This Is Not a Bug but a Game Feature-Chapter 152 - 122: Pseudo Open World

After New Year’s Eve, Tianba Studio returned to its usual hustle and bustle, and the pace of game development accelerated greatly.

The saying goes: the more, the merrier!

When the difference in numbers isn’t that big, the efficiency may not be significantly different. For example, 10 people working versus 11 people working—perhaps the team of 10 is more efficient?

But when the number difference reaches a whole new level, like 5 people versus 15 people, it’s obvious that the team of 15 will be more efficient.

Of course!

This is just an ideal scenario.

In actual work, for various reasons and special situations, sometimes "the more, the merrier" is not so accurate, and there can even be the odd scene where more people mean less efficiency.

However, under normal circumstances, more people generally mean higher efficiency than fewer people.

As the new year began, Tianba Studio shifted its work focus from updates and maintenance of old games to the development of the new game "Love Advisor Department."

This is a romance simulation game.

Players who’ve played this type of game know that while romance is the core gameplay, there are other things to do besides dating...

"Open world is not just talk."

"Although our game can at most be considered a pseudo-open world, its freedom is not something ordinary romance simulations can imitate," Chen Ba explained.

Open world, also known as roaming games, is a type of game level design.

The core elements of this design are free exploration, player freedom, task freedom, gameplay freedom, and map freedom.

Large open-world games like the "Grand Theft Auto" series or "Elder Scrolls" type games are not something Tianba Studio can produce.

Mainly because there’s no time for that.

You only know these games are very free, and the maps are huge with plenty of exploration space, but do you know how much time the developers spent filling the game content?

Fun fact!

The map area of Los Santos is 252 square kilometers, and that of "Red Dead Redemption 2" is 72 square kilometers...

This unit of area might not mean much to many people, they just know it’s vast, but how vast exactly? It’s hard to judge.

Let’s make a conversion.

The area of Peng City, a top-tier city in China, is 1997.47 square kilometers, while its core districts like Longhua District and Futian District together barely make 252 square kilometers.

With such a conversion, you can understand how astonishingly large-scale such massive open-world games are.

The dozen or so staff in Tianba Studio, to really make a huge open-world game, would probably take ten or twenty years.

So the map of "Love Advisor Department" is relatively small.

The so-called "small" means that compared to AAA games, the map is already considered quite large compared to ordinary games.

"The exploration is very high!"

"We will provide this game with hundreds of jobs and thousands of interactive scenes."

Seeing everyone’s serious expressions, Chen Ba couldn’t help but add: "Alright, don’t be so serious! Although the numbers sound scary, there’s a high repetition rate."

For instance, cinema, shopping mall, park, amusement park, zoo—these interactive scenes actually use the same set of templates, just with different art resources.

It’s not that exaggerated.

Many map designs, including career paths, are no more than copy-paste jobs that can be done by changing a set of art resources.

Plus, now there’s AI rendering. Drawing characters might be a bit tricky, but for scenes, it’s definitely adequate.

"Once you enter the game, you’re in the classic graduate renting and job-seeking phase."

Chen Ba explained: "After finding a job, having a stable income and place to live, you can meet all sorts of handsome guys and pretty girls, unlocking the core gameplay."

In the game, for characters to mutual like each other, many specific prerequisites are needed.

For example, if you want to pursue a shy girl who lacks a sense of security, you need to have a strong physique. Regular gym workouts would have a great effect.

If you’re weak, you can’t provide her with a sense of security, making it quite hard to pursue...

"I get it."

Lu pondered with a pen in his mouth and said, "Ba, you mean that meeting specific conditions makes pursuing a character easy or medium difficulty, while not meeting them spells hard or hell difficulty."

"Exactly!"

"In ’Love Advisor Department’, you can’t choose the game difficulty at the beginning."

Chen Ba explained: "All game difficulties are achieved through these prerequisites."

To put it bluntly, love needs to be mutual.

Guys pick girls, girls also pick guys.

Only when both sides feel the match meets their standards is there a spark; otherwise, if you’re ugly and have no redeeming qualities, only a blind girl would take notice of you?

"Is the face-capturing phase important?"

Hearing this, Yang Dong got anxious and quickly asked: "If you make a face that’s ugly or ordinary, you can’t pursue girls?"

"No no no!"

Chen Ba quickly denied this; it wasn’t his original design intention and he never thought of it that way.

The game has face-capturing sessions.

Based on different face creations, the system will give ratings like "Handsome Guy," "Pure Passerby," and "Unseeable."

These ratings do affect the difficulty of pursuing characters. For instance, if someone’s part of the appearance association and wants a handsome boyfriend, you’ll find it quite hard if you approach them with an "Ancient God face."

But appearance is just one part of the prerequisites, and each character has different standards for judging appearance.