inishing / Lin Zhi

At the recent CiGA developer conference in Shanghai (November 15), game producer Ji Ling shared his content creation experience over the past decade and answered some core questions in game creation.

His past experience has focused on online texts and comics, and he started making games in 2020. The first game based on the original manga, "Burial Flowers: Dark Hearts", sold 25,000 copies in the first week, and has now sold 150,000 copies, with a 96% positive rating on Steam. The third game, "Hungry: A Thousand Miles at the End of the Ming Dynasty", was launched in April this year and currently has a 96% positive rating and has sold 840,000 copies. Even with the initial discount price of 29.6 yuan, there are now more than 20 million yuan.

Both games are text adventure games, and it's fair to say that he does have a certain experience when it comes to content creation.

In Ji Ling's sharing, in addition to introducing the team's process and cost of developing the three games, he also listed five key questions for content creation and gave answers.

Before entering the game industry, he watched more than 1,000 movies, read almost all of the well-known comics, and dabbled in many popular online works.

When he made "Hungry: A Thousand Miles at the End of the Ming Dynasty", he almost didn't refer to other games, but watched almost all of the road movies of an adult with a child. In terms of worldview and roles, he mainly referred to Gu Cheng's "History of the Peasant War in the Late Ming Dynasty" and Yao Xueyin's "Li Zicheng".

He said that creation is about accumulation, and when you have thousands of works in your mind, you can completely break them up and reassemble them, and the content created will become new and unique.

The following is a summary of the shared content, and the content has been adjusted for ease of reading.

Hello everyone, I'm Ji Ling from Zero Games.

Our company's works mainly include "Funeral Flowers: Dark Peach Blossom Spring", "One-Half", "Hunger: A Thousand Miles at the End of the Ming Dynasty", of which "Hungry: A Thousand Miles at the End of the Ming Dynasty" was just launched in April this year.

My skills are mainly focused on the content direction, such as the plot, art, music, and other art-related parts, and there are still many deficiencies in technology, programming, and gameplay design, and I need to learn more from everyone.

My experience in the industry can be traced back to 2013, when I had just graduated from junior high school and started writing online articles. At that time, I signed a contract with Chinese Online and wrote an online article on the theme of urban fantasy, which is very middle and dark in retrospect.

In 2014, I founded Zero Creation Light Novel Network and also started my own animation company. At that time, our website was the second light novel network in China, and Lingchuang Animation Company mainly cooperated with Tencent Animation and NetEase Comics to launch some works.

In 2015, we launched three works in one year, one of which was the short comic "Peach Blossom Spring", which was published in "Bosom Friend", which also became the prototype of "Burial Flowers: Dark Peach Blossom Garden".

In 2016, we made "Xiaoqian's Feeding Plan", which is also a small achievement, and the work has accumulated a collection of about 1 million.

From 2017 to 2018, I was mainly doing comics, but then the bubble of the entire comics industry burst, the monetization ability could not keep up, and many IP adaptation plans also failed.

Against this backdrop, I decided to change careers. At first, I wanted to go to the film industry, because I studied film in college, but just in time for the epidemic, the film industry was greatly impacted, so I decided to make a game and started to make a game version of "Burial Flowers: Dark Peach Blossoms".

I have made a horror movie before, which has received some nominations abroad and has also been remade by students of the Beijing Film Academy. I referenced some horror game designs for this movie.

My experience in the gaming industry started in 2020. The first game to be made was "Burial Flowers: Dark Peach Blossoms" (hereinafter referred to as "Burial Flowers"), which was launched in 2021 and has sold about 150,000 copies so far. After that, he made "One Half", and this year it just went online is "Hungry: A Thousand Miles at the End of the Ming Dynasty" (hereinafter referred to as "Hungry"), and the mobile phone has just been launched, and the current PC sales are 840,000 copies.

"Funeral Flowers" was created in September 2020 and launched in 2021. At that time, we had a team of 5 people, including 3 artists, 1 programmer, and me. I'm also in charge of the game's derivative design, and the three artists are roughly divided into scenes, characters, and CG.

The production cost is between 80~900,000 yuan, which is slightly higher than the average cost of 10~500,000 yuan for similar text adventure games. About 45% of our budget is spent on art, 20% on voiceovers, 10% on soundtracks and sound effects, and the rest on the cost of programming and copywriting.

After the game was launched, it sold 25,000 copies in its first week. The theme of Funeral Flowers is a dark version of the story of the Peach Blossom Spring, inspired by a comic of the same name I created in 2015.

At that time, I saw a post on Zhihu analyzing Tao Yuanming's "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring", thinking that the Peach Blossom Spring might be a metaphor for the grave, and this idea inspired me to create. Plus one of my favorite Hong Kong films, "Myth", tells a love story that spans thousands of years. I thought the two could be combined, so I made "Funeral Flowers", and the response was good.

Later, we made a DLC for "Funeral Flowers", adding more realistic and suspenseful elements, and reducing the proportion of the love part a bit. It was inspired by the suicide notes of some suicidal people, and we tried to use these elements to construct a deeper story.

The next product is our worst-selling one, and it is also the one with the most investment - "One in Two". This is our first attempt at a gameplay game, with a total investment of about 3 million.

"One in Two" was originally made in the hope of trying out the two-dimensional mobile game market, and I had a lot of fantasies about this market.

The game includes some of the design of a mobile game, but also incorporates elements of a visual novel and a wargame. My original intention was to appeal to both types of audiences, but then I realized that combining two seemingly unrelated categories didn't actually take into account the player groups in both markets, and instead only ate very little overlap between the two markets.

The overlap between visual novels and war games is very low, so there is a big problem with market positioning. In addition, the game also incorporates some immature designs, such as strong guidance and a large number of characters. Although this design is common in mobile games, the portrayal of each character becomes scattered due to the large number of characters, which has a great impact on our gaming experience.

However, "One in Half" still continues the characteristics of our studio in terms of art style and aesthetics, and its world view design is relatively interesting.

Next up is our third game, Hungry: A Thousand Miles at the End of the Ming Dynasty. This game was arguably the turning point for me after the failure of One in Two. At that time, the team was on the verge of disbandment, and I was also very confused and depressed, and even thought, "It's been ten years, and the works I lead will still lose, and I won't keep losing and starve to death from now on, right?" So I started searching for something about the famine.

I am very interested in Chinese history, especially the history of the late Ming Dynasty. The theme of the Three Kingdoms has been overexploited, and I think it will be difficult to make a breakthrough. And the end of the Ming Dynasty was a very fascinating era, second only to the Three Kingdoms period in complexity. So I chose the end of the Ming Dynasty and plan to release three works related to the end of the Ming Dynasty in the future, and "Hungry" is the beginning of this series.

The production of this game draws on our previous experience in "Funeral Flowers", such as the performance of artistic content such as art and music. At the same time, it also learns the lessons of "One in Half", especially avoiding complex technical design problems and focusing on user experience and narrative expression.

Part of the success of "Hungry" comes from its subject matter and depth. It not only attracts players who are interested in the end of the Ming Dynasty, but also stimulates players to think about survival, society, and other issues through the theme of starvation.

At the same time, we portrayed many infectious characters in the game, such as Suisui who was loved by players, and even formed a spontaneous spread in some communities. In addition, many of the memes buried in the game, such as the "hell joke" of the Ming Dynasty, also spread in the community, further expanding the game's influence.

The investment in the promotion of this game is very small, but with the word-of-mouth and self-propagation effect of players, it is selling well this year.

I'm going to share five questions that touch on some of the key points in your creation.

The first question is how to have the ability to create content.

I believe that the accumulation of creative ability mainly comes from three aspects:

The first is the reading and absorption of a large number of commercial works. The works here are not limited to novels, but also include comics, movies, and even other forms of content works. Before I got into the game industry, I watched a lot of movies and comics, I probably watched more than 1,000 movies, and almost all of the well-known manga. The same is true for novels, and I have dabbled in many popular online works.

Secondly, life experiences are important, and each person's unique experience can inject realism and vitality into the creation.

Third, books in philosophy and related fields can enrich one's understanding of the world, for example, I like to read modern philosophy books like "A Brief History of Mankind".

Generally speaking, I think creation is about accumulation. If you don't absorb enough works, your creation will easily look like plagiarism. But when you have thousands of works in your mind, you can completely break them up and reassemble them, and the content you create will become new and unique.

The second question is how to get into the state of creating content.

I like to get into the mood by collecting new music, like creating a dedicated playlist, because music makes it easier for me to focus on my work.

At the same time, I think the outline is a very important step in the creation of narrative games, and not listing the outline often leads to no inspiration and loss of direction in the creative process, and with the outline, you will have a basic grasp of the entire plot. For example, when I was working on "Funeral Flowers", I spent a month writing the outline; The outline of "Hungry" also took a month; "One in Half" even spent two months stocking up on the worldview and plot outline.

Another point, when creating, don't worry about your poor writing and being too unconfident. The key to creation is to start first, write casually, even if it is rotten, it doesn't matter, you can adjust it later.

For example, when I wrote the lyrics of the theme song of "Funeral Flowers", I never wrote the lyrics, and I was completely stuck at first, but then I wrote it casually to the tune, although the first draft was very poor, but after the revision was completed, the effect was not bad.

The third question is how to balance artistry and commerciality.

I think this balance depends first and foremost on the accumulation of creators. If the content you absorbed in the past was mainly philosophy books or literary films, then the work may be more artistic; If you are more exposed to commercial online articles, popular comics or movies, such as Marvel's works, then the works will naturally be biased towards commerciality.

If you want to find a balance between the two, I think it's just to read everything and not criticize one or the other. Don't feel that literary and artistic works are too high and low, and don't feel that commercial works are too cheesy and too sinking, and keep an open attitude to all types of works. The more you absorb, the easier it will be to find the right entry point when creating.

In most cases, the success of a work is not just luck, but usually an explosion after accumulation. It is often seen that after a work becomes popular, it is difficult for the creator to surpass his current work, because there is no new accumulation in the short term.

The fourth question is how to balance logic and drama.

Logic requires players to think and enhance the sense of substitution in the work, while drama makes the work more emotionally impactful, easy to impress players, and also helps communication and word of mouth.

When we create some plots of "Hungry", we need to weigh drama and logic, such as the scene where the hero and heroine assassinate the prince together, this kind of plot is very dramatic, but the possibility of happening in reality is very low.

But since you want to make the drama very strong and give people experiences that are not easy to appear in reality, then its logic will inevitably be affected a lot. Balancing the two is a test of the creator's skill. We've done a good job for the time being, but we're not doing it perfectly.

I think this should be done after the first draft, and then some technical adjustments will be made when the second draft is revised.

The fifth question is how to get help from the community.

Our studio doesn't close itself off first, but pays more attention to publicity and collects the voices of players.

For example, during the development of "Burial Flowers" and "Hungry", we will release demos and invite players to experience the content for about an hour to collect feedback.

Crowdfunding is also a way for us to communicate, not because of lack of money, but to better get closer to players. Because the players in the crowdfunding link will pay for you, you will also face your core players more vertically.

Especially for games with complex gameplay, player feedback during the testing phase is particularly important. We didn't invest enough in the testing of Half of the Two, which led to some experience issues after the official launch, and the results were not good.

In contrast, our new title, Black Nest, was tested more intensively before launch, and player feedback helped us optimize a lot of details. I've noticed some successful domestic games, such as "Eight Desolations of Ghost Valley" and "Daughter of the Volcano", which have been gradually improved through continuous testing and adjustment.

Developers should leave a considerable period of time in the development of the game to iterate on the game, and gradually share these things with the players and listen to the players' opinions.

Of course, sometimes you may face problems, you modify the opinion written by one player, which may make another part of the player feel bad, and this also needs to be judged by the developer.

If the developer is inexperienced in this area, it may be a good idea to find a reliable publisher early on.

Of course, for story-oriented games, the role of publishing may not be as great as that of gameplay-oriented games, because the self-propagation effect of story-based games is usually stronger.

But to play the game, I think if the developer is inexperienced, or if you don't want to distract yourself from communicating with the player community, it is still necessary to find a release, because the publisher will arrange a test plan and report for you.

That's basically what I've shared, and then there's a Q&A session.

Q: Want to know what works influenced you and made you decide to work with this narrative style?

A: Every creator's output is inseparable from absorption. Funeral Flowers, for example, uses a "Blizzard Villa mode" that traps players in a relatively enclosed space to advance the storyline. The emotional expression and narrative of the movie "Myth" also inspired me a lot.

The narrative dimension of "Hungry" is more complex, mainly inspired by some road genre films. I have referred to a lot of movies about an adult and a child, and I have watched almost all of these works, such as "This Killer Is Not Too Cold", "Kikujiro's Summer", "Paper Moon", "Perfect World", etc., and even the animated film "Alien No Emperor Blade". But references to the game are almost non-existent.

"Starvation" draws more inspiration from reality. Gu Cheng's "History of the Peasant War in the Late Ming Dynasty" cuts in from the perspective of the people, which allows me to restore the atmosphere of that era more realistically. In addition, Yao Xueyin's "Li Zicheng" also provided great help to the characterization of the work.

Li Zicheng in "Hunger".

These realistic materials allow me to integrate more historical and social thinking into the narrative, and also make "Hungry" more solid and in-depth than "Funeral Flowers".

Q: Want to know how you write your outline?

A: I divided the outline into three main parts: the world background, the character design, and the specific plot line.

The worldview part of "Starvation" is relatively simple, we can directly refer to reality and consult some historical materials, and the specific amount of writing will not be particularly large.

In terms of character design, I'll be a little more detailed. For example, the character's age, gender, personality, hobbies, and the things they like are listed in detail. I submitted to Shueisha and communicated with the editor at the time. If a character wants to be very rich, you need to ask him fifty questions and answer them yourself.

For example, in the character design of One Piece, they will ask Luffy how he reacts when he gets on the boat, what he likes to eat, what he moves when he eats, and so on. When I created the character of Suisui in "Hungry", I also adopted a similar method, gradually filling the character more fleshed out.

In terms of plot line, I will write the rhythm of the whole story as clearly as possible. My personal creative style is more influenced by Japanese anime, so the rhythm may be closer to the form of that animation.

As for the word count, the complete plot of "Starvation" is about 300,000 words, but its outline is actually only about 10,000 words. These 10,000 words basically cover the world view, character background and main plot line, and it is enough to sort out the core content. If it is too detailed, it will affect the inspiration in the creation.

Q : I'm doing interactive video games, we want to combine live video with GalGame, how should the degree in the middle be controlled?

A: I think this is a very promising but also risky endeavor. I would like to remind you that when combining two elements, don't assume that you can reach an audience from both domains at the same time, when it is often the case that you can only reach the overlapping parts of the audience in both areas.

The audiences of live-action films and GalGame may be pitted against each other in some cases, such as Finished! I'm Surrounded by Beautiful Girls", many of the bad reviews are from traditional GalGame users.

Also, I'm not sure if you want to do a male-oriented or female-oriented work. In my observation, male-oriented live-action works may be more likely to receive market feedback, while female-oriented works may be more challenging in terms of emotional interaction.

Whichever direction you choose, be sure to have a clear center of gravity. If your core is GalGame, then focus on GalGame, with a few live-action movie elements as embellishments. If the core is live-action, it's the other way around. Instead of trying to target two circles at the same time, it may be safer to focus on one circle and do its core experience well, while trying to incorporate the characteristics of the other part.

Q: How do you ensure a consistent art style when outsourcing and in-house staff work together at the same time?

A: First of all, it is very important for the producer or the main artist to have a strong control over the style. If you don't have a full-time master artist, then the producer needs to take responsibility for style control, clarify what the overall art style of the work should look like, and coordinate and negotiate well along the way.

Secondly, the artist's own strength and adaptability will also have a great impact. Our approach is a combination of a core team plus outsourcing. Outsourcing is done to reduce costs, especially for experienced front-line art practitioners. In the case of the art of "Starving", our core artist, Nutcracker, was in charge of the character design and participated in the final process of CG. Although he is not responsible for all the processes in between, he does the finishing work in the final stage to ensure the consistency of the painting style.

There are also some outsourced artists who are themselves of a high standard in the industry, such as having experience in projects like Genshin Impact. These artists have solid basic skills and a very strong ability to adapt to different styles, and even when multiple artists work together, they can maintain the unity of style well.

If you can't do all of the above two, you can give all the art work to one person, but you need to give that person more time. Although this is less efficient, the consistency of style can be guaranteed to the greatest extent.

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