A game type
Tomorrow’s Ark” is a hardcore tower defense strategy-type game, with the theme of secondary cultivation, under the background of virus-infected doomsday as the world view, the underground infrastructure and the integration of ground movement are interlinked, and the overall rhythm is tense and exciting, even in the environment of infrastructure is also tense production, and the personnel continues to feel exhausted. The flash of smoke and the urgent tone in the battle interface are factors that exacerbate the sense of tension. Ark’s player sources are also mostly secondary players, such as the Wipeout series, Hearthstone, and Yin Yang Shi.
In addition to the conventional tower defense gameplay, the biggest degree of surprise in the gameplay is: the impression of going to the cards and heavy infrastructure raising. From Hearthstone to Royal War, it is a breakthrough from cards to placement, but the placement game still can’t get rid of the hard impression of cards, the reason is whether or not the nurturing system outside of the battle has a real sense of reality, Ark’s infrastructure nurturing undoubtedly meets the players’ association for survival and production of the end of days, including the setting of search and recruitment, intelligence clues type of illustration.
Two plot settings
① Perspective: (conversion of person perspective)
The first-person perspective plot to strengthen the sense of plot immersion, science fiction film-style opening plot, in the integration of the campaign, the player as Rhode Island’s amnesiac doctor, in the access interface with the assistant for intermittent dialogue, the player for their own persona is relatively easy to accept, for the early stage of the plot is also easier to understand, but with the later in-depth, no emotional substitution carrier (you can not see yourself) difficult to generate internal Ties.
Compared to the third-person perspective of the main plot of the Undertaker, the player has less sense of self-existence, but it facilitates the presentation of the full scenario of the plot and helps to shape the personality of Haruaki.
The movie is set to jump, that is, the first second third person in different scenes to jump to each other, so the benefit is to reduce the player’s sense of boredom and increase the all-round expression of the plot, the ark and the yin and yang division need to add more such jumps in the longer plot, may have a better novelty and experience.
② Levels: (Novel comic book style opening)
Ark’s levels are guided by photo walls as chapter segments, from the prologue: Dark Age on, Chapter 1: Dark Age on, Chapter 2: The Same Life of Different Eggs, etc. Each chapter is like the opening chapter of Guo Jingming’s novel, whose photo depth of field content also has a European classical knight style, with a grand sense of ritual and mystery, also catering to the daily reading style of secondary users, and the levels within each chapter adopt a motion parallax approach. As the conquered level extends backwards, the movement of the background foreshadows the continuous advancement of the integration movement, which, together with the change of atmosphere during the day and evening, pushes the mindstream of further conquering the level to the climax.
Three newbie guidance
① Self-consistent words: In contrast to the process-based instruction for other games, Ark’s players, as Rhode Island’s amnesiac doctors, echo the confusion they feel when accessing the interface through PRTS and the dilemma they feel as new players, thus reducing players’ frustration with the complex environment and process. (Voiceover: You don’t know, you just have amnesia, to give players a reasonable psychological implication) including taking the name interface will prompt: can you recall your name?
② cadre branch: character attributes with play only guide once, so you need to especially for multiple types of career combing, outside the main line more expansion for each attribute with play, otherwise it is difficult for players to establish the concept of attributes for a short time. If in the system play to open a career branch plot, for different attributes of the career for training, by the way, here you can establish the character personality and career story through the plot, just like the right to swim in the different families of the division, it should be a more sensational new guide.
③ Mary Sue style reversal: The Ark uses the prologue level as a newbie guide, just as a novel uses the prologue to explain the story background and character lineage, and arranges the newbie guide more cleverly in the plot, for example, when facing a new way to play, a new character will appear to talk to “me”, and when I don’t understand the rules, Amia will explain to the new character When I don’t understand the rules, Amia will explain to the new character that “I” can’t remember how to lead the team to stop the integration movement because of my memory loss. With Amia’s encouragement and the new character’s suspicion, the player will have a strong sense of mission to overcome the level, a plot idea similar to Mary Sue tried and true in the secondary players’ newbie guide.
④ Rewards for apprentice tasks: The rewards for novice tasks in Ark are richer than the mainline storyline, and by increasing the rewards for tasks in the early stages, it allows novice players to pass through the period of lack of resources smoothly. And in turn, it attracts players to check out the unfinished apprentice quests for targeted teaching and social guidance.
Four system gameplay
① Core gameplay: tower defense combat, by reasonably allocating and dispatching different types of cadres to block against different terrains and infected. The cadres are divided into vanguard, sniper, close guard, warlock, heavy, medical, special, and auxiliary, with different deployment costs, attack ranges, and land requirements. Terrain gameplay, terrain is divided into flat land, highland, sunken, masonry composition, different terrain constitutes a different line of defense and attack, part of the level to add holes and gas. Combat location from the ground to the roof, I do not know whether the later will be introduced into the aqueduct, currently only the difference between high ground and flat ground, for the deployment of dry personnel terrain is relatively bland. The local units that are targeted are source stone worms, hounds, soldiers, crossbowmen, warlocks, airborne soldiers, dual-wielding swordsmen, light armor guards, heavy defenders, as well as electronic spiders, drones, etc. and some bosses. numerous plots, cadres, terrain, and enemy units match each other, thus deriving a variety of ways to play.
The match of gameplay is therefore, the match of cadres and plot (such as the appearance of cadres in a specific plot), the match between cadres (medical and output units), the match between cadres and terrain (the match between special cadres such as A-combat and ground trap), the match between cadres and enemy units (the match between auxiliary and heavy defenders), the match between terrain and plot (the match between hole in the ground and boss level), the match between plot and enemy units ( rooftop combat and drones), and pairings between enemy units (imperial 4 gain drones vs. enemy drones). There are also a variety of type combinations, providing a variety of combat options for subsequent levels of the game.
② Main line of combat, integrating the main line of campaign plot advancement and placing extensive infrastructure and nurturing materials. Adopting the core gameplay and plot settings mentioned above. Main line of combat in the first three chapters are single line of advancement, there is a clear guide, the disadvantage is easy to get stuck, but also the part of the game is more commented, it is best to set up branches in some of the more card points, such as 1-12, 2-5, S2-8 and other levels, or the use of wormhole jump to the material preparation that can be transitioned, chip search levels. Avoid the difficulty gradient between some levels is too large, causing frustration.
③ Other combat: material preparation, chip search and annihilation combat, light plot, focus on putting infrastructure and elite character materials. Setting a higher difficulty is deserved and needs to be paired with the main combat so that players know roughly what the general difficulty corresponds to. The material preparation and chip search is carried out for specific terrain and characters, generally corresponding to the player’s first number of formations, but also for the main plot of the transfer. Extermination combat is similar to endless mode, defeating different levels of numbers to give the corresponding rewards, infinite combat compared to the main line of a short period of time combat mode has a more lasting experience, players through the early difficult situation, the later enjoy a once and for all experience and a large kill picture is very sensational, but also many people like the mode very much.
④ Mission setting: There are apprentice missions, daily missions, weekly missions, and main missions in Ark. Especially in the early stage, players will also therefore check the task list to complete specific teaching. The pan understanding for mission setting lies in keeping the right user stickiness and establishing goals through missions. 13 rules are set for daily missions, which are short goals. Weekly tasks are set for 12 rules, which are long goals. Generally, the cumulative number of daily tasks is a little less, to avoid players missing part of the daily tasks and not getting enough weekly tasks, to avoid frustrating players’ motivation, and the goal segmentation is good for encouraging players to reach greater achievements. For the long game can even set monthly tasks, the trade-offs of this point to be more to understand the next.
⑤ Infrastructure development: the setting of underground infrastructure as a game outside the battle, but also has considerable appeal. Just as “Wandering Earth” depicts that humans will eventually huddle in underground life at the edge of the end, the infrastructure in the ark is divided into control hubs, power stations, manufacturing stations, trade wars, manpower offices, meeting rooms, dormitories, etc. Players need to frequently mobilize cadres for rest and work, set mood values to adjust rest and touch to improve intimacy. Among them, the decorative dormitory, in addition to the derivative decorative atmosphere to improve the mood value of the play, and extended the kryptonite store. Further expansion of the game play, but also the most relaxing moment in the entire game, and the tense and exciting battle interface to form a contrast to the player’s emotions can form a very good conditioning.
More rooms can be opened up by upgrading the control hub. Here I take the control hub 3.0 to 4.0 as an example to elaborate the formation of closed-loop connection between the infrastructure and the main line of action, the manufacturing station and trade war in the infrastructure is used to produce experience coins for cadres to upgrade, cadres in the specific main line of action level to get the keel of the control hub, control hub 3.0 upgrade requires 8 secondary infrastructure rooms, infrastructure room upgrades require infrastructure materials, cadres in the preparation of supplies to obtain infrastructure materials. Through the infrastructure materials and keel to achieve the control hub upgrade, open up more rooms, and let the manufacturing station and trade war again upgrade, so faster and more production experience coins for cadres to upgrade, cadres can pass the main line of battle and supplies to prepare the corresponding level. Thus forming a closed loop of gameplay. You can jump directly to the corresponding level at the infrastructure material according to the location of the material drop, which also realizes the closed loop in operation, despite the complex logic, but by jumping to achieve the ease of use of the product.
(6) Social: The social settings in Ark include support units, access to infrastructure, personal business cards, meeting rooms, etc. This is less experienced at the moment, and will be enhanced later to understand the next.
Interaction design
1. Interface UI depth
Graphic perspective: the combat interface presents a tilted perspective for the placement of cadres, and the main interface is arranged in an angular perspective, increasing the depth of the interface through the oblique cut of the functional panels on both sides, so that the visual extension to the characters and produce focus. And the function module of perspective is also the performance of in-picture visual effect, which is a kind of futuristic immersion design.
Motion parallax: The transition interface of the cadre seeking interface and the main plot advancement interface. Interface layering is usually two or three layers, motion parallax creates depth information in the relative displacement, through different levels, different displacement size changes, to produce a real spatial depth and comfortable interactive feel. And the main interface uses gyroscope to sense the tilt degree of the user’s device and realize motion parallax through the layered motion of the interface.
Shallow depth of field: The depth of field in Ark is achieved by blurring the rear view and foreground, such as the photo wall in the main line of combat and the background of the level in the chapter. The shallow depth of field can pull apart the layers and produce spatial depth by showing the real and imaginary, which can be changed according to the interface presentation needs and selectively show the primary and secondary information of the interface.
2. Global index
Set the global index in addition to the main interface, so that players can quickly find the relevant interface and understand the distribution of game functions, and inspire the second guide to set up the game with complex functions.
3.Fault-tolerant hints based on world view
When clicking on unlocked rooms in the infrastructure, the prompt is no signal detected, similar to the reality where the room is deeper and cannot receive WiFi signal. And prompt the need to unlock the conditions, if necessary, you can directly click to carry out the relevant level of the jump.
4. Character interaction
By clicking on the infrastructure of the characters can increase the intimacy, or click on the main interface of the characters appear corresponding action and sound, very pleasing, which is also very familiar to the crash and inhumane school players, there was a setting by clicking on different locations and produce different words, later may be removed due to indecency, although with some good interactive feedback experience, but need to design as appropriate.
VI Summary of advantages and disadvantages
① Rich worldview: Dr. Rhode Island’s amnesia, the search for recruiting cadres (characters with specific identities), the source stone infected (threatening enemies), infrastructure (ruined environment), integrated campaign (diverse combat), dormitory dressing and furniture mall, etc. constitute a rich plot.
② Complete strategy: the game for the terrain and cadres to cooperate with combat, different types of infrastructure rooms, infrastructure upgrades and expansion, cadres through experience card upgrades, and through the repeated acquisition of tokens to star, and cadres elite.
③ fine art UI: the secondary style of exquisite painting, elitist characters present a more refined style, similar to the style of the anime “Tokyo Ghoul” awakening to produce contrast.
④ Anti-addiction sanity: by setting the sanity value, alluding to reasonable game, long time game has lost sanity, cleverly remind players to arrange the game time reasonably.
⑤ dubbing list: the game for the character information, for the dubbing for the classification of the list, convenient for secondary players to play, so set the guess is to facilitate some players to post-production, such as the use of different dubbing for video creation released to the b station to further attract traffic.
Disadvantages
① for the disconnected career guidance: the understanding of the cadre classification in the early stage of the detailed guidance is not done, resulting in the difficulty of understanding the player, perhaps in the picture page to do a career classification summary, the current summary of the character picture is only the relationship picture, help to understand the plot, but for the user care about cognitive occupation is not very helpful.
② The gradient setting of the nurturing combat mode, the difficulty gradient of the main combat and material preparation and other part of the level setting is too large, very easy to cause stuck, and stuck to various modes can not make progress, into self-doubt.
③ agent mode time-consuming problem, the game level by setting the agent mode can quickly repaint drop rewards, and even randomly set the agent’s mistakes, may be a planning in order to increase the length of the game online, two in order to allow players to more reasonable arming, but this part of the game experience is relatively poor. If the agent mode can indeed effectively increase the time and gain, can be set not three stars before the agent, can increase the difficulty of three stars, through the agent of one star and two stars, adjust the progress of combat and placement, so as to achieve three stars.
