disappeared without a word after the French king's coronation.

It's rare to see a main character disappear from the player's life without a word, but it's not surprising here.

In short, the following plot is about the player's search for his wife.

Based on various clues, players can relatively easily conclude that Joan of Arc is still the same as in history.

He took his troops to Paris.

At this point, it's clear that Kinoko Nasu has exercised some restraint, or rather, he's been suppressed by the sheer size of the prologue, and hasn't gone too deep.

As players search for a wife, they will gradually discover many details and unravel the world's mysteries.

In this world, England found a sacred object that could grant wishes. The King of England was overjoyed and made a wish to conquer France.

However, this sacred object was contaminated.

It judged that the French people could not accept the rule of the British king, and therefore the only way to achieve this goal was to kill all the French.

In this way, the King of England could occupy France.

To be honest, Nakamura, who followed the story to this point, and the players watching the video all sighed that if this had been moved to World War II, it probably wouldn't have been so troublesome.

In short, players who learned more details had a clearer and more serious understanding of the crisis facing this world.

He needs to find Joan of Arc.

Tell her this important information: the solution to France's current problems is not in Paris, but in England; they need to go to England to resolve the issue of the contaminated relic.

Otherwise, the monsters roaming France would not have disappeared, and Joan of Arc's journey to Paris would have been a pointless sacrifice.

The entire prologue's plot, starting from the micro level of the player's interaction with Joan of Arc in her camp, has expanded to the macro level of a global crisis, and finally returns to the point where the player must find Joan of Arc.

but!

As the story progresses, players' sense of crisis is growing stronger because information about Joan of Arc has been cut off.

Even amidst the ruins of a battlefield, players found Joan of Arc's banner.

"Holy crap, no way!"

"Huh? We're going to follow the historical timeline?"

"No, mushrooms shouldn't be that bad."

"But the problem is, if Joan of Arc doesn't die, how can she become a heroic spirit?"

"No, no, no, in the previous Destiny Trails promotional video, didn't Saber become a Heroic Spirit after obtaining the Sword in the Lake?"

At this point in the story, even though we know that Spark is unlikely to go down a tragic route, we can't help but be surprised that this time the synopsis was written by Kinoko Nasu. As everyone knows, Kinoko Nasu is a master of angst.

If this copywriting had been spearheaded by Xinghuo, players might not have been so nervous.

However, Nasu's writing actually helped immerse players in the entire game.

People are genuinely starting to worry about Joan of Arc.

In fact, the subsequent developments in the plot are becoming increasingly worrying.

Then there's the final cutscene.

The scene that begins with Joan of Arc being placed on the stake for execution sends a jolt through many hearts.

Joan of Arc was tied to the stake, her hair fluttering gently in the breeze. The air was filled with the smell of wood and the scent of an impending fire, mixed with the whispers and uneasy murmurs of the crowd.

The scene begins with the player rushing to the scene, riding a horse and shouting "Charge!"

The camera focused on Joan of Arc, who raised her head, her eyes seemingly shining.

Seeing the players rushing over, a group of soldiers rushed over, while the British on the other side immediately ordered them to advance or retreat.

The torch lit the firewood, and the flames began to rise slowly, gradually enveloping Joan of Arc.

Ultimately, this is a game of sparks.

The player charged forward, rushing into the flames, and like a superhero, cut the ropes with a single sword stroke, bringing Joan of Arc out of the fire.