Video Game Designer

"This fried chicken tastes really good, which takeaway?" Opening the door of the office, seeing the fried chicken on the table, Chu He took a piece of fried chicken, took a bite and asked Pig next to him with bright eyes.

"I don't know, Li Zhen, Huang Yan and the others ordered the takeaway." Pigg said, holding a chicken leg in his hand.

Although this kind of business is also available in the park, because they often eat it, they always feel that the taste is a little bit worse, so they still often choose takeaways around the park.

The Qilin Park itself is not a remote place in Jinling, and there are quite a lot of stores within the delivery range.

"How long is the demo version of the game?" Chu He picked out an egg tart from it, moved it to Pig's computer, and asked while looking at the picture on the screen.

"It will be finished within this month, and then we can invite people to conduct a secret test." Pigg couldn't help but gnaw on the chicken leg with one hand, and kept typing on the keyboard with the other.

"Within this month, the progress is okay. Try to get the demo version out before the Spring Festival, and then record a video of the real machine playing." Chu He nodded and said.

Generally speaking, when a game develops to a certain level, many people will be invited to test it. The initial test is a closed test, inviting some well-known players, game masters, and people who specialize in testing the game.

Relying on employees to test the game is obviously a very difficult thing to do.

Including the major bugs of the game, whether the UI design is reasonable, and various problems in the game, all need to be tested.

At the same time, this first closed test, the game is basically a semi-finished product, and all players participating in the test must sign a non-disclosure agreement, and they cannot take video data, etc., so that the test can be carried out.

"Is it so urgent? The game won't be released in a short time." Hearing what Chuhe said, Pig stopped his movements and threw the chicken bones inside into the trash can beside him.

Although the progress is said to have come to an end, in fact there is still a long way to go before the release.

The first is post-stage optimization, and then there is testing, receiving feedback, correcting bugs, and maybe even adjusting the gameplay.

"It's still in accordance with the original development plan. It's not in such a hurry. It's just to promote it and give our lovely players a wonderful New Year gift." Chu He said with a smile.

Generally speaking, if the game releases the actual gameplay video, or promotes it through the demo video, it is basically not far from the official release, and it will be available to players within one month, at most three months.

In fact, the progress of Left 4 Dead is about the same. According to normal development, it will be ready for players in about three months.

But a very crucial thing is that during this period of time, a Spring Festival is interspersed, so this time will be postponed for another two months.

Around June, we will be able to release Left 4 Dead.

Coincidentally, that was the time when the E3 exhibition was held. Combined with the E3 exhibition, the promotion of Left 4 Dead was much more convenient, and with the help of the popularity of E3, there was still a lot of money left over.

Hearing Chuhe's words, Pig couldn't help but look at Chuhe with strange eyes.

After working together for so long, Pig can almost guess what Chuhe is thinking.

The promotional preheating is fake, it is clearly a player who wants to pay attention to Left 4 Survival.

It would be fine if it was planned to be released in China, but there is a 99% possibility that this game will not pass the review, and the main goal is to release it in Europe and the United States.

You don't focus on the European and American markets in the pre-heating promotion of your new work. Every day, you post the original game painting on the left and the original game painting on the right. Isn't this intentional?

After leaving from Pig, Chuhe walked around every post again.

Then I saw the planner responsible for the numerical value, and while sighing, he was modifying the Excel table on the desktop.

The dense data above.

"Is there any question?" Chuhe walked over and asked.

Chuhe is not personally responsible for the main values ​​of Left 4 Dead, but has a dedicated numerical planning team.

"The value of the firearm has never been able to find a balance point." The value planner shook his head and said.

"There is no way to find a balance point by imagination alone, and algorithms. We only need to maintain a balance as much as possible. The rest is to receive feedback from players. Which weapon accumulation is relatively weak, we can strengthen it a little bit. What weapon is more powerful? If it is strong, it will be weakened, if the new value has been updated and there is no way to change the tasteless characteristics, then launch a DLC gun skin to make it more handsome." Chu He said to the value planner with experience.

Balance needs to be done, but what really determines the balance is not the boring numerical algorithm, but the player's feelings.

If the player feels that a certain weapon is too weak or a certain weapon is too strong, that is what needs to be strengthened and weakened.

As for the strengthening, there is still no way to play, so it can only use the appearance to attract players.

After all, whether it is strong or not is just a matter of version, and whether it is handsome or not is a matter of a lifetime.

After briefly explaining his experience to the numerical planner, Chuhe went to his office.

With the improvement of the game development progress, a question that had been thought about before appeared in Chuhe's head again.

That is the way to survive the host version, how to ensure the follow-up fun.

For the PC version of Road to Survival, Chuhe already knows how to operate it.

The multiplayer mode is one aspect, and the other aspect is to open MOD like the previous rivers and lakes, so that players can create by themselves.

Create new monsters, create new maps, new guns, and even new modes.

But these are not feasible on the host platform, because Sony and Microsoft's host platform policy, although it is not impossible to install MOD, but it is a very troublesome thing whether it is production or player installation.

How to ensure the fun of players on the host platform is a question that Chuhe is thinking about now.

It is unrealistic to rely on the confrontation mode alone. Players may not be bored in a short period of time, but in a month or two months, players will be bored with the same mode.

In fact, this is also a common problem with console games. Usually console games are the most popular in the first week of release, but these games will slowly lose their popularity after a month.

The main reason is that players are already tired of playing. Looking at those games that have been able to maintain a certain popularity for several years, except for the quality of the game itself, which can be called a masterpiece, the rest basically have excellent multiplayer modes.

(MMP, it’s finally the Mid-Autumn Festival next Monday, and I have to work overtime today! There may be only one update today. Of course, if I get home early from get off work, there should be a second update.)