Text/Nine Lotus Treasure Lamp

About a month ago, there was a second game called "Annihilation: Borderline" that was launched.

The announcement of this game is not high-profile, and when it comes to this game, many people may feel unfamiliar, but for those who have heard of it, they may sigh: "Why is this project that has been favored by Tencent and NetEase one after another?"

Grape Jun had a report on the movement of this game in 2022, when it received Tencent investment and NetEase's exclusive global agency, but since then, the game seems to have not been heard from.

What has the game been through over the years? What is the background of this project, which can attract the attention of large manufacturers at that time? Before the game went live, we caught up with K. Lao, the game's producer and founder of Gilfi Studios, to chat with him about the ins and outs of the project and team, as well as their plans for the future.

01

The hottest era of the second dimension

The Gilfi studio currently has about 70 people. Unlike most Guangzhou game companies, they are not based in Tianhe or Haizhu, but in the old town of Liwan. Looking out from the company's conference room, the scenery of the Pearl River is close in front of you.

On the table in their conference room, there are a large number of mecha models. Some of them were bought outside the studio, and some were rough patterns that they designed and 3D printed themselves.

The founders of the studio, Lao K and King, told me that they were both "Lao Guang" who was born in the late 70s, and they are also old game people. The two became friends through a common hobby of model toys, which led to the creation of the game studio.

Lao K used to work as a producer in the Guangzhou branch of Daewoo Information, and participated in the development of "Monopoly 9", and often exchanged production experience with Yao Zhuangxian. After the dissolution of Guangzhou Daewoo, Lao K helped some non-Internet industrial companies to produce some small games for brand promotion, and participated in the production and distribution of some two-dimensional games as an executive producer appointed by the investor, and achieved good results.

Although it is the first time to participate in the production of the second game, he said that he can actually be regarded as the first generation of "old two-dimensional" in China, so he is very confident that he can understand the direction of players' needs.

Considering the advantages of the team, Lao K felt that he could do games with the theme of "two-dimensional + military weapons", and even better in mechanical design. So he and King founded Gilfi and set up Oblivion: Borderline.

That was in 2021, and the booming "Genshin Impact" made many people see the commercial value of the two-dimensional track. And Lao K's qualifications and background quickly made their team win the favor of big manufacturers. NetEase announced that it would be their exclusive global agent, and Tencent brought them investment. For a time, their future was full of possibilities.

But just then, some unexpected circumstances disrupted their pace.

First of all, the epidemic has affected the speed of development, and the progress of the version number application has not been smooth.

After the product entered the testing period, due to various reasons, the production team reached a peaceful breakup with NetEase, and then they needed to set up their own operation team and publish independently, adding more workload.

It wasn't until the second half of 2024 that they were finally ready and it was officially launched.

02

"Niche, colorless, no selling point"

Old K admits that they don't have much demand for the revenue of their products. After all, the project has dragged on for too long, and with current eyes, Annihilation: Borderline may not seem very new at first glance.

"There is no way, because we are a R&D company, and our funds are mainly used for development, so we can't afford to support a large amount of publicity and distribution expenses, so it can only depend on how the product is. It's best if Annihilation can feed the team, and if not, it's okay not to lose too much."

In my opinion, "Annihilation: Borderline" is a very "typical" two-dimensional military war chess.

The game depicts an alternate world in which humanity really begins to come together after war. But out of nowhere, a mechanized legion has suddenly appeared, and they have mastered a number of special technologies that can erode and control human weapons and equipment, and carry out indiscriminate attacks on the entire planet.

However, the human side has also mastered the technical means of a special enhanced exoskeleton weapon, and has been guarded by a battle girl called "Concept Model" to defend the continuation of civilization.

From the perspective of gameplay, the game is a kind of checkered war chess that is generally small on the battlefield, and the pace is faster than many war chess on the market, and the importance of cultivation seems to take precedence over strategy.

Lao K told me that this is based on the experience he accumulated when he was working on the "Monopoly 9" project in Daewoo, Guangzhou. According to his research at the time, as long as the board exceeded 28 squares, the player's single hand play was likely to exceed 10 minutes, which is the limit of fragmented time.

He also mentioned "Ark of Tomorrow", in his opinion, on the premise of taking care of the performance of the mobile game, the complete display of the board on the screen can increase the sense of refinement of the picture.

In addition to the fast-paced gameplay of Annihilation: Borderline, there is some special fun to play. In the game, the units are divided into air and ground, which can be roughly understood as planes and tanks. The space they can move and the objects they can attack will all make a difference, making the game a composite two-tiered battle game.

In addition, many of the features in the product also have a relatively strong "old military house" flavor.

For example, from the perspective of art and setting, these conceptual models are basically related to the military equipment of various countries during World War II. This hits the nail on the head of one of the most important hobbies in the military house.

In terms of gameplay, the units in the game also have very detailed positioning differences, for example, in addition to tanks, ground units also have destroyers, artillery, anti-aircraft guns, and maintenance vehicles; Air units are also divided into fighters, attack aircraft, bombers, transport aircraft. Different units have different advantages, and Lao K said that the division of labor of these units is the same as the historical positioning, showing a real battlefield relationship of armor and ammunition confrontation.

Another example is the more "red" content. Lao K believes that perhaps because of his age, he can perceive more keenly that there is a lack of enough products with red eroticism in the current second game market.

He felt the need to make a second game with this kind of characteristics, showing the idea of human unity more thoroughly. Therefore, at the beginning of the game, they designed the worldview as a world in which all of humanity works together to defend against an unknown invasion.

"We are very serious about telling a parallel world story that imagines a community with a shared future for mankind."

In practice, they also followed this idea. The characters in the game come from different countries, and they specifically contact the artists of their countries to draw them. Some military equipment belong to the country of the two-dimensional culture is not strong, so it is not easy to find a suitable painter.

The third point is that they have their own standards for the design of these characters. Lao K said that although they know that the target users of the game are men, they do not want all the beautiful girl characters in the game to be designed from the perspective of "edge ball", but to make the characters relatively look more battlefield-like, which can bring a better sense of immersion.

"If we want to be a little more colorful, of course we can do it, but we still want to do normal work. It's bound to be difficult, and it's bound to be said to be niche, unattractive, and unselling, and I can understand that."

As a senior model player, Lao K knows many of his like-minded fans, and they are often unrelenting in model consumption. In his opinion, for these groups, game consumption may not be a burden, and if they can do what they like, they may be able to gain a stable group of customers.

Following this logic, the core direction pursued by Gilfi's work is also determined to be mechanical aesthetics (mecha design). After so many years, there have been countless second tours with the theme of military warriors, but the design of military equipment will always become irrelevant in the end. "Annihilation" hopes to highlight the mechanical beauty more strongly through vertical painting.

Specifically, they tried their best to unify the core idea of exoskeleton armor while making each mecha present a different design scheme. And these mechs also need to be close to the style of the unit prototype, for example, for a tank, its tracks, muzzle characteristics, are all designs that they will refine and use when making the corresponding exoskeleton armor.

In the actual art, it can also be seen that their military equipment will occupy a larger area in the vertical painting, and the design is more refined and reasonable:

In contrast to many designs where heavy equipment is tethered directly to a character's waist, their characters usually sit on the equipment in various riding positions, making the equipment look more like a real mech. They also designed some parts like joysticks to strengthen the connection between the character and the equipment.

Gilfi Studios has a special preference for mechs. In fact, while developing Annihilation: Borderline, they are already working on a second product, Matte: Interstellar Millennium.

In their anticipation, Matte Light will be a mecha battle game with a greater emphasis on mechanics, and the project has been in development for two years now, and may be available soon. The 3D printer armor on the conference room table is the same character they will appear in "Matte" in the future.

03

"We want to benchmark against Bandai"

After listening to them introduce these two products, my first reaction was worrying: why did they insist on making a second one after making such a tragic track as war chess?

But Lao K said that the goal of their company was not a war game or even a game from the beginning. Although Annihilation is a 2D game, many of the mecha designs have been verified by 3D modeling. "Matte" is a 3D printed physical version. The purpose of all this is to make model toys.

For the "Matte" project under development, they plan to cooperate with a number of domestic model toy companies to produce story content for the existing IP of these model toy companies, and will also design their own mecha in this product and hand it over to the model toy manufacturers to make physical toys.

"Our real goal is to make a domestic version of Super Robot Wars through this project. We don't want to target companies in the gaming industry, but brands like Bandai."

Lao K explained that in the model game market, Bandai has almost no rivals in the world. But if you understand the domestic model, you will find that the production process and materials of the domestic brand are now better than Bandai. The main problem why they can't reach Wanda's scale is the lack of IP.

This is an open problem in the field of domestic models, but still no one wants to do it. Because IP is a long-term work, and directly producing some high-precision models similar to the Gundam design can be quite profitable even without IP.

So, Gilfi decided to take over the job of creating the IP. They have signed agreements with several of the largest alloy toy manufacturers in China, and will make their products into "Matte", so that the game will show a similar flavor to "Super Robot Wars".

"We hope to make the whole industry strong together, our company is the best at making IP in toy design, and these manufacturers are the best at making alloy product toys. We all happen to be near Guangdong, so that's our biggest strategic goal."

As the domestic game market continues to mature, it is becoming more and more difficult for small and medium-sized teams to survive and thrive. But on the other hand, news such as "the activation of the second yuan millet store offline" is constantly emerging.

This may indicate that domestic gamers are integrating game culture into their lifestyles. Rather than constantly competing for players' online time, can small and medium-sized game teams find better opportunities if they focus on offline? At present, there is no sufficiently representative precedent in China, and we do not know. But Grape Jun looks forward to the small and medium-sized teams, including Gilfi, being able to find more new paths in the game industry in the future.

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