Text/Lin Zhi

Recently, Grape Jun played a refreshing shooting game "Gun Guyman" at the WePlay exhibition in Shanghai. It's incredibly simple, yet amazing.

Gun Guy is a fast-paced shooter that relies on recoil to move, where players control a gun-wielding soyman roaming the ocean and attacking Cthulhu's palm to ensure their own safety. It supports 1~4 players to play online, and it is a lively family game.

I was just trying it out, but the moment I got started, I realized it wasn't that simple. Accurate feel aside, its design coupling, as well as the condensation of fun, are quite rare in domestic games.

Although it is still in the demo stage, it has already attracted more than 50,000 players to try it out, and it has received particularly good reviews in recent Steam reviews.

Recently, they held the "Chaowei Soybean Cup", a community challenge that encourages players to score high, and hundreds of people participated on both Bilibili and QQ channels.

Swipe left and right to view

Several players have studied the game's monster farming mechanics thoroughly, and found that as long as they don't kill the boss, the monsters will keep spawning. At present, the highest score has reached 2.8 million (normally 600,000 is a high score), and this player is afraid that the production team will think he is cheating, so he recorded the whole operation.

The player who scored the highest score even turned on the camera

Prove that you hit it yourself

I heard that many publishers have approached the R&D team of "Gun Palmer", and recently some investors chatted with Grape King, saying that another producer also mentioned this product to him, because he heard the name continuously, he decided to contact him quickly.

So I got in touch with two members of the Baobab Studio, Lei Li, who was in charge of planning and programming, and Lao Yu, who was in charge of art, and talked to them about how the game came to be.

And after learning some of the stories behind the making of Gun Guys, I realized that this game might just be the starting point for them.

01

Polishing the feel to the extreme

If I had to sum up the game in two words, I think it would be "refreshing" and "top".

The "refreshing" thing is that the game is simple to operate and has a strong sense of impact.

There is only one control button in the whole game, which is to click the left button to shoot. The player's own movement is achieved by recoil, with no additional control.

The game's striking feel is well done: when you hit a target, the screen shakes, freezes, and monsters explode particle effects create a strong sense of feedback. And as long as you keep combo, the effect of the weapon will gradually increase, and bring a certain range of explosions, and the speed of clearing monsters will be faster and faster.

Lei Li told me that in order to achieve this kind of exhilaration, he put a lot of effort into the feel and feedback of the game. He had to constantly hone the character's movement curves and animations to ensure smooth transitions between different types of operations.

"Above" means that the game offers a wealth of random events and decent strategic depth, and the replayability is high.

The amount of demo content is about 15 minutes, and most people can clear the game within an hour

But there are also players in the comment section who have played for 20 hours

There are currently more than a dozen random events that appear randomly in the middle of the game. The production team referenced Super Mario Bros. Marvel and changed the familiar map like a surprise flower, making the game feel completely different.

For example, the magnetic front sight allows the boat to move closer to the target being shot at - normally you would move away from them because of the recoil. Another example is to make the map interoperable, and the upper wall that should have bounced back will teleport you directly to the bottom of the screen.

Magnetic crosshairs can also be used to move and buy time

It will also be opened to make the original ship longer or narrower, so that the chainsaw can be tied to the player's boat and become a yoyo......

Different random events will also be superimposed on each other, such as multiple people pulling the rope + night, the screen goes black, four flashlights are shaking all over the screen, and the game is full of happy air.

After a random event lasts for a while, it returns to normal.

The game offers different levels of strategy possibilities: from the smallest unit the player fires, to in-game build variations, to different character and weapon designs outside the game, which all work together to create a decent depth of strategy.

The first layer is the action system.

Even if you get started for a minute, players will quickly feel the small trade-offs in the operation.

For example, the high-risk, high-reward combo mechanic, after 30 consecutive hits, the player will get obvious explosion feedback and score skew. Each of the next shots has to be well thought out, and once missed, all the work done is lost.

Another example is that the sea surface is designed to have zero friction, and since the character's movement is completely dependent on recoil, this means that the movement caused by the shooting will not stop. You can even shoot and hit a wall and slide to the opposite side.

In multiplayer, players on a boat share a recoil mechanic, and each person who shoots will have an impact on the ship's position. Not only does this create a lot of fun with the hustle and bustle, but it also requires a lot of cooperation between players playing at the same time.

The second layer is the build of items provided by the in-house shop.

Shop items offer four main types of upgrades: bullets, reloads, combos, and generic upgrades. There are also some general combinations, such as defensive builds, or pickup builds.

Players can choose skills according to their own operating habits, such as preference for burst or continuous output, and then build the build that best suits their feel. This achieves a balance between operability and construction strategy to a certain extent, rather than a purely numerical value.

If you take all the blaster items, you can also deal damage to monsters by emptying the gun, which almost upends the whole game and makes it more fun.

Blood Blaster + Shockwave range expanded

You can re-injure the enemy with a dozen ten, the source watermark

In order to make players play more enjoyable, Lei Li said that if certain skill combinations will become stronger, he will enhance the probability of related upgrades in this build, making it easier for players to form a complete genre.

Look at the small icons to discern which icons may be of the same type of build, for example, the Shockwave Flow skill is the same shape, with different colors and corner marks to distinguish them.

The third layer is the outsider character, weapon design.

Different characters and weapons will change the original gameplay habits and bring a completely different experience.

In the case of Bomberman, for example, his combo is always 0, but enemies will explode in an area of effect when killed. This explosion can be triggered in a chain and deals damage to self and allies.

As a result, this character's gameplay strategy will be completely different from the original character's, as it can't hit enemies close to him, or it will be injured by explosions. Although it is very capable of clearing the field, shooting indiscriminately can kill a boatload of people along with it.

When the distance between enemies is close enough

Bomberman can clear the field with one hit

In terms of weapon design, an explosive weapon is also used as an example.

The Explosive Water Gun has infinite bullets, but the shot can only be displaced, and does no damage. Players can't attack actively, and can only wait for an auto-explosion every 5 seconds, so the game changes from "shoot the enemy and think about the course of action" to "dodge the enemy and try to keep them in the attack range".

It's fair to say that after getting this weapon, the game strategy has changed dramatically, almost like a new game. The gun is expected to be available later after the player has cleared several maps.

When the surrounding circle of CDs is full, it will automatically attack enemies in the entire area. It is expected to open at a later stage

It feels good, the system is perfect, and it can be played repeatedly, and it is not difficult for you to feel that this is a relatively mature work. It's no wonder that their demo has attracted more than 50,000 players.

02

A journey that began with Game Jam

It's not the first time they've made a game.

Lei Li has worked in several well-known stand-alone projects in China for six years, making games in his spare time, and has been shortlisted for indiePlay five times. Lao Yu's qualifications are even deeper, and he has traveled to several large factories to make game UIs.

Before working together on Gun Guys, the two were colleagues at a game company. They have been working in the game industry for several years, and they feel that each other is very reliable at work.

One day, Lei Li invited Lao Yu to do the art of "Eating Bananas". This game already has a Demo.,Later, the voice of the main mystery of station B UP did a play video.。

The gameplay of this game is to use a notepad to push boxes, and players need to jump out of the game from time to time to do some puzzles in the notepad. For example, the following figure shows that the player needs to combine the in-game screen to guess and modify the coordinates of the chest, and then unlock the mechanism.

Lao Yu saw that this project had great potential, so he decided to join. "It's a very talented project. On the surface, it's just a soliko, but it's actually a meta game, and I think this genre is a special test of the designer's talent. If it does, it's going to be a huge success."

Last summer, the two attended a Game Jam together, which is where Gun Guy began. The game starts with a small gameplay, determines the desired experience for each version, and makes addition combinations on the basis of it, and constantly expands.

First of all, they decided that the game would be based on "recoil movement" as the core of the gameplay, and then they wanted to design it according to this gameplay.

So what kind of character is suitable for this kind of back-shifting setting? What kind of environment can "slide" so that the character can move and go backwards?

At first, Lao Yu wanted to make a "high-speed wheelchair", but it was too complicated to draw. With limited time, they opted for a simpler and easy-to-implement setting – a boat on the sea. The sea is empty, you just need to draw waves.

The theme of that Game Jam was "TOUCH", and they envisioned the hands reaching out from the sea trying to grab the player, and the player needed to shoot to keep themselves safe.

Hand monsters in the game

(The current development version has a few more varieties than the Game Jam version)

In the Game Jam phase, their goal was to make a game with a 2-minute arcade experience. The player has only one life, and can shoot and attack the enemy, while using the recoil to move, and the game ends when the enemy touches it.

Screenshot of Game Jam on the actual machine, which is basically the same as the current design

Later, they found that the strategy was not deep enough, so they introduced a high-risk, high-reward combo mechanism. The higher the combo, the greater the attack range, and if you don't hit the combo, it clears to zero. At this time, the core gameplay of "Gun Guys" was determined.

Subsequently, because the game was shortlisted in the top 10 of indiePlay, a booth was provided in the relevant exhibition area of WePlay. They decided to take the opportunity to expand the game a little bit and design a 5-minute version.

In order to fill in more content, in addition to expanding the variety of enemies, they also introduced the meat pigeon element and added an in-game upgrade mechanic.

The rhythm of the movement system is also adjusted. In the Game Jam version, players have unlimited bullets and can shoot all the time, and the gameplay is relatively simple. They have been adjusted to have limited ammo, and the player will enter a defensive phase when changing ammo, but will still be able to displace by firing empty bullets, but will reload the ammo time - this introduces the mechanic of alternating attack and defense.

Last year's WePlay was well received by players, and they plan to continue developing in their spare time.

Last year's WePlay booth

But there is still some conflict between work and game time, and the two left together in January this year to work on "Gun Bean" full-time.

Now that we've decided to go all in, the next step is to find a publisher, and they need to prepare a 10-minute version for this.

It's just that adding new enemies doesn't make the game more playable, so how can you make the experience of this game richer?

Lei Li wanted to introduce mechanics that could drastically change the game experience from time to time. Inspired by Mario Marvel, they added random events to the game.

For example, at night the player will turn on the flashlight and the rest of the place will be dark, or the player will be tied to a rope, or various chainsaws will appear in the scene. These mechanics will appear and disappear randomly, and will be combined in pairs in the later stages.

Swipe left and right to see the random events that have been completed so far

At this time, "Gun Guys" is almost the same as the demo we see now, just like the multiplayer mode.

The opportunity to be a multi-person person is also very accidental, once the old fish painted two villains sitting on a boat, originally painted to play, but Lei Li saw that it was very interesting, so he planned to make it and try it, and it turned out to be unexpectedly fun.

Once they made a duo, they had to consider the resurrection mechanism, but they didn't want to add new buttons, so the old fish thought that they could "kiss the resurrection". When a player dies in the team, the love generated by the other players' automatic kisses will fly to their teammates, and they will be revived after a certain number of kisses, while shooting will interrupt the resurrection. This is a relatively simple way to solve the button problem, and there are some trade-offs to be made when reviving teammates.

After the two-player mode is done, the effect is very good, and the online online and multiplayer modes are naturally completed. In Lei Li's words, "it's just a matter of adding a seat."

Once the publisher was found, they were still iterating on the version, basically releasing a new version every three months.

They started with the game's peripherals and added different characters and weapons.

When designing new characters, you need to make sure that each character is different enough, not just numerically.

The Joker's combo is always Max, but his health is capped at 1 and cannot be added; Ghosts are immune to bullet damage, but will automatically teleport to the left and right sides of the screen; The Diamond Dealer allows players to get 8 random items at the beginning of the game, but they can't encounter the shop later...... There are many variations.

Each weapon has to be based on the combo mechanic, and design a unique gameplay and strategy. The pistol has circular area damage when it has a high combo, and the laser gun deals piercing damage when it has a combo.

I asked them, since the difference of each design is so demanding, how can we ensure that the inspiration is continuous in the process of paving?

Lei Li said that they have a draft of the gameplay, such as upgrade props, random events, characters, weapons, etc., and they will record them as soon as they have an idea. At present, there are already drafts of dozens of characters and more than a dozen weapons, and when I spread the volume, I just picked out some content with relatively high certainty and large imagination space.

It is precisely because the peripheral content is very rich, and the combination of different characters and weapons can bring a very fresh and interesting experience. In order to guide players to play with these different combinations, Gun Guy has designed a sticker book system.

Each sticker in the sticker book represents a certain combination, and if you clear a certain combination with a certain sticker, you will get that sticker. After obtaining the stickers, the game will also give players different amounts of gold coins according to the difficulty of the sticker collection, so that everyone can unlock new content faster.

After enriching the outboard content, the team refocused their attention on the in-house design. Initially, the game had only one map, with different enemies and mechanics randomly appearing in each round. However, after testing, it was found that the cost of understanding the content was high, and the difficulty of the game was difficult to balance.

So, they decided to split it into multiple maps and design a clear theme for each map.

In the Ghost level, the Ghost is a resident enemy that must be destroyed by a prolonged glow and has no effect on bullets.

Chainsaw levels, on the other hand, are full of chainsaw-related mechanics, such as enemies equipping chainsaws, or chainsaws pulling ropes in the scene.

These new events and enemies are scattered across different levels to keep players fresh and make the difficulty curve more controllable. The official version is planned to include about 40 random events and 10 maps with different themes, and the overall gameplay time is expected to be more than 10 hours.

Swipe left and right to view

03

What should a family game do?

Lei Li and Lao Yu observed that domestic players still have a large demand for this kind of family carnival game. They usually bring their family or friends along with them as soon as they experience a fun game. This observation confirms that they make the game more relaxed and enjoyable.

Difficulty adjustment is a big focus.

According to the demo version of the survey, 60% of players found the difficulty to be "a bit challenging, but not bad", which is also the difficulty they found more appropriate, and the number of players who found it too easy or too difficult was in the single digits.

The final version will be divided into three difficulties: Normal difficulty is a difficulty that casual players can gradually grasp and clear after many attempts. Hardcore players may be able to beat the Normal difficulty relatively quickly, but it will also take a long time to beat the hard difficulty. In addition, there are nightmare difficulties that developers may not be able to beat.

Different characters themselves are also given difficulty stratification, for example, novice players can use grass with higher health, or fruit characters with a higher chance of having a heart fruit (regeneration).

However, simple characters will score lower, and players will be slower to unlock subsequent content if they keep playing these characters. Once players become proficient, they will naturally choose to use advanced characters to unlock subsequent content faster.

In terms of dynamic mechanics, they paid special attention to alleviating frustration in multiplayer scenarios.

The spawn rate of enemies fluctuates slightly depending on the player's proficiency, with more skilled players killing enemies faster and enemies spawning faster, and novice players killing enemies slower and enemies spawning a little slower.

When the player has only one life left, the chance of the Hearts enemy appearing is doubled; In multiplayer, when there is only one player left on the field, enemy spawn rates are reduced, giving survivors more respite.

Enemies who take the initiative to send health regeneration items to the player

If a player fails a level in a row, the store will refresh a super powerful item, which will give the team's maximum health +2, but all players will reduce their score more, and the higher the number of consecutive failures, the more likely they are to farm this item.

"Even though it's a meat pigeon, we don't want players and friends to be stuck in a certain level and never get through. If you really can't beat it, you can choose to upgrade the item, but it may lower your score a bit. ”

In addition to the gameplay, they have also carefully designed an out-of-game gold and skin system.

Lei Li mentioned that the gold coin system was originally added to give players the goal of unlocking new characters and weapons, and at the same time appropriately increase the replay of the game.

At the end of each round, the score is converted into gold, and gold is also awarded for death

Reduce the feeling that players are playing for nothing

In the later stage, in order to solve the problem of too much gold, they added a skin system, which does not affect the gameplay, but can show the player's personality.

Characters, weapons, and skins are unlocked in the Gold Shop

Lao Yu said, "We have also made ship skins now, which are also pure appearances, and it will feel cool to change to a powerful ship skin when teaming up with friends." ”

Even the studio's logo was incorporated into the skin design

During the development process, they also witnessed the game's family moments. Lao Yu said that she was very happy that her mother had cleared the game, and she also saw comments on clearing the game with her 7-year-old sister at station B, and even a friend's cat played the game, but it failed to clear the game.

The game is scheduled to launch in the first half of next year, and the pricing will be more friendly, and the team says that it hopes to make it easy for players to call friends to play together.

04

epilogue

When asked "what is the biggest challenge in the development process", Lei Li and Lao Yu were indifferent, saying that the whole was in line with expectations.

In the official field photos of WePlay in 2023, Lao Yu and Lei Li are the most conspicuous green hats and blue clothes. (also with a clown pillow for the game)

They are perhaps the rare small team that did not make any detours throughout the development process. They explained that both of them were very cautious and had a lot of certainty before committing full-time.

From design to production, Lei Li and Lao Yu will confirm it repeatedly, such as listing many gameplay drafts and picking out the most interesting content to put in.

In terms of the production process, basically Lei Li first designed the gameplay, made a prototype for verification, and determined that the gameplay was fun, and then Lao Yu designed the corresponding visual effects. After Lei Li connects the art, he adjusts the art details according to the gameplay experience. It can be said that the development process is completely driven by gameplay.

Their division of labor is also very simple. The gameplay and program are almost all done by Lei Li, and Lao Yu will complete the entire art part at one time, and the music and sound effects are handed over to the outsourced sound teachers to be fully responsible, and this process will hardly be reworked, which is very efficient.

"Maybe because we have some experience in the industry before, we will be a little more experienced in the control of the game."

Click on "Maker" on the title page of the game

I saw three happy producers scribbling into the main interface

This may be a good path for indie game development.

Have a good idea, and build up the network to bring it to life, and quickly validate the prototype in a small competition. During the development process, it is driven by gameplay and focuses on polishing the core experience to avoid rework and waste. When the game takes shape and the response exceeds expectations, we are determined to dedicate ourselves to working full-time to turn the results into concrete actions.

From small-scale validation to full-time investment, they demonstrate the possibility of independent development: exploration with minimal cost, decisive decision-making when the time comes, and finally orderly and mature.

And in the process, everyone is very happy.

Lao Yu said that the feeling of working now is not the same as before. In the past, when I worked in a large factory, I often encountered some conflicting situations, such as you designed a good solution, but in the end you were planned to choose the worst implementation solution.

And now, they are able to make the most of their strengths. Although Lei Li is a programmer, he is also very strong in gameplay design. It is precisely because the planning and program are the same person that the feel can be adjusted to the best. If you only understand the program and don't know much about gameplay design, it may be difficult to do this.

As a veteran fish who is in charge of art for the first time, she feels very fulfilled to be able to participate in all aspects of the entire game art.

In his spare time, Lao Yu also designed a lot of physical peripherals for the game

"When you work in a large factory, you may only be responsible for one piece of content, and it is difficult to implement other parts even if you have an idea. But in this project, for example, I can build the UI directly in Unity by myself, without the help of the program, and this sense of freedom and control makes me very happy. ”

This article is from Xinzhi self-media and does not represent the views and positions of Business Xinzhi.If there is any suspicion of infringement, please contact the administrator of the Business News Platform.Contact: system@shangyexinzhi.com