How popular has “It’s Finished! I’m Surrounded by Beautiful Women!” in the past month? It dominates the Steam rankings, becomes a hot search topic, and pulls up A-shares. What’s even more surprising is that it’s just a low-cost love story. Theme interactive film and television games.
Picture: The six female protagonists of the PC game “It’s over! I’m surrounded by beauties!”
Straight men are having fun, and practitioners are confused. There have been many analyzes on the reasons for the phenomenal success of “Finished”. It just so happens that NetEase Cloud has recently served many customers of love simulation games, so I want to talk about love simulation. How does the game create an immersive experience that makes players unable to extricate themselves?
The original intention of the birth of the love simulation game: to allow players to obtain “vicarious satisfaction”
The game uses sophisticated gameplay mechanisms and fictional content design to trigger players’ rich inner emotions. The integration of various emotions, thoughts, and decisions caused by external influences forms the player’s game “experience”. For love simulation games, its original intention was to respond to people’s instinct of longing for an intimate relationship such as love, and to create a highly simulated real-life love experience so that players can get a kind of “vicarious satisfaction.”
The main reason why players seek “replacement” is that the missing needs in reality (security, belonging, respect…) are not met, and a sense of frustration arises in their hearts. On the one hand, they are dissatisfied with themselves – they hope that they have Certain personality traits, mastering certain abilities and specialties, having more ideal working/living conditions, etc.; on the other hand, being dissatisfied with the process of finding a partner or the current relationship – there is too much pressure in society/work/life and it is difficult to meet The expected ideal partner, the cost of maintaining a romantic relationship is too high, the love process is dull and boring, etc.
Therefore, NetEase Cloud has noticed that love simulation games often have some significant commonalities:
First, no matter what the setting of the player character is, it can become the focus of the world and be easily favored by stars; second, label character settings that cater to the preferences of diverse groups, such as: charming witch, pure girl, Boss, Sunshine Boy, etc.;
Third, immediate and powerful feedback, whether it is a vertical painting, a voice or an animation, players’ behavior can always be rewarded with exciting rewards.
Figure: Representative feedback from dating game players
The key to retaining players in dating simulation games: designing rich gameplay
Dating simulation games rely on vivid art, text, and audiovisual performances to embody the ideal partner in the player’s mind. This image can be presented in the form of a 2D paper man, a 3D model, or a real actor. Each has its own advantages, but the production team It is often necessary to strike a delicate balance between “reality” and “fiction”: the second dimension provides a dreamlike sense of detachment, while the third dimension enhances the sense of reality, but may also prevent players from being free from the constraints and concerns of the real world.
In “Finished”, the production team carefully selected beautiful actresses and professional film and television shooting techniques, which will undoubtedly make players blush more easily. At the same time, the “cool” setting of six high-quality women pursuing a frustrated male protagonist who is in debt, dubbed by players as “the best science fiction of the year”, gave players the most straightforward and strongest emotional stimulation. In this way, the “embarrassment” and “absurdity” caused by “reality” are largely eliminated.
Picture: PC game “It’s over! I’m surrounded by beauties!” played from the first-person perspective
After the game characters have charming settings, they need to experience growth with the players and continuously deepen their emotional bonds. There are many specific gameplay designs, such as: fighting, training, dating, etc., but the key is that the plot or mission should be able to broaden the dimension of the character’s image and drive the development of emotions. Players certainly hope that the object of their admiration is a treasure boy/girl who is three-dimensional and multi-faceted and can continue to provide freshness. Moreover, mechanical repetition will greatly consume the player’s interest and concentration. Only in the stories one after another, the two parties will never get to know each other. When we get to know each other, experience ups and downs, and create unique shared memories, this relationship becomes even more precious. The complex emotions of joy, sorrow, sadness, etc. are intertwined and become more unforgettable.
Picture: Screenshot of a main storyline in the mobile game “Painted Traveler in Time and Space”
Interactive phone calls across dimensions create a new experience in love simulation games
With the advancement of technology, many love simulation games are also trying to break through the dimensional wall in interaction to give players a more realistic companionship experience.
Take the Japanese national love game (male-oriented, Galgame) “Love Plus” series that Konami has launched on NDS and 3DS since 2009 as an example. The developers have made full use of the characteristics of the handheld platform to create many exciting games. Impressive gameplay: dating schedule synchronized with real time and random events triggered every day; simulating intimate actions between lovers through the touch screen; using the microphone for intimate conversations; using the camera to take photos with your girlfriend… At that time, smartphones were not yet popular. In the 1990s, these groundbreaking gameplays brought great shock to players. The virtual characters in the game are no longer just paper figures, they have truly become spiritual companions who accompany players as they grow.
Picture: Interactive interface of the handheld game “New Love Plus”
These ingenious interactive gameplays have subsequently been expanded in many games. They are essentially creating the intersection of virtuality and reality. Nowadays, phone calls and text messaging systems that simulate real communication have become standard features in love simulation games. “Love and Producer” (a female-oriented, Otome game) also launched the widely acclaimed “Companion System”, which makes the game characters become a part of the players’ lives, and firmly captures office workers with this “sense of companionship” and the heart of the student party.
Picture: Companion system of the mobile game “Love and Producer”
There is also an interactive gameplay that is outstanding, simple and flexible – “interactive call”, which uses an intelligent outbound/inbound robot system to dial out to players or support players to actively call in, thereby customizing interactions with game characters. Voice calls. Share a case here. Among the mobile love simulation games for women, there are the so-called “four major countries”, and “Singularity Era”, which was officially released this year, has successfully won over a large number of male players with the banner of “the first male love development mobile game”. In order to allow players to enjoy an immersive gaming experience, the production team has piled up a lot of material in the audiovisual performances and dubbing soundtracks: the main line of full voice, thousands of hand-drawn animations, hundreds of delicate character expression animations, dozens of original BGM, More than a dozen interludes…these sounds and images have become a link that firmly connects the game and the player’s heart.
During the Chinese Valentine’s Day event a while ago, the “Age of Singularity” team once again boldly innovated and completed a successful marketing cooperation with NetEase Cloud, allowing four heroines to make “cross-dimensional” heartbeat calls for players.
Picture: Promotional picture of the four protagonists of the mobile game “Age of Singularity”
The activity sounds simple, but the execution details contain ingenuity. First of all, the greetings of the four heroines in this event have been carefully planned to not only echo the theme of the event but also reflect the character traits of the characters, and were recorded by the voice actors themselves; secondly, every active interaction with the players is very easy It affects their impression of the game brand, so before the official large-scale outbound calls, NetEase Cloud’s trainer team conducted multiple tests and adjustments to avoid defects in line connection, call quality, and interactive experience; finally, NetEase The cloud provider also provides a flash message for incoming call notification before each outbound call (a flash message notification is sent when the user’s mobile phone is ringing to display the identity information of the caller to the user, which can effectively reduce the user’s doubts about unknown calls and enhance user trust) , so that players can answer this “cross-dimensional” call safely, promptly, and full of surprises.
In the end, based on the intelligent outbound call system, up to 200,000 calls were made in a single day, which accumulated strong potential for word-of-mouth communication of this event. After players who had not logged into the game for a long time received the call, the return rate reached 4.8%. At the same time, the event triggered extensive discussions on Weibo. This “cross-dimensional” call that suddenly “broke into” the real world provided players with huge emotional value and helped “Age of Singularity” achieve a success. brand marketing.
Picture: Excerpt from the Weibo comment area during the Qixi Festival event of the mobile game “Age of Singularity”
In addition, in recent years, VR head-mounted device technology has become more mature, and the immersive experience of dating simulation games has the opportunity to achieve a revolutionary leap. For example, “Focus on You” developed by South Korea’s Smilegate in 2019 allows players to spend a wonderful summer time with their virtual partners immersed in the game. Although the VR interactive experience is very novel, the graphics of this type of game are still relatively rough and the gameplay is relatively simple, so it cannot continue to impress players for the time being. However, in the long run, VR dating simulation games still have huge room for imagination.
Picture: VR game “Focus on You” game screen
There is a very interesting comment in the Yiyou circle: “We have a love that will never break up, but the price is never to see each other again.” There is no doubt that love simulation games are based on constantly improving technical means and innovative gameplay design, filling the vacancies in the hearts of contemporary young people with an immersive experience. Between fiction and reality, it provides a kind of pure happiness. Perhaps players also gain spiritual strength and inner growth from it.
With the development and maturity of AIGC and XR technology, as depicted in the science fiction movie “Her”, if artificial intelligence with independent personality appears in the future, and the boundary between virtuality and reality becomes blurred, there will still be so-called love ” Game”?
