Looking at Gas Hero from Creativity and Rhythm
Original author: Mable Jiang (X:@Mable_Jiang）
This article comes from Mable Jiangtweets（X：@Mable_Jiang), which started from the book Creativity and Rhythm by the famous Japanese game planner Hideo Yoshizawa, and shared his insights on the game creativity and rhythm of Gas Hero. Odaily compiled it as follows:
Today I spent three hours reading Creativity and Rhythm by the famous Japanese game planner Hideo Yoshizawa. This is a book that has a profound influence on Gas Hero producer Johnny. The book introduces many thinking frameworks and methodologies for game planning to form ideas and rhythm.
As I read, I reflected on what these frameworks would look like on Gas Hero. I took some notes based on my observations and experiences at close range over the past six months.
Core creativity [theme/concept/system (means + path)]
The starting point of a game is often an idea, but in fact there are very few ideas that can become core ideas. Often, the core is not enough to support a complete game, and more supporting ideas are derived (all used to strengthen the core idea). of). Of course, creativity does not need to be a completely new idea. It is usually the result of combining some existing elements in a new way.
I have never asked Johnny about the original origin of Gas Hero, maybe he doesn’t even know it (I’ll leave this aside for a future podcast). I am often curious about the creative process of game planning. I will ask the game planner himself from various angles whether he has thought about the complex theoretical support of xyz during the creative process.
He told me honestly that was not the case. The process of truly arriving at the core idea is more like a spider spinning its web, weaving here and there for a while, and finally arriving at a center. In this process, game planners will constantly ask themselves many questions and then try to answer them. This process of slowly reaching the core from chaos is more like artistic creation than rational sorting. Many times, the logical thinking later in the AMA is actually summarized after the fact (laughs).
So when there is no correct answer for the time being, I will try to sort it out according to my understanding and use Mr. Yoshizawas framework.
Johnny was deeply influenced by Cairo. There was once a Cairo game. He forgot the name. I asked GPT and couldnt find it out, but the core presentation is that there are a bunch of settlements and there can be interactions between the settlements. He thought it was a good social experiment, but unfortunately because the interaction there was too single (my understanding is mainly cooperation), the pace was not good (too slow, easy to get bored), and the sense of social interaction could not continue.
But this inspiration itself is actually an initial inspiration for building the core idea of Gas Hero, and determines the theme of the game: social interaction. This step is probably similar to the drawing shogi gameplay mentioned in the book that inspired The Burrower.
So how can we build a sustainable social network?
When people live every day, they perform various behaviors under the rules of society and give meaning to their existence. So in other words, as long as the assumption that human beings are social animals holds true, if games can abstract interactions in human society, they may be able to construct a good social field.
Therefore, I boldly further deduced that the concept of the Gas Hero game, that is, What should players play here? is to construct a virtual human society so that everyone can continue to have motivation to interact in it.
But this abstract sentence (Constructing a virtual human society) is easy to say, but in fact, the core of such a complex system of human society is to select means and paths that can better serve the core concepts of the game, leaving the most core rules. , in order to retain the essence of human interaction as much as possible and remove the noise.
The focus of this concept is not virtual human society, but continuous dynamic interaction. On this basis, we ask ourselves, what exactly creates human sociality?
There may be no right answer to this question. Yuval Harari said in A Brief History of Humankind that since ancient times, Homo sapiens are the only people who have the ability to tell stories and imagine, and can organize and mobilize large-scale organizations that far exceed the number of people in their own tribe by creating hope (at that time Homo sapiens (a tribe of up to about 150 people) conduct unified actions.
Therefore, we found an important auxiliary concept that supports the core concept-hope. Many mileage advancements in Gas Hero are carried out with different types of hopes, some are small surprises, and some are big goals. I always like to joke with everyone, saying that regret is the driving force for human progress. Only with regret can there be hope. Only by constantly generating new hopes can players continue to have the motivation to continue interacting in it.
Another important auxiliary concept is bondage. What is a bond? In the same settlement, we have to work together to improve to achieve a goal. This is a bond. This cycle, we almost won the PvP championship. Next time I come back, I will definitely defeat that opponent. It is also a bond. It sounds somewhat similar to hope, but what Im mainly talking about here is the relationship between people in the game setting due to the game process. It may be the joy of working together to complete the guild challenge, or it may be the mutual respect between two people. of opponents hope to meet again in the next PvP match.
There may be some other auxiliary concepts, but I won’t go into more detail here (after all, I am not a roundworm in the stomach of game planners!!!). I want to leave some easter eggs from myself as a planner to tell you in the podcast.
After clarifying the overall core and auxiliary concepts of the game, what remains is to continuously select means and paths that can better present these concepts as a whole. Some are additions, some are subtractions.
The tree-like world structure of Gas Hero is addition: it is a more complex setting than a simple flat world, but with this three-dimensional design, the concept of hope will be very easy to develop; and automatic combat is subtraction, Its function is to eliminate the players energy investment in operation as much as possible, and allow more experience points to be left on the interaction between people (sharing every unboxing and lucky/faceless experience of giving birth to a baby, assigning each combat mission).
The realization of all these big and small hopes, the generation of topics and behavioral interactions between people are all generated around various in-game assets. Because of the very low transaction wear on the blockchain, the possibilities for interaction between people in Gas Hero have become extremely rich.
It is worth noting that since Gas Hero presents a virtual society, the process of considering paths and means must also consider various problems that human society faces. The core ones are economic inflation, bubbles and even stagflation. I personally think that the most amazing thing about the solution given by the game planner in the work is the integration of the solution with the overall structure of the game: the fate of ordinary citizens to the world’s elders are all tied together through the corresponding incentive structure. Together, we share hope and bond with each other.
Rhythm
One gag that I have always found very funny is that the game planner of this game really hopes that the rhythm of this game will be five minutes a day and relaxing. This is why I firmly believe that the game in Cairo with settlement and neighbor elements may have been the original inspiration for Gas Hero, because the game in Cairo is this kind of pick-up and put-down style that makes people feel warm and comfortable.
In fact, the experience of Gas Hero is that there are really only a few clicks in the game every day (Five minutes a day achievement?). Whether it is relaxing is debatable (😂), but it is definitely cant stop. .
The energy consumption is indeed gone in an instant, but you think you still have to read the white paper about the matching of heroes and discuss strategies with others. You also have to remind people in the same settlement to quickly buy resources and don’t fall behind. You still have to read it after it’s over. Check out the auction house to see if there is anything worth buying for you at this stage. Should you buy it for yourself or go to the secondary market for arbitrage? Speaking of which, as NFTs, in-game assets not only circulate within a closed system and can be affected by many external factors, but also bring additional rich curve changes to the game experience.
The core of the realization of these experiences is that the game planner clearly arranges for everyone what to do every day in a campaign cycle. On the first and second days, you grab the auction house, on the third day you fight the settlement BOSS and challenge the settlement chief, and on the fourth day you are the first to give birth to babies... For players who want to be officials or want to develop and challenge PvP, the rhythm is quite tight. Therefore, when the macro melody is compact and orderly, the operation is as simple as possible, which can eliminate many tired player experiences in daily life. The auction house brings excitement every six hours, but in the daily rhythm, giving birth to a baby, opening boxes, reforging weapons, upgrading pets, etc. are all smaller fluctuations in the rhythm of the experience. A larger time range corresponds to a more certain rhythm section, while daily rhythm changes are quite unpredictable. The overall presentation is like Bachs three creative works, generally regular, and the details always have some surprises that break the dullness.
In the words of the game planner himself: A product has different experiences, and each experience has its own different rhythm; the rhythms of so many different experiences are superimposed, just like the taste of Fourier transform; and between these different rhythms How to combine, how to superimpose the peaks and troughs, the more and richer the coupled experiences are, the more layers the experience will be.”
Core creativity x rhythm = comfort
After the explanations in the above two parts, there is actually no need to elaborate on this part. After I finished reading this book, I told the game designer himself that you like to use the word comfortable very much, which is probably due to the influence of Hideo Yoshizawa.
But I would like to add one more thing about Gas Hero that makes me very comfortable, and that is the beauty of symmetry.
The number of days a hero lives corresponds to their quality level.
The energy recovery time and auction house are both every six hours.
Upgraded GMT burn ratio for breeding and auction houses.
An income structure that balances the power line and the glory line is located at both ends of the wealth arbitrage line.
Gas Heros game ultimately presents an extremely complex form, but the coupling of simple rules is the skeleton of the complex presentation. Mr. Yoshizawa also put forward the idea of using as few parameters as possible to complete as much work as possible in his book. If simple rules can be arranged and combined to allow the emergence of various complex behaviors, that is a good path. On the contrary, overly complex rules will limit the creativity of players in the game.
After reading Creativity and Rhythm, I asked myself, what is it about Gas Hero that makes people feel comfortable?
There are many answers that can be provided, but I would probably say: It is a player who unlocks an experience in a new world that is different from real life. This experience is unknown, exciting, and everything is possible.
