Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

Page 106

A challenge has also emerged on YouTube called "Complete on the first try".

Chapter 139 Mihoyo's Wavering

A challenge has also emerged on YouTube called "Complete on the first try".

"Completing the game on the first try" actually means completing the game in one life.

Simply put, it means creating a new account and completing the game without dying the first time, starting from the moment you land.

Clearing the game in one life seems difficult, and it's actually quite challenging in practice.

So far, no one has succeeded.

The game's enhancement system is unlocked only after you die once.

But it is precisely because of the difficulties and challenges that there are so many talented people.

After all, watching streamers suffer is not only a source of amusement for many, but also a key to their popularity.

Anyway, let's just say that.

Galaxy Paradise is incredibly popular overseas, and when domestic "reposting groups" discovered this fact, they began to massively repost and edit videos from these overseas video bloggers.

The homeless people also started using their old crafts.

They began to extensively repost foreign media reports about exploring Galaxy Park.

The influx of this information.

This, in turn, sends a message to all domestic players.

That means this game seems to be really popular overseas.

As a result, the popularity of exploring Galaxy Park in China is also increasing.

Following Shen Wansan, countless "Paradise Scholars" emerged, beginning to analyze and further interpret the hidden settings within the game.

As such.

Galaxy Paradise Exploration has truly exploded in popularity on the Chinese internet.

How popular was it?

If you log into Bilibili and browse through live streams, at least 2 to 3 out of 10 streams will be broadcasting this.

If you browse the video rankings, at least one of the top ten videos is related to this topic.

I won't mention the major news websites.

In various game QQ groups, you often see several invitation links displayed at once.

Within the Girls on the Frontline community, such links are countless, to the point that the group admin has to explicitly prohibit them.

And what pushed this lively atmosphere to its extreme was...

It was mid-January.

A thank-you poster released by the official Spark Games team.

After a week.

There are 5000 million registered players worldwide.

Fifty million?!?

It's only been a few days? Even if this is a free game, this is still outrageous.

---

Mature gameplay, interesting storyline, and widespread discussion abroad.

This made Galaxy Park the center of discussion.

Actually, it's not just players who are discussing the storyline of Galaxy Paradise.

Many companies in the industry have also dissected Spark Games' project to see if there are any lessons to be learned.

miHoYo.

Genshin Impact project team.

Sunlight streamed into the spacious conference room through the floor-to-ceiling windows, creating a soft yet bright atmosphere.

However, everyone at the meeting had a very serious expression.

Two maps were hanging at the front of the conference room.

They were very familiar with the map hanging on the left; it was a draft map of Genshin Impact.

Although it's just some simple lines and color blocks, Mondstadt and Liyue are names they designed themselves, so they're naturally familiar with them.

Hanging on the other side was a simpler line drawing. In the center of the line drawing were the words "Classical World". Surrounding this Classical World were the modern world, the wasteland world, the classical Chinese world, the desert, the oasis, and some blurry blocks of text.

"In terms of design philosophy, our approach is very similar to that of Galaxy Paradise. We both use a zone-based design, but we plan the zones by assigning different deities and attributes to different areas... while they adopted a more clever approach..."

On stage, a planner is comparing the design concepts of two maps.

Previously, miHoYo rarely held such competitive analysis meetings.

It was only after Spark Games announced the Galaxy Paradise project that similar meetings became more and more frequent.

This is actually a very normal thing.

The gaming industry is indeed one where everything influences each other.

Just like now.

miHoYo was originally discussing whether or not to design a large block map.

Mobile games are not PC games after all; they cannot be developed all at once, not to mention the need to consider future updates and maintenance.

Therefore, it serves as the core of an open world.

How to design an open-world map was the most discussed topic during the Genshin Impact project's inception.

After all, for open-world games, a new map means new content.

To keep players engaged and interested.

Ideally, each new plot of land should have its own style, and miHoYo has made many related settings for this purpose.

For example, there are seven nations on the continent of Teyvat: Mondstadt, Liyue, Inazuma, Sumeru, Fontaine, Nata, and Winterbreak.

Every country has its own elemental deities and beliefs.

Different regions and deities are used to differentiate land parcels based on their corresponding cultural styles.

With this broader context in mind, we worked backward to create the main character's character design.

In short, Genshin Impact's storyline is very clear.

The heavens appointed seven gods to rule the entire world in Teyvat.

The protagonist is searching for his relatives. Knowing that his relatives have been taken away by the gods, he first goes to find the seven gods in order to bring his relatives back.

Galaxy Paradise, on the other hand, took a different approach.

Both are open-world maps, and both aim to give each section of the map its own unique style.

The setting of Spark Paradise is...

This is a paradise planet, where countless nations have been established to please superior races.

Within this framework, almost any element can be incorporated: the Middle Ages, classical China, the modern world, the barbaric world, the wasteland world.

Just as nothing would seem out of place in an amusement park, nothing would seem out of place in amusement park planet.

This inspired the developers.

In addition, there is another setting in the background of Galaxy Paradise: it is not just a paradise star, but also an abandoned paradise star.

Players will naturally be curious to see how these "domesticated" civilizations will change.

At the same time, based on this setting.

As the last player on Paradise Star, the player is the only savior of this world.

A sick planet, a sick civilization, and a savior.

There are so many interactions that can occur between them; just setting up the premise here can spark countless imaginative ideas.

"The concept of Galaxy Paradise is indeed quite interesting, but from another perspective, they, like us, have decided to create a modular world, so we don't need to discuss this aspect anymore. Let's move on."

Because Galaxy Paradise also revealed a similar system, this demonstration phase was quickly completed.

"Okay, the next topic is the management of development progress."

"According to Spark Games' development logic, they certainly won't release the game only after it's fully completed, so this forces us to speed up the development process as well."

"Actually, we don't need to open up too many worlds at the beginning. In the most extreme case, completing one or two full blocks of content is enough to launch it..."

"But...won't this make our content too limited? After all, our character development system is weak, and relying solely on the storyline won't sustain players' playtime."

"But if we want to make changes to other things, we don't have the resources. How about we make some changes to the weapon systems?"

Chapter 140 Dawei's Choice

"You've probably all played the current Galaxy Paradise exploration game. Putting aside the storyline, it's a game driven by equipment. I believe that Galaxy Paradise's open world, with the same world view, won't overlook this aspect either."

"The gameplay that extends from this section should help players get through the initial downtime. Conversely, if we stick to the existing system, then the only thing we can offer players is the main storyline..."

In the early stages of the Genshin Impact project.

miHoYo had already considered that due to the monetization design of characters and weapons, the only thing that could extend players' playtime was the story.

miHoYo truly implemented a story-centric logic in the Genshin Impact project.

The fact that they didn't include a skip button shows how much they value and are confident in the plot.

This logic was actually sound from the beginning.

Just like when audiences go to the cinema, as long as the plot isn't too boring, they can actually keep watching.

You can even become completely immersed in it.

But the problem is.

A system that requires minimal character progression, combined with pay-to-win characters and weapons.

The storyline became the sole element for players to experience the game.

Some have calculated that by 23, three years after the game's launch, a brand new account will be able to experience over 200 hours of story content.

Even if the King of Heaven himself came, he couldn't possibly make every one of these 200 unskippable storylines interesting.

It's not even possible to make these storylines ordinary.

If you're a long-time player who's been playing since the game launched, you might not realize it yet.

But for new players, that might not be the case.

With over 200 hours of story content, even if it's streamlined, it would still take over a hundred hours to progress normally and have enough Primogems for gacha pulls.

If the plot is good, then it's fine.

The problem is that, as time goes by, the main storyline of Genshin Impact has started to become less interesting.

For example, the forest book, which has been criticized by many people.

Faced with lengthy, unskippable text and rewards that are extremely disproportionate to the time invested, how many players actually find it interesting?

After Genshin Impact started making money, the development team did not capitalize on its strengths and avoid its weaknesses. Instead, it began to feel like they were adding storylines just to fill up the game's playtime.

This behavior, in turn, amplifies the bloat of inefficient text interactions.

In the early stages of Genshin Impact's promotion, Dawei once said something very insightful.

A mission-driven open world is not what players want; an open world is not about spreading a thousand mission exclamation marks across a map.

Unfortunately, the subsequent development of Genshin Impact turned into a boomerang.

Aside from being a travel simulator, the large map has become completely obsolete.

In terms of plot, it has also changed from the relatively compact style of a movie theater to a soap opera.