For a while, I was obsessed with UGC maps created by Egg Boy Party players, and one of the most impressive for me was a map called "Strange Rules: The Legend of Zhen Huan". In this map, players will incarnate Zhen Huan and survive a series of rule traps.

Because of the unique background setting of this map, it quickly attracted a large number of "Zhen scholars" (referring to the audience who watched and interpreted "The Legend of Zhen Huan" frame by frame) and players to participate - I am no exception. The author not only portrays the gloomy atmosphere of the forbidden palace in place, but also a series of "strange rules" set in the map, and there is no shortage of dark "drama stalks".

For example, rule 5 can make the emperor happy by wearing pure yuan clothes, and the emperor of rule 6 loves Concubine Qi to wear pink clothes. Friends who have watched the drama believe that seeing this will make them smile as much as I do, and then it will also stimulate the desire to experience it deeply.

In "Egg Boy Party", there are many such high-quality maps, and they are divided into different tracks: difficult running cool skill maps, treacherous puzzle maps, aesthetic viewing maps, multiplayer cooperative maps that test tacit understanding, and so on. While I felt and experienced the creative creativity of the creators from these maps, I also wondered what kind of people they would be in reality. How did they create such interesting content?

Finally I had this opportunity. On July 13, the 2nd Creator Conference of "Egg Boy Party" was held at Guangzhou Chimelong International Convention and Exhibition Center. The event was filled with a wide variety of creators, from trendy content bloggers who could be easily identified at a glance, to creators who were low-key but actually popular with players, to young people who looked like school students......

According to the data released by Kwan, the producer of "Egg Boy Party", at the conference, "Egg Boy Party" has given birth to 117 million+ original maps in the past year alone, with a total of more than 2.79 billion hours of map play and 6.5 million new creator ......This is undoubtedly an excellent result, but when I actually went offline, I realized the weight behind these numbers.

Most of the creators who came offline were already old acquaintances in the game, and this time they broke through the online barrier because of the creator conference. Luckily, I met and spoke to the creators of the map "Strange Rules: The Legend of Zhen Huan"—and other equally talented creators.

While I was looking for answers to my questions, I also gradually and more clearly saw the huge energy contained in the UGC creation ecology of "Egg Boy Party".

It's not that difficult to enter the egg boy creation ecology

"I haven't done this kind of workshop-type free-building stuff in other games or software before." The creator of Egg Boy "Jinya Village Chief" said that she is also the creator of series of works such as "Strange Tales of Rules: The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "Strange Tales of Rules: The Legend of Ruyi".

In this year's Creator Conference, a total of 8 awards were officially set, namely: Best Jumping Popular Craftsman, Best Visual Performance Craftsman, Best Gameplay Breakthrough Craftsman, Best Game Experience Craftsman, Best Communication Impact Craftsman, Honorary Rookie Craftsman, Best Positive Value Craftsman and Craftsman of the Year. These awards are multi-faceted and are used to recognize creators who have excelled in different creative tracks. Among them, "Jinya Village Chief" is one of the fastest-growing craftsmen in the past year, and is also one of the winners of the "Honorary Rookie Craftsman" award.

"I only started to officially create the egg boy map at the end of July last year (2023)." Until then, "Jinya Village Chief" has been working in graphic design, and now she is shifting her full focus to the creation of "Egg Boy Party".

The reason for all this is the "manor system" launched by "Egg Boy Party" in June last year, at first the "Jinya Village Chief" just wanted to decorate the manor more beautifully, and the original plan was to do it casually and not spend too much energy. But when construction actually began, "Jinya Village Chief" found himself intrigued by the fact that he was "created in Egg Boy Party".

"If you can look at the records, you can see that I was still online at four or five o'clock in the morning, and I was obsessed with building a nice estate during that time. I also feel a great sense of accomplishment when others visit my estate. ”

"I wasn't satisfied with building a manor at first, and then I officially entered the Egg Boy Workshop to build." "Jinya Village Chief" said.

For the "Jinya Village Chief", she has entered a whole new world. Despite having no previous experience in UGC creation, the "Jinya Village Chief" found that he was not trapped in "learning how to create". She believes that art and design majors naturally have a certain sensitivity to "creation", and people with artistic aesthetics will not accept the final result of "ugly", at least in terms of scene composition.

"Jinya Village Chief" thought that the process of design work could be nested into the creation of Eggboy's map. Soon, she found the right balance. She told me that in the early stages of creation, she would design a detailed character and list a detailed script, for example, if she wanted to create a character and scene, she would first draw it out in the design software, and then find or build the "components" she needed based on the actual image.

"Without detailed upfront planning, it's easy to get caught up in the chaos and confusion of the construction order, and then say things like 'so be it.'" "Jinya Village Chief" believes that this is the key to creating a good map.

And behind this, it cannot be ignored that there is also the burden reduction of "Egg Boy Party" on the creators.

In the past two years, "Egg Boy Party" has been working hard in the direction of lowering the threshold for creation, and continues to iterate on creative tools.

For example, the workshop continues to provide map templates that can be used with one click and a rich component library; And add skills system, custom vehicles, shooting UGC and other functions to optimize the player's creative experience. In addition, "Egg Boy Party" also forward-looking introduces new AIGC technologies such as egg code, video generation action, and AI dubbing to improve creative efficiency and quality. For example, in the "Universal Generator" feature, this step is as simple as the player can simply enter a prompt to get the corresponding visualization component.

The major innovation will appear in November 2023, when "Egg Boy Party" officially launched a new feature of the Workshop - Egg Code. This feature completely overturns the previous creative process, allowing players to assemble a professional game map with complex map design and logical gameplay in real time by stitching together "events", "actions", and "conditions" like building blocks.

Continued efforts to UGC provide a solid foundation for the ecological construction of "Egg Boy Party". At the 2nd Creator Conference, "Egg Boy Party" also announced a new iteration of editor functions, aiming to continuously optimize the efficiency and quality of creation.

Lao Bei, the person in charge of the editor of the "Egg Boy Party" workshop, introduced that a "plot animation editor" will be launched in the future, which will integrate various capabilities such as dubbing and camera movement to produce plot performances, and solve the needs of players to create concerts, interactive small theaters, and immersive short plays.

For the free creation of character actions, the newly upgraded "Action Creation" function allows users to create a new action from scratch by posing keyframes, and more simplify the production of an NPC performance or an action game skill. In addition, the Landscape Component, which is based on free terrain editing, and the PC editor, which will be launched soon, will once again increase the degree of creative freedom.

Judging from the results, "Egg Boy Party" has achieved quite good results through the continuous construction of the core advantage of "UGC creation ecology", and more and more users have inadvertently found that "creation" is not as difficult as imagined, and its creator lineup is becoming more and more large.

"Let's meet, let's get together", in "Egg Boy Party".

"Xiao Zhenhua Cake" is not a creator of a "professional counterpart" (referring to art majors), unlike creators who want to fully express themselves, most of her works in the law major originate from fan messages.

"I feel that players have more demand for UGC maps than for official maps and other gameplay modes, and there is a high willingness to get in touch with new things, and UGC creation is a good way to meet this." "Xiao Zhenhua Cake" does not shy away from saying that the needs of players have greatly influenced his creative style.

She said that many times, fans leave messages in the background to see if they can make what kind of map, and by soliciting player needs, they will finally vote in the community - the "map needs" with more than 10,000 votes or the highest votes will be given priority. However, she also leaves easter eggs in her maps, such as a manhole cover on each map, which the player will find when they open a component that is very personal.

In the process of creation, "Xiao Zhenhua Cake" also pays more attention to communication and operation with fans. She told me that in addition to spending 1 to 2 weeks creating a high-quality map, she will also take into account the operation of fan bases on different social platforms, on the one hand, to solicit players' needs to make maps, and on the other hand, after the map is completed, release a trailer for players to make corresponding suggestions, and choose reasonable and high-demand suggestions for rectification.

With such a creative idea of "going deep into the masses", she has won a lot of praise from the player community and became one of the winners of the "Best Gameplay Experience Craftsman" award. According to the official definition, this award is given to the creator who "provides players with a good game experience through a variety of novel ideas". In the comment area of its social platform, you can also see many fans of Xiaozhen urging updates and discussing map gameplay.

To a certain extent, the creator's requirements for content quality and the operation of the fan community reflect the creator's long-term development needs, and "Egg Boy Party" obviously pays attention to this.

In November 2023, "Egg Boy Party" announced the launch of the "Co-creation of the Egg Era" plan with an investment of 500 million yuan in two years, through a variety of welfare events, supplemented by an official incentive signing system, in order to enhance the creators' willingness to create, and establish a closer cooperation relationship with the creators, while also allowing creators to obtain higher incentive benefits and more generous rights and interests.

At the 2nd Creator Conference, "Egg Boy Party" upgraded the training and support for creators again.

First of all, in order to provide creators with more emotional and work exposure support, "Egg Boy Party" will display the medals obtained in events and other activities in the personal medal wall in the park version 4.0; secondly, in addition to the signing incentive plan of "Co-creating the Egg Era", various creative events covering all players will continue to be carried out, and new content commercialization explorations including but not limited to content payment and advertising monetization will be carried out.

However, compared to the results achieved in "Egg Boy Party", what impressed "Xiao Zhen Painting Cake" the most was the map he created with his mother.

"That's the first map I've worked on myself, and it's called 'New Year's Egg Boy Island 2023'." At that time, during the epidemic, "Xiao Zhenhua Cake" and her mother were at the north and south ends of China, and she revealed that her communication with her mother was not smooth, and the only way to contact her was through a chat group set up by her cousin, and she played games to relieve her emotions.

"We were playing together in Season 7, and I proposed to make a picture together, and then I pulled my mom in and built it together." "Xiao Zhen Painting Cake" smiled and said, "This is the picture I am most satisfied with." ”

In the eyes of "Little Zhenhua Cake", her mother is the guide who brought her into the field of egg waffle creation. Unexpectedly, the mother of "Little Zhenhua Cake" is more well-known than her, and not long ago, her mother won the first prize in a creative competition at the estate. "The reason why I made maps was largely because I wasn't convinced, because my mom was making some map components, and my sister knew an 11-year-old kid who was also doing it, so I thought I could do it too."

In the past, we often said that the social attributes of "Egg Boy Party" shortened the distance between people, and more people began to make friends and interact through this platform to find an "egg partner". Nowadays, this social value has a more intuitive experience, whether it is the creators who meet offline, or the family members who find the right way to communicate in the game, the warmth of the egg boy world is being effectively transmitted.

People who pursue art in "Egg Boy Party".

As the winner of the "Craftsman of the Year" award at this year's creator conference, "Puxi Cola. Entering the egg waffle creation ecology is more like being inspired by a new way of life.

Majoring in design, "Puxi Cola. At that time, "Egg Boy Party" was one of the most popular games, and he began to play this game under the guidance of a friend, and after seeing the beautiful map, he came up with the idea of making his own map. He remembered the details of the first map: jellyfish, butterflies...... This also laid the foundation for his creative direction.

Perhaps out of the pursuit of beauty, "Puxi Cola. " To pay more attention to the expression of "personal ideas", he said that his creative direction will not change because of the needs of players, but more to follow his heart. He seems to have a soft spot for "landscapes on the go", and this is where many of his creative inspirations come from: "When I create maps, I use seeing beautiful landscapes as a theme or incorporating them. ”

Open "Puxi Coke. " On the personal homepage of the Douyin platform, the content is basically all created around the egg boy map, and the style is unified to the genre of "viewing map", including landing, rainy night, sky and dream, etc. "Puxi Coke. " It means that it is hoped to bring players a sense of atmosphere and immerse them in it.

"Prioritizing one's own heart seems to be a common problem for people who do art work." I quipped.

But in fact, he is not working hard. He emphasized that he has a set of "production ratio" trade-off criteria: in addition to making a work that "satisfies himself", he will send out a teaser before the official launch of the map, and if the player responds enthusiastically, he will naturally put more effort into it.

Choosing a freelancer is a niche choice during graduation season, and it's even more unique to focus on game content. However, in "Puxi Coke. " It seems that this is the result of his own pursuit, and he does not explain anything because of this, or feel anxious because he does not participate in traditional social work. "Freedom is fine." He said.

How can't "UGC creation" be a job?

"Can 'Egg Boy Map Creator' be recognized as a long-term career?" When I asked the three creators the same question, they were surprisingly unanimous: yes.

Asking such a question at a creator conference can seem like "finding a question with an answer." But it's important to note that not everyone can be a good creator. Different creators also have their own opinions on this special job.

The "Jinya Village Chief", who has just entered the full-time state, still maintains his work schedule, wakes up at 8 o'clock, washes up, works until 12 o'clock, rests for two hours, and then works until 6 p.m., and also sets aside time for rest on weekends. In her opinion, if you want to make a map as a career, you need to treat it as a job.

"I think Egg Boy provides a new form of employment, where players can use what they like as a source of income, and with a high degree of freedom." "Jinya Village Chief" added that this new form of employment does not set a high threshold, and by deeply cultivating the track that he is good at, such as art skills to make ornamental pictures, senior gamers to make gameplay maps, you can get good results. "It gives the current generation of young people a new choice."

And in the "Puxi Coke. " It seems that the choice to become a creator is largely due to the freedom to spend time. His working model is more goal-oriented—dividing the entire map into modules and allocating a reasonable amount of time between them. When faced with the question of whether he can make a career out of creation, his view is that there is a need to distinguish between "entertainment" and "professionalism". "If you just add some random elements to a draft, or even make some maps that can't be recognized by a large number of players, it's hard to support it as a career."

Although "Little Zhenhua Cake" has certain intentions to become a full-time Egg Boy map creator, there are still some concerns. "Taking myself as an example, if one day I don't want to be a creator anymore, but want to participate in traditional social work, and I can't show proof of my work, there may be a situation where traditional companies can't understand the work experience of creators." Such concerns are understandable, after all, the advancement of social thought needs to be iterated over time, but this does not prevent us from affirming the social value and significance brought by this new type of work.

As "Xiao Zhen Painting Cake" said, "If I didn't consider the outside world's opinion, I would think that this is a comfortable career." It's fun and free enough. Perhaps, for migrant workers, it is obvious that such a profession is already a dream job.

Without exception, these creators have not systematically learned "how to create", and their professional skills may have brought certain advantages, but more out of love and accumulated experience. Creators with a certain level of fame usually set a monthly KPI for themselves - usually 3 maps, and it takes a week to 2 weeks to make a map, but for them, this KPI is not distressing.

For UGC creators and players, with a low enough participation threshold, a high enough degree of content freedom, a sufficiently diversified development track, a continuously increased incentive and support plan, and a constantly expanding commercial boundary...... "Egg Boy Party" is obviously becoming a new choice for contemporary young people to explore their personal value.

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