Game-Time reports/Today (April 9), the modern Chinese-style game “Gui Longchao” developed by Longchao Pavilion Studio and owned by Guanglian has launched a limited-edition fee-based “click test”.
Speaking of “Guilong Tide”, it has become famous among players in the past year or so. Since its first exposure, it has combined traditional culture and popular elements with modern Chinese style, innovative 3D horizontal version action + parkour gameplay, and novel urban ghost stories. Film shooting themes… various labels have caused this product to attract a lot of attention early on.
At the beginning of the year, the second test showed great ambitions in many aspects such as the change of 3D perspective, the adjustment of combat rules, and the enrichment of level mechanisms, which prompted the “big dish” of “Guilong Tide” to further attract the attention and expectations of more players. As of now, the total number of reservations for the game across all platforms exceeds 5 million.
Now with the opening of a new round of billing tests, “Guilong Tide” has once again become the focus of heated discussion among players.
Previously, the PV of “Screen Test” quickly gained over 2.4 million views on Station B, and was selected as a weekly must-see selection. The anticipation level is evident. On the day of the beta test, “Guilong Tide” once again aroused great enthusiasm from players for live broadcasts, discussions and second creations. What’s even more surprising is that compared to the second test, the game content and gameplay in this round of testing are once again richer.
In less than three months, “Guilongchao” actually gave itself another bone-cleansing transformation.
A more authentic and humane neighborhood
Significantly different from most games on the market, the “national style” may be the first factor that attracts players’ attention to “Guilong Tide”.
After several previous tests, “Guilong Tide” combined traditional elements with modern trends, and its concrete expression of the concept of “modern national style” left a deep impression on players. In terms of character design, for example, “Rin” wears a large amount of silver jewelry all over her body and wears a cyan pleated pleated skirt. She has a clear sense of ethnic design, but she dances figure skating on skates; while “Yu Bing” wears a horse The face skirt is a new-style long skirt inspired by the design. She holds a jet folding fan in her hand, wears a modern-style beret on her head, and wears leather boots. The modern temperament and antique flavor complement each other, and she is elegant and heroic, and the Chinese flavor is ready to come out.
Not only is it the industry’s top high-quality live 2D, but the scene art performance of this test is also amazing. While showing a strong ghost story style, the details reveal mysterious oriental characteristics, giving “Guilong Tide” its own distinctive folk cultural heritage. was further demonstrated. This level combines local elements from western Hunan to give more traditional culture a modern expression, and also makes players more eager to explore.
Of course, we must also mention the progress in building a neighborhood ecology.
“Blocks” are a very important scene in “Gui Long Tide”. The game directly integrates China’s urban cultural development and regional characteristics into the block design. The fictional city “Kowloon Block” is divided into nine scenes with different styles, and each block is based on a certain area in reality. For example, Zhongpu District is the Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing region.
Although the completion of the second test is still insufficient and the map size is not large, a certain degree of framework has been established. Nowadays, the game billing test continues to enrich the content and details of the neighborhood ecology, further increasing the sense of substitution.
They say the devil is in the details, and so is the “realistic” construction of the neighborhood.
In this test, the game is not limited to continuing to copy the “surface” of reality: it has designed signs such as Hongya Cave and Baibu Ladder, as well as shops full of life such as hot pot restaurants and bookstores; we can also feel that this time The neighborhood obviously pays more attention to the humane “lining”.
Just like the second test, there are vendors greeting customers in roadside shops, and the market shouts in dialects can be heard from time to time. It is reported that the public test is expected to feature Sichuan and Chongqing-style dragon gates, mahjong parlors, and even the well-known storytelling performing artist Li Boqing in the Sichuan and Chongqing areas. , will also appear as interactive images… truly making players feel like they are in the bustling streets of Sichuan and Chongqing.
The difference compared to before is that the billing test has specially added a multiplayer scene, so players can meet each other on the streets as in reality. In the future, specific interactive actions and talent functions such as dancing and musical instrument playing will be added to provide more possibilities for multi-person interaction. Similar designs often only appear in MMOs. After all, crowds of people are the most lively “neighborhoods,” and stable social relationships can enrich the long-term ecology of the neighborhood.
Game-Time also found that before the test, the official had launched activities such as “Civilized Dragon City, You and Me Create Together” to openly solicit players’ works and creativity, which seemed to reveal the UGC tendency of “Guilong Tide” in building future neighborhoods.
It is not difficult to understand that it is difficult for a neighborhood ecology that is unilaterally dominated by the government to remain “vivid”. Instead, a multiplayer scene that can be interacted, socialized, and co-created can drive players to go online more frequently. Perhaps “Guilong Tide”, which continues to focus on UGC, is expected to become the next new social scene integrating online social entertainment in the future.
Judging from the current situation, as the game is filled with more diverse content and richer NPC or scene interactions are added, the neighborhood ecology has indeed been greatly improved. This continuous polishing of details allows “Guilong Tide” to present a more realistic and humane neighborhood, and also gives players more space to explore.
More refreshing combat and richer social interaction experience
In the first two tests, it can be clearly felt that “Guilong Tide” focuses on characterization and optimization of the core combat experience. Now the combat experience has been upgraded.
On the one hand, the second test added different damaging actions such as aerial combos, falling attacks, and triple hits, which expanded the operational space of combat gameplay. On the other hand, since the sprint and A buttons are merged, the operation threshold is effectively lowered, and players can easily perform multiple combos. At the same time, high-speed movement can also cause high damage to enemies along the way, doubling the enjoyment.
On this basis, the billing test version fully considered user suggestions and further optimized the combat details: on the premise of merging buttons, a new dodge button with a defensive mechanism was added. It not only brings more game thinking, but also effectively improves operability. Since dodge comes with an invincible frame, after the player performs flexible retreat and dodge, a series of combos will be smoother. The combat feel has been optimized and is more suitable for the needs of core players.
However, for content-based games, the contradiction between players consuming content too quickly and content production speed has always been a problem that plagues the improvement of player activity and long-term retention. Of course, large manufacturers can rely on the stable output brought by mature industrialization capabilities to relieve this content anxiety to a certain extent. And can the “Return to the Dragon Tide” project team cope with such pressure? Looking forward to subsequent performances.
In less than three months, “Return to the Dragon” has added new characters, chapters, levels, BOSS, etc., and iteratively optimized the core combat experience and gameplay mode, which shows the productivity of the project team. But in the long run, social networking is the most cost-effective option and cannot be ignored.
In addition to the new multiplayer scenes in the neighborhood ecology, the billing test attempts to provide players with more burden-free leisure gameplay options, and even redesigns the entire Leyouque scene.
Leyouque is equivalent to a social square in the game. The large screen behind it can play game PV or future event promotions. Players can experience interactive content such as arcade games here. The billing test first adds a large-screen interactive experience, which means that in the future, players will be able to request songs, send blessings, or perform on stage to gain more interactive content and experience.
At present, Leyouque has also added two new casual games, such as the popular Party Game. The game designs more than 5 multiplayer party games to build a scene for players to interact on the same screen. Use its fun party atmosphere to help more players establish stable social relationships and stay in the game for a long time.
The other is a more competitive 2V2 party gameplay, which is bound to the same values and is more competitive. Compared to the former, this is closer to a light MOBA or racing game experience. In the words of planner A, “It’s the prop version of ‘Four-person Brawl’ or the prop version of ‘Joint Suppression.'” It enriches players’ experiences beyond the main line and can also provide diverse social interactions.
According to Game-Time, the project team intends to create a more realistic and interactive player community. For example, on the first day of the broadcast of “Long Yin’s House” in the game, an anchor with millions of fans from Station B took the lead in ranking the favorite characters, which aroused players’ onlookers and heated discussions. When more and more players are willing to stay here for a long time, more interesting multiplayer gameplay can be added in the future, and even large-scale game events can be created in conjunction with marketing events.
Overall, the scale of “Guilong Tide” has doubled compared with the last test, and the activity content is also richer, which meets the needs of different players and allows us to see the product’s huge market competitiveness.
Conclusion
Since its first exposure, the “Guilong Tide” project team has shown a very sincere attitude and has always maintained high-frequency communication with players. From the first test to the second test and then to the billing test, the game team’s respect for the real voices of the players is truly reflected in the solid improvement of the game quality every time.
This move by the project team is not only confidence in the foundation of the game and its own production capacity, but also aims to make the gameplay content closely follow the opinions of players. The gratifying “transformations” one after another not only allow players to witness the confidence and sincerity of the project team, but also mean that the future limit of “Guilong Tide” has not yet reached an end.
As for whether this sincerity can satisfy players and promote the game to become another heavyweight new product in the domestic market in 2024, we still have to look forward to the follow-up performance of this test. At least for now, judging from the optimization efforts in all aspects of billing testing, the renewed “Guilong Tide” deserves more tolerance and support from players.
