Text/Lin Zhi

On BW, I noticed a game advertised in Oracle, called "Monogata Mixin".

In addition to the delivery of materials at the booth, they also distributed mung bean soup at BW on the spot.

At CJ, they gave players a taste of making paint fans, and the scene was very lively. At CPSP in Guangzhou, they also sent herbal tea to players, which is very suitable for local characteristics.

There may be many people who feel familiar when they see their standing paintings, because before it was launched, the illustrations of the anthropomorphic cultural relics were out of the circle. As early as 2021, their character portrait appeared on the National Treasure program, and the silver sachet authorized figure sold tens of thousands in the first issue.

"Wuhua Mixin" is a new national style cultural relics anthropomorphic mobile game, developed by the Chengdu Cipai Society Studio, and jointly published with Bilibili Games. ‍

The production team is about 80 people, which is not large, but the results achieved are not bad: 3 million people registered in the first week of the open beta, more than 200 fans of the official account of Station B, and the average number of views of the PV released since the open beta is 1 million.

Taking this example, Grape Jun would like to talk to you about how to be seen and remembered in the highly competitive second tour track.

01

A good theme is a good deck of cards in the team's hand

Counting that today (July 28) is exactly the 100th day of the game's open beta, and there have been a series of activities to build momentum since the launch of "Things". These activities are actually derived from the characteristics of the game.

In previous articles, Grape has talked about the features of this game. To understand the game, we need to understand one of their most important keywords: cultural relics anthropomorphism.

"The Essence of Things" tells the story of the communication between antiquities and human society after they become "instrumentals" (the embodiment of the soul of antiquities). As collectors, players are a member of the Winterdale Foundation and a bridge between the Craftsman and human society.

The in-game artifacts all point to the origin of cultural relics, and by clicking on the artifact file in the game, you can view their age, craftsmanship and other related popular science information.

Compared with research, for players, what is more tangible and perceptible is actually the vertical painting. The character design, which can see the characteristics of the cultural relics at a glance, makes their cultural relics obviously convincing.

To be honest, the anthropomorphism of cultural relics is a relatively ingenious subject, and similar themes are not often seen in the market. Generally speaking, the national style is actually the use of some antique elements, and many games adopt high-tech + national style design, such as in postmodernist style buildings, interspersed with some staggered horse-head walls.

The theme advantage of "Something Beautiful" can make the elements of the national style more organically combined with the theme of the game, and get a more holistic presentation in the game.

The anthropomorphism of cultural relics first means that they have quite a wealth of element references at the beginning of the character conception, and it is not difficult to see the understanding of traditional culture and the desire for secondary creation in "The Essence of Things".

For example, the prototype of the Jinou Permanent Cup is like this:

Therefore, the person is a blonde girl dressed in gold. The head decoration is like the four characters of "Jin Ou Yonggu" on the mouth of the cup, and the clothing also uses a large number of treasure patterns and gem-inlaid elements to show a sense of luxury.

The character's combat skill names also come from the design elements of the artifact.

Moreover, the long history of choosing the right antiquities for anthropomorphism in Chinese history will bring an inexhaustible source of material, and consistency will be relatively easy to achieve.

The 1.2 version of Dream Returns to Chang'an has released many artifacts with the temperament of the Tang Dynasty in turn. For example, the silver incense sachet representing the incense burning custom of the Tang Dynasty, and the balcony post written by Li Bai cursive. In the new skin of the instrument, the silver sachet danced the Hu Xuan dance that was popular in the Tang Dynasty, and the parrot silver pot was dressed in red makeup to show the atmosphere of the Tang Dynasty.

The region where the artifact was unearthed and its characteristics will also affect the character building, and these small details can bring some surprises to the player.

For example, the salt bricks from Sichuan will play mahjong in Sichuan dialect - when you appoint them to the team, you will faintly say "set up the table and play two laps first".

Mao Gongding is engraved with the longest existing bronze inscription of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the content of which is the book of the Zhou king's appointment to Mao Gong and the reward. The prototype of the antiquity is engraved with a large number of narrative inscriptions, and the premise of the artifact is that of a journalist who is very interested in human stories.

In terms of story, this theme also brings some advantages. "Nothing is New" tells the story of the human being in the modern city, and the narrative style is relatively light-hearted, and does not cater to the gloomy post-apocalyptic worldview that is popular today.

But the lightness of the story does not lead to shallowness, because the anthropomorphism of cultural relics has a layer of historical heaviness and narrative texture, and the rise and fall of civilization behind it is itself singable and crying. To a certain extent, the plot only needs to be foreshadowed and introduced to arouse the player's collective resonance with history.

For example, in the game's Golden Ou Yonggu Cup, the origin of the character is one of the four gold cups in the Forbidden City, and the other three gold cups are scattered outside the palace. The utensils that symbolize the eternity of the country have encountered separation, and their experience itself already contains deep feelings for the family and country.

In terms of character setting, the original Jin Ou Yonggu Cup thought that as long as he drank some Tusu wine every year and played a little temper, he could make the country last for a long time. However, the mascot is powerless in the face of the war. Now she wants to learn to do something useful, and she hopes that the wheat will grow soon, and if the harvest is better, she may be able to reunite with her sisters.

As soon as the words of the Golden Ou Permanent Cup fell, the end of the character PV released all the information about where the Golden Ou Permanent Cup is now hidden. The black-on-white poster screen is generally played in the past, and the barrage is full of tearful players. In the words of the player, "There is no need to stuff a knife in the plot of this game, because many artifacts have a knife themselves."

"We've always existed, and you've finally seen us." This phrase from the mouth of the artist is repeated in their worldview, and it also represents the creative team's thinking on the theme of anthropomorphism of cultural relics.

To a certain extent, antiquities embody and metaphorize the course of civilization, and are the carriers of ancient Chinese cultural customs and ideological expressions.

In terms of various publicity and external co-branding, this theme has shown greater potential.

02

How to play a good hand of theme?

As a cultured and young IP, and born with an affinity with cultural relics and museums, domestic museums of all sizes will be happy to cooperate with such works. It can even be said that, to a certain extent, "Nothing is New" is a small cultural relics exhibition hall in the player's mobile phone.

This means that their linkage will most likely have a good texture, but how to play a good hand is not a matter of course.

"Wuhua Mi Xin" is jointly published by Station B Games, and what Station B did when it was released is, in a nutshell: to highlight the core features of the game, fit the attributes of young users on this site, and awaken the cultural relics feelings of young people.

In the publicity and distribution of "Wuhua Mixin", we can see the clear thinking and implementation strategy of station B, we talk about it from three levels.

The first is to make use of the properties of this site. If you look through their PV and UP cooperation contributions, you will find that they are actually accurately targeting the core group and capturing the psychology of users.

For example, the linkage with this green and national treasure, and the linkage with these well-known IPs can break through the expectations of players, and some people often sigh "double kitchen ecstasy".

During the open beta, "Wuhua Mi Xin" combined with the dance poetry drama "Only This Green", invited Zhang Han, the actor of Wang Ximeng in the dance drama, and presented the dance from the perspective of the instrument of the thousands of miles of rivers and mountains.

Two weeks ago, the official announcement of the joint name with "National Treasure", the Kanban Niang bat peach bottle pushed open the stage door, and the other instruments followed, and the golden light sprinkled from behind, magnificent.

In addition to constantly launching blockbuster linkage activities, they will use suitable publicity materials to attract young people who like to live and appreciate traditional culture. For example, they will use oracle bone inscription to advertise and invite UP master @博物汉字 to dance "Send Bright Moon" with oracle bone inscription, which is indeed unique in China.

Station B even made a special expression for players to choose from.

The second is to find a down-to-earth way of expression by deeply cultivating the content, and expand the circle online and offline.

For example, their linkage with the museum is very frequent, and the linkage is very interesting.

Just three months after it was launched, "Something Beautiful" has been linked with four or five museums. This year's Museum Day also brought together the Sansu Temple Museum, the Sichuan Museum, the Henan Museum and the Gansu Bamboo Slips Museum.

Each of their collaborations will not just stop at the name, but will also carry out corresponding in-depth science popularization according to the museum's characteristic exhibitions, using comics, graphics, character introductions, knowledge quizzes and other forms to make serious museums glow with warmth, stimulate and strengthen young people's interest in history and culture.

With the endorsement of the museum, the core players will be more aware of its cultural and museum genes, and the game may also attract an audience to the museum.

In addition, they also have a variety of down-to-earth vivid presentations online. On Weibo, they interacted with big Vs in the field of culture and museums such as @National Treasure and @你好历史. The official account also continued to send wallpaper updates, and even the public beta continued the practice of sending greetings every solar term and chose the day of Gu Yu, which is why they are also known as solar term bloggers.

BW's mung bean soup, CJ's bleaching fan, Guangdong's CPSP's herbal tea...... These offline food peripherals are also using a way that young people like to see, so that traditional culture is closer to young people.

In addition to the above publicity and momentum, they also have a long-term vision.

"Wuhua Mixin" has united hundreds of cultural museum/knowledge/painting/handicraft/game UP masters to continue to create excellent traditional culture-related content: such as cultural museums related UP@ ancient cats to tell the story of cultural relics and museums, literature UP main @ text shop to share excellent poems, oracle bone UP master @ naturalist Chinese characters, etc., they also support a lot of cultural and knowledge-related bloggers outside the station.

Open their official website, you will find that the game official has been silently supporting these traditional culture promotion projects. The continuous output of these high-quality content is also paving the way for expanding the game's audience.

Throughout the publicity process, they are integrating the preferences of young users at station B with the characteristics of the game, and this series of actions has made the IP of "Wuhua Mixin" have a certain influence and have achieved good results.

For example, three million users signed up in the first week of the open beta.

Another example is that every time PV is issued, many players will boast about it.

They also brought a more subtle impact: players would spontaneously share and check in, and when they came across the artifacts of the prototype of the artifact in the museum, they would feel a different mood than before.

The understanding of the younger characteristics of Bilibili users and the insight into the advantages of the theme constitute the key to the continuous expansion of the game's influence.

Another special feature of "Materiality" is that it has been waiting for a long time for the version number, and it has even been jokingly called "Gooku" by players, but it has been paid attention to by players during this period.

First of all, this is partly because good themes and content will still be seen and remembered. Since the establishment of this game, there have been many UP owners who have taken the initiative to support and recommend.

Secondly, there is also a reason that cannot be ignored - when they are waiting for the version number, there are still materials released, such as insisting on releasing the 24 solar terms chart and other related content, and strive to be active in the player's field of vision. Even before the open beta, some players joked - "It must be hard to run a game that doesn't exist".

03

brief summary

For the domestic creative team, the achievements of "Nothing is New" may bring some inspiration.

It's not a masterpiece of heaping resources, it's closer to a surprise attack by a small team. Relying on the advantages of the subject matter and appropriate publicity, it can accumulate a group of fans in subdivided fields, which may not make a lot of money, but it can also operate well.

On the one hand, with "Nothing Comes New", we can still see opportunities for small teams. Instead of competing for a masterpiece that consumes resources and manpower, it relies on a small team of less than 100 people to win a possibility in the subdivision track.

In the past two years, works such as national style monsters and new strange stories have emerged, and differentiated themes can make the audience's eyes shine as soon as they appear, which is where the opportunity lies.

On the other hand, it is also necessary to see the necessity of excavation. The products that can be rushed out now come from teams that can dig deep enough in a specific cultural field.

Not only the game itself, but also the publicity and distribution should be able to explore the highlights of the game in depth. What really matters is the determination and sincerity to present good content.

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