Chapter 95: If you don't give players an immersive experience, are you even human?

Chapter 95: If you don't give players an immersive experience, are you even human?

For now, let's set aside the story background.

Focusing solely on gameplay.

Elements such as numerical design, equipment, rolling, Perfect Guard, backstabs, and other aspects of the Combat System—

These aren't particularly novel concepts in other ACT and RPG games.

However, the biggest characteristic of Dark Souls is how it perfectly blends these existing elements with map levels and boss designs, creating a distinct level-driven game.

Everything is designed to serve one purpose: pushing players forward through levels, overcoming powerful enemies, and achieving a sense of accomplishment and pride.

Combined with the Memory Capsule, the entire concept draft took Chen Xu nearly a full day and a half to complete.

And even then, it wasn't a complete draft.

It only briefly outlined the game's core elements. Broader content, including detailed storylines, was entirely omitted.

After all, this was just a preliminary draft. Some finer details still needed refinement before further progress could be made.

Everyone had arrived early in the meeting room, quietly discussing among themselves while seated in their places.

But as soon as Chen Xu pushed open the door and entered, the room instantly fell silent.

"I believe most of you already have an idea about today's meeting agenda. That's right—it's about our new game."

"No need for extra words. Let me first introduce the project. The theme will be a Western fantasy setting."

"In terms of art style, it'll differ significantly from the games we've developed so far."

"The overall tone will be a deep, dark realistic art style. The game's visual impression will be based on Western European architecture. Within the game, there will be various regions—Farron Keep, Undead Burg, Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, and more—encompassing diverse cultural elements such as Baroque-style structures and Romanesque churches."

Chen Xu pressed his hands on the table. Behind him, the projector screen displayed various hand-drawn concept art pieces.

If the story of Dark Souls was its skeleton and gameplay its soul, then its visual presentation was clearly its outer shell.

And this was precisely the first thing players would experience. That's why Chen Xu had invested so much effort into making the CGI exceptionally polished, then unveiled it at the exhibition.

Classic European-style architecture, combined with a dark aesthetic, and armor and weapon designs reminiscent of medieval melee weapon armor.

Clearly, the art style of Dark Souls revealed at the exhibition had already struck a deep chord with players.

Next, Chen Xu explained some of the systems in Dark Souls.

For instance, the Combat System. Besides mechanics like invincible rolling, Perfect Guard, backstabs, and durability—all of which were already present in most ACT games—

The team wasn't particularly unfamiliar with them. Everyone already had a general idea in mind. The remaining task was just fine-tuning and subtle adjustments to the actions.

Additionally, there would be some special mechanics.

For example, different weapons would each have unique weapon arts.

Moreover, unlike in his previous life, the Technical capabilities of this Parallel World allowed Chen Xu to enhance the game's visual presentation even further.

Of course, this wasn't the main core—it was more about refining the details of the experience.

"Also, our primary focus at the beginning will be on producing art resources. Qin Yi, for your team, I need the game's actions to be even more outstanding."

Chen Xu said, looking directly at Qin Yi.

Upon hearing Chen Xu's words, Qin Yi and the others nodded in agreement.

Although Dark Souls wasn't an ACT-type game but rather a level-driven game,

This didn't mean Action Elements were unimportant. Quite the opposite—Action Elements were a Core Aspect of the Dark Souls experience.

Or rather, any game involving action demands extremely strict requirements for its effects.

Speaking more directly about action feedback, it boils down to the sense of impact and fluidity.

For example, the renowned Elder Scrolls V from Chen Xu's previous life—its sense of impact was essentially equivalent to swinging at air.

As an ARPG, while this didn't detract from its overall excellence, in terms of combat experience, it was genuinely lackluster—so much so that it became a turn-off for some players.

The most common method to create a sense of impact, aside from sound effects, is the freeze-frame impact technique.

Put simply: if a weapon swing from initiation to retraction takes 60 frames, when it lands on a monster, the animation pauses for a few frames, creating the sensation of a blade cutting into flesh. This is what's known as the sense of impact.

Games like Monster Hunter (informal), God of War, and Street Fighter from Chen Xu's previous life were prime examples of this.

However, for Dark Souls, creating the right sense of impact—avoiding the feeling of cutting air—would require meticulous parameter tuning.

Freeze-frame impact isn't suitable for every game. For instance, the fluid rhythm of Ninja Gaiden's cutting tofu or the combo attacks in the Devil May Cry series generally don't benefit from freeze-frame impact.

These were aspects that required continuous team iteration. Relying solely on Chen Xu to personally handle everything wasn't realistic.

Moreover, in the future, he definitely wouldn't stop developing games involving action mechanics.

Therefore, the team needed to keep experimenting and optimizing. During the development of Outlast, Chen Xu had already had such intentions.

Meanwhile, over the past two months while developing Fall Guys and Sanguosha, Qin Yi's team had primarily focused on optimizing action feedback.

The current effectiveness was barely satisfactory, but there was still considerable room for improvement.

As for other game content, it was relatively straightforward—mainly outsourcing art resource production.

Regarding map level design, the interconnected nature of Dark Souls' regions made it quite complex.

This was a standard interconnected design.

For example, a player in Area A travels to Area B, only to discover a hidden path leading back to Area A.

Later, upon reaching Area C, they find yet another hidden path that also loops back to Area A.

This was a classic Metroidvania-style map design technique.

However, in Dark Souls, it evolved from 2D side-scrolling into a true 3D立体 mode.

With some puzzle-solving and exploration elements, this became one of Dark Souls' distinctive features.

In Chen Xu's previous life, many veteran players who had experienced Dark Souls 1 were dissatisfied with Dark Souls 3, believing DS3 wasn't as good as DS1, primarily due to changes in map design.

For new players, however, this design could be seen as an act of mercy.

Even so, as Chen Xu detailed the game's content, Ruan Ningxue, responsible for map levels, looked bewildered.

"You're not including a mini-map in the game?" Ruan Ningxue noticed a Core Aspect Chen Xu mentioned and asked, looking bewildered.

"Exactly. This way, players can truly appreciate the charm of the game's map. Why are more and more games minimizing their UI, or even striving to hide it entirely?"

"It's to enhance the player's sense of immersion. Think about Dark Souls' setting—a world of despair. Removing the mini-map strengthens this immersion. Combined with the interconnected map design, it also gives players a sense of delightful discovery."

Chen Xu explained with a smile.

The absence of a mini-map was indeed a hallmark of Souls-like games.

Even in subsequent titles like Elden Ring, which featured a map system, players still had to manually collect map fragments—just like in Hollow Knight—a design considered truly classic.

As for getting lost?

Just die a few more times and run back and forth—eventually, you'll memorize it!

All of this was for the players!

If a developer takes players' money but doesn't strive to give them a more immersive experience, are they even human?

(Daily request for recommendation votes and Monthly Pass! Also, tomorrow's update will be a bit later. The reason is that the book might go on sale tomorrow—or it might not. If it does go on sale, I'll be able to release updates freely, and you'll never be able to say those three words—'you're too short'—again.)

(End of Chapter) <>