Text/Nine Lotus Treasure Lamp

"Our work brings joy to people, helps them through difficult times in life, and even brings them companionship when they are lonely."

Recently, Grape Jun met Brent Homman through the Internet. He is an animation industry practitioner in United States and a member of the United States Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has been working for 19 years since he started drawing from Blur Studio, including nearly 16 years at Disney.

During his time at Disney, Brent has participated in many well-known works around the world, such as "Lightning Dog", "Rapunzel", "The Invincible Ring Breaker", "Super Marines", "Moana", "Frozen 2", "Full House of Magic", "Strange World" and so on. As an animation director, he also created famous animated characters such as Dabai in "Super Marines" and Xue Bao in "Frozen".

"Super Marines"

But among them, the project he is most proud of is his Disney+ series "Big White! 》（Baymax!）。 According to his recollection, on several occasions, he wore "Big White! When the work T-shirt goes out, someone will find him and tell him what the role of "Dabai" means to them.

"Once it was in the cereal section of a supermarket. One man told me that we had a character that perfectly embodied the character of his late grandmother. He thanked us a lot because every time he watched an episode, it felt like he was spending more time with his grandmother. At that moment, two of us, strangers in tears, stood together like this.

It was a very surreal moment and a profound reminder to me that our work can deeply touch the hearts and minds of others. Keeping this in mind helps us to be the best we can be and provide the most special experience for our audiences."

With this belief, he decided to leave Disney and take on a new challenge: in 2023, he chose to join Papergames and participate in the character design of "Infinite Warmth".

As the fifth installment of the Papergames series, Infinity Nikki does seem to be suitable for such a talent with a Disney background: as a multi-platform open world built by UE5 engine, they not only did not choose the gameplay loop built around combat in other open worlds, but also focused on "collecting good", focusing on platforming, puzzle solving, and costume change.

Here, Brent will face a fantasy world that is very different from Disney, but can evoke many similar emotions. In the brief exchange, although he mainly told us about his experience and insights, we found examples in the game for every point he mentioned.

01

"Nuan Nuan is a person who faces the world positively"

After 19 years on the job, Brent Homman has long developed his own ideas about character design.

"The first thing you have to decide when you want to design a memorable character is what qualities you want the character to have. Then we need to study existing or real-life characters with similar qualities, imitate some of their traits, and find ways to combine them. In this way, we were able to create not only a unique character, but also a truly memorable image."

And for "Infinite Nuan Nuan", the most unique characters are obviously the two most famous images in the IP: Big Meow and Nuan Nuan.

Brent has always loved the role of Big Meow. In his opinion, Big Meow is both cute and uninhibited, and under his strong appearance, he contains a sensual heart. Each of these personality traits is interesting enough, and when combined, it makes Big Meow even more appealing.

In his eyes, Nuan Nuan is a person who chooses to face the world with an optimistic attitude, and he believes that Nuan Nuan's personality will send a positive message to the world. In Nuan Nuan's story, when she faces challenges and negative situations, Nuan Nuan not only deals with them in a positive way, but she will always choose to take the initiative to help those who are going through difficulties.

A typical example is the prologue of the story, when Nuan Nuan travels to a strange new world, she follows the guidance of the voice and meets the sealed world god in a tower.

For "old rivers and lakes" like us, who have traveled through many big worlds, in the face of the situation at that time, I was sweating for Nuan Nuan. A character who seems to have mysterious powers has broken the confinement because of Nuan Nuan's intrusion, and some monsters are ready to move in the corner of the tower, but the protagonist Nuan Nuan at this moment is not like those brave men with swords.

But the story didn't develop as I had experienced in the past. When the world god broke free from the shackles that hung her high, Nuan Nuan's first reaction was worry. It can be seen from Nuan Nuan's expression that in her opinion, no matter who the other party is, falling from such a high place will definitely feel pain at this moment. So she didn't choose to run away, but walked forward quickly to check on the situation of the world god.

And when the World God passed on his power to Nuan Nuan, she did not question the World God's motives or show resistance, but instead asked the World God if she needed to cooperate and do something.

Another plot of the story also shows Nuan Nuan's character traits.

After capturing the evil "Wishbringer", Nuan Nuan talks to him. The Wish Messenger asked Nuan Nuan what thoughts would flash through her mind if she had the opportunity to fulfill her wish. At this moment, she didn't think of selfishness, but made a wish that "I hope all girls don't have stomach aches".

"This quality is very admirable. It's this quality that makes Nuan Nuan a character we want to emulate in reality and aspire to in the game."

And the other characters in the world of "Infinite Warmth" are equally surprising. Compared with the "action drama" or "conspiracy" that exists in almost all big world games, most of the characters in "Infinite Warmth" tend to be more sincere and friendly, giving the story a fairytale-like beauty.

It also made me think deeply: it seems like it's been a long time since we've really let our guard down and enjoyed a fairy tale. We've been through so many treacherous adventures, battled with so many people, and sometimes even forgot what kind of good qualities we really need to protect.

But it also brings me to a new concern: can such an overly dreamlike world really resonate with enough people? After everyone has become a "ruthless adult", how many people will be able to be moved by such a story?

02

"Through this game,

Establish unlimited connections"

Brent has two children, a son and a daughter. His daughter played a game with a Nuan Nuan IP when she was a child, and at that time he didn't expect that there would be more stories to come.

When he first saw "Infinite Warmth" as the fifth generation of IP, he was very shocked. "I've only seen this series of mobile games before, and I was really surprised to see the world that unfolds with this new game."

In the past, he would show every animated film he had participated in to his children, and judge whether a project was suitable for them through their feelings. Now, he also lets his kids try out Infinite Warmth and watch their reactions.

When playing Infinite Warmth, the children's focus varies: Brent's son is a competitive gamer who is immediately drawn to the game's achievement system; His daughter, on the other hand, prefers to customize everything she can in the game.

But the amazing thing is that even though the two children have different preferences, they still share their progress together and help each other to move the game forward. "It's a very special experience, I've never been involved in a project that allows my kids to create their own experiences and be able to share them with each other," Brent was instantly touched by the scene, and it was a very special moment for him.

And through this scene, Brent also suddenly has a new understanding of the meaning of the game's name: Infinity Nikki, infinite warmth, warmth without limits. "For me, Infinite Warmth means that people can connect with each other through this game." Just like movies, games provide emotional value to people while also trying to create an emotional connection between people.

In this test experience, we can also see some of the content that has been discussed, and a lot of it is related to this feeling of emotional resonance.

For example, the connection between people. The game has a "cross-time and space group photo" function, which has been well received by many players. Players can discover the images left by other players in the world and take photos with them.

This feeling is very delicate: when you explore the world and suddenly find that a player wants to take a photo through clothing matching and gestures, you can not only experience the enthusiasm and affection of the other party for the world, but also generate more positive emotions in the world exploration.

Another example is the player's connection with Nuan Nuan and the world. Some players summarized TA's findings: every morning when the sun rises, the dye workshop will appear as a lazy figure of a primary school; If a rented bicycle is littered, it will not automatically return to its original place; Grooming the animals, their reactions are different, and they are all very likable; Horse-drawn carriages can be bumpy and unstable on muddy ground; If a street light fails, it will hiss, and Nuan Nuan can change it to an electrician's suit to fix it.

And I also found that Nuan Nuan has a lot of interesting action details in the game. For example, when Nuan Nuan descends the stairs, she will seriously look down at the steps, and there is a sense of caution; If she runs in a long skirt during the game, she will also lift her skirt to avoid being stepped on.

These seemingly ordinary small details, just like the previous "I hope all girls don't have stomach pain", in addition to showing the beautiful cultivation and quality of the character, they are actually quietly telling the player:

You see, the Miracle Continent is not completely ethereal, it will be the same as reality, with some minor troubles; But it is precisely with the blessing of these realities that this connection between people and the world and between people is more warm.

03

"We will not let you down"

Working at Disney laid the foundation for Brent's character development. He felt that by combining his background knowledge from the past and working with the creators of Paperfold, he could achieve something that he couldn't achieve alone.

"Meeting new colleagues and getting to know a new company and a new idea was a wonderful experience from the very beginning. It was an experience of a lifetime for me to be able to come to Shanghai and work with you face-to-face and learn about Chinese culture first-hand."

Brent's favorite part of his work is working with animators to further define characters like "Match the King" by bringing specificity to the characters and helping them become more realistic and real-like characters. For him, blurring the line between a real-life character and a fantasy character is a magical experience.

In fact, the project team of "Infinite Warmth" is not lacking in the world's top industry talents like Brent. In addition to Mr. Kentaro Tominaga, who has participated in the development of the "Legend of Zelda" series at Nintendo, as the executive producer of the game, Feige, the technical director of the game, has also worked in Ubisoft, Tencent and other companies, with more than 20 years of game development experience, and has been responsible for the development of many games such as "Alice's Crazy Return" and "The Moon Knife at the End of the World".

It can be said that the "Infinite Warmth" team is almost a truly global "all-star" team. Therefore, there are many people who believe that they may bring a product that exceeds expectations to players around the world.

In today's domestic and foreign game field, content-based games, especially in the field of large-world games with extremely high content requirements, seem to have encountered some bottlenecks: since combat is the main gameplay of the game, the theme of the story is different, but the atmosphere and plot twists provided are always similar. Everyone racked their brains to devise more events and reasons for people to fight.

But perhaps, simply not thinking about combat is more likely to provide players with a completely different content experience: it reminds me that the most impressive feature of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom compared to Breath of the Wild may not be how the combat system has been upgraded, but the "ultimate hand" that inspires more creativity.

And what Infinite Warmth is doing now is something that almost all big world games have not done, but many games want to achieve: provide players with a truly happy, dreamlike fairy tale world that helps people through difficult times in their lives, and even brings companionship when they are lonely.

"When you're working on a project, you want to create the best product possible. To achieve this, the team's passion for the project plays a crucial role. My impression of the team is that their enthusiasm and drive for this project is exactly what this project should be. Fans all over the world are looking forward to the release of Infinite Warmth, and we won't disappoint you."

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