"Typing Chronicles" is a typing adventure game developed and produced by Unity 3D game engine and released on March 30, 2016. The game has been praised by critics and players alike since its release, and has sold over 100,000 copies (including bundles).

This is a mind-blowing journey! In this review, we'll try to bring you the game development process we know and love – from prototype to release. We'll also talk about how much effort we put into making a game like this, even though Typing Chronicles isn't a AAA game. But we will share some of our successes, failures, and missed opportunities.

We tried many different art styles for collection images. This is the first version and does not appear in the game.

fire car (from)

That time was both the best and the worst

In game development, the most important thing is to identify and eliminate risks. If you want to try the boldest and most unique stuff, you have to test it as quickly as possible, because you don't want to get a nasty surprise when it arrives too late. In an adventure typing game, because we didn't know how the typing game mechanics worked: a playable game prototype was made very early. Our first goal was to test how the game mechanics interacted with the various items, how the characters moved (which was spliced ​​at the time), and how exploration, puzzles, and arena combat were combined.

The early days of game development are some of the best times because all the opportunities are open to you and there are so many fun things you can try. But it's also the worst time because most of what you try isn't as fun as you thought it would be. You'll feel a mixture of optimism and skepticism about the game.

You can see the prototype of the game we made at the beginning, but it was really just barebones and didn't have any art content in it (it was made using Engine 2). From then on, it was a case of starting the development from scratch, using a different game engine (Unity 3D), but by this time we already had the experience gained from the prototype.

After the prototyping phase is over, our next goal is to determine the type of this typing game. Our main focus is on making a short turn-based arcade game. We gave up the 8 ready-made giant dungeons and main maps and focused on 18 small dungeon maps.

As a relatively small game studio, in order to take this risk, we had to first solve the problem of available funds. Our initial budget was about 125,000 euros, but in the end we needed 300,000 euros. We will explain the various reasons and processes later. This is the cost for 3.5 people for a year and a half.

The second art style. Does not appear in the game.

(from )

Then she rode on the back of a big fox

From the first story idea, we wanted to combine the mechanics of typing with the process of writing a book. So we started a daydream: We hope that through the typing journey in this dream world, players can feel the writer's source of inspiration in this fantasy that reflects the writer's inner world. As the finished game shows, at the beginning, the world was empty and without a story, so for a long time we called this project "The Heroine of No Tale". One of the fun things about it is that we used to use the abbreviation "THONT" for the title before, and we continued to use it for a long time even after we named it. Now we all call it by its nickname "Epi".

If you played the prototype version of the game, you'll notice that there are no foxes near the girl as she walks. This giant three-tailed fox is based on the nine-tailed fox from Japanese mythology, and its handmade style looks great. But the real reason it exists is that we need to give the girl a mount, so we can make the increase in movement speed realistic without having to change the world scale.

We have a giant handmade paper fox in our studio!

(from )

At the beginning of development, we decided that "" would be a test case for new ways of working on the project. So we don’t have a project manager to supervise the entire project. Our entire team is its own manager, but we have a supervisor who acts as our client/producer. At that time, we only had three developers on the team – a game designer, a programmer and a 3D artist. Each person is the manager of the other two people, responsible for updating the task list, implementing quality assurance, etc.

Of course, when the project started, we didn't immediately realize what such an organization would mean. All in all, there’s really a lot to do! There seems to be little point in creating a to-do list when there are no moving characters in the game world. Over time, we gradually organized among ourselves and assigned various tasks to the managers who usually handle them. One of us is mainly responsible for communication with the outside world (localization and audio), while the other one is mainly responsible for completing the task list and keeping a close eye on progress and deadlines. In the final months of development, the three of us would spend a few hours doing a complete update of the to-do list and estimated time remaining to ensure that we were still on track and within budget.

All in all, we believe that such an approach is feasible.Yes, there is still room for improvement, but as this is the first trial, it is good that there was no "train accident".

The first control system is inherited from the original model of the game – it is of the splicing type and moves with the DFJK keys. We were tired of this way of operating: it was too slow and clumsy. We quickly changed to navmesh (-based) actions, which gave players freedom of movement. This will be much better in the future: we can solve puzzles faster and have a better adventure experience. But something still bothers us.

Why do we use DFJK keys instead of WASD keys like other games? This is a question we get from everyone who tested our game at the time (and we still get asked a lot after it was released!). The answer is that we don't want players to develop bad typing habits, because you are used to such gestures when typing. So we wanted to place the control keys on the middle letters so that your fingers would naturally be in a typical typing position. However, it is really confusing to put the basic direction control keys on the same row of letter keys.

So we started looking for more intuitive control keys while maintaining a good typing posture. After internally testing various wacky control key combinations (like using eight keys to control eight directions, etc.), we decided to use EFJI keys (plus after widespread request, we added WASD). This keeps the input position close to the default and has a corresponding key for each diagonal direction (since we are using an isometric view, this feels more natural). This combination ultimately passed our "intuitiveness" test: being able to circle around the map without looking at the keyboard means you can switch naturally in eight directions.

In our first few months of development, we saw a lot of enthusiasm about the possibilities of this project from players both inside and outside our own studio. At the beginning, we didn't know if the public would want a typing game like this, so we started really cautiously. Later, after we briefly demonstrated the game, we knew that we could make a game that interests players. Beyond that, the studio's first indie game was a success for the studio's image.

For this reason, our confidence doubled and we decided to invest more resources and significantly increase the budget on this project. What was supposed to be a small arcade game will now feature a deeper story progression and become an overall larger game. This game already has an advantage: we have already made a short demo of the game for the upcoming game, and we are already one step ahead in terms of gameplay.

The first attack in our novel exists only as conceptual evidence rather than as part of the actual story. The meteorite crash at the beginning of the game is the only thing that survives in the finished game. Obviously, the relevant text has been changed.

We tried to make up the story ourselves but quickly realized that a) we didn't have the talent for this skill and b) we were already very busy just making the game. So we asked writers to write in and create a framework for our game story. We received a lot of responses: some were funny, some were a little disturbing, but there was one that really blew us away and convinced us that this was the story we needed for our game.

The narrator is looking for an inspiration, an inspiration that can make the story develop deeper and be accepted by readers of different levels. In order to give players some hints, we use different fonts and sounds. You can read about the story here without fear of spoilers.

With the story in place, we began searching for sounds. We needed a voice that could convey the emotion of the story. Oddly enough, we received a lot of audio samples that looked like commercial radio. In fact, they are not bad in themselves, but they are still far from what we want. Finally, we found her——! She had a lot of experience in game voice acting and her voice was exactly what was needed.

The next big step is to rewrite the game introduction based on the new story content and complete the first dungeon map. Our goal is to continue the high quality of the game from the beginning to the end, which can be said to be like making a large slice.

Generally speaking, slice (or slice demo for abbreviation VSD) is an early demo of the game, mainly to show the best running state of the game. It sets goals for the final visual quality and gameplay experience, but only for a small part of the game. You can imagine that we have made the finished game, and then we can cut out a small section and use it as a slice.

Finally, the day has arrived. On September 30, 2015, we released an early access version, allowing players to experience the first chapter of the story (2 maps out of 8 dungeons). The early version of the game is similar to the mini version: the easy fun experienced in the full version can also be experienced in the early version, but compared with the full version, the early version will attract fewer players. But since the game is not finished, you have to go back and continue playing the game as if nothing happened.

Well, not really, because when you wake up the next day, you'll have a lot of feedback on bugs and features in the game. But most of it is about vulnerabilities. This means that we have more things to do – and as soon as possible, because as you work on the game, more and more new players will see the game. While this feedback can be stressful, it's valuable feedback we don't expect from studio beta testing. So, thank you to everyone who took the time to write us reviews and feedback, thank you.

The game's early core group of players helped build awareness for our game. That's why we release Early Access: we want to build a game-centric player base before the game is officially released. We have reviews on Steam, shares on social networks, media coverage, and word of mouth. After all, as an independent gamer, you don’t have a marketing budget similar to the cost of developing a game. Whether or not there is a player community is a key factor in the commercial success of the game.

This is the third art style we selected

(from )

Naturally, we'll develop and add to the rest of the game based on the story's progression. Initially we planned to release it chapter by chapter based on the early access version, and we did so with the release of Chapter 2. But this method made us spend too much time making a temporary version of the game. However, we need to spend as much time as possible on polishing the game. Besides, we didn’t get more sales and visibility due to the update, so we decided to be patient and finish the rest of the game before releasing it together.

When we talk about dungeon mazes next, we will reveal some anecdotes about them one by one.

As the first dungeon map made – it is the map that has been redone the most. Because we are linear beginners, we have to add hidden treasure points and return points from scratch; and Halls will be more straightforward in design: before One map focuses on getting lost in the forest (beyond what we can do in the open world); the latter map focuses on solving puzzles; many of the items in the Ice map are revised versions of them, since both It is an underground cave type map; the only difference is that the altitude we set for this map is higher.

Regarding the second half of the game, with more experience, we no longer want to repeat the previous content monotonously and boringly. So we tried some different maps, mainly hoping they would be more three-dimensional. The Ctiy map was made exactly as we expected: it has 7 levels, and as you fight your way to the top, you can see everything below you from above. Everything is arranged according to hierarchy, and the hierarchy higher than you will be hidden so that it does not block the view of the screen; among these maps, the most technically challenging is Mine, because we have added new The game system is inside – switch lighting gameplay. We had to set up all the lights here to hide the words in the dark, and the actual operation of doing this system was a lot more complicated than we thought. There are many small islands suspended below the horizon, and Isles is a map inspired by these islands. The final map, Lost, uses a conventional view of a mountain to symbolize the game's ultimate goal. You can see extra parts of the mountains there that you can't see if you actually go to the mountains.

For eight years we planned this game in secret while developing games for others, until the developers finally decided to release it. So, our first question is: when should we announce the game? Announced early in the game's development? It's a tempting idea and it's exactly what we want, but the real question is: What does the game need?

Making a typing game the first game you release is a big challenge. We know that it was originally supposed to be a fairly small game. It is often classified as an educational game, and the key points we want to emphasize are its art style and "RPG+adventure+puzzle" game type, so after we received feedback from the game community in the early stages, we came up with a slogan: " If "The Legend of Zelda" and the keyboard had a baby, the baby's name would be ""

We don't really like comparing our games to other games just for the sake of explanation, but since the concept is so vague, we seem to have to do it.

Our entire team is involved in public communication, which is very beneficial for us – it saves us time, presents a better image of the team, and is useful when we want to host events or write articles about game development. At the same time, it also facilitates our player community management. Our general idea is to do our best to truly and honestly present the development process of this game for the players who follow this game. We will publish a more in-depth community strategy article soon.

One of our marketing images

Throughout the game's Early Access release, we've been careful to stay online, active, and helpful on the Steam forums. We firmly believed then (and still do now) that direct communication between players and the development team is the best way to communicate. This creates a strong player community, and we get a lot of praise from players just by being there. Likewise, it's great to be able to interact with users and users, most of whom we've met casually in the comments on videos or in chat, which has been a pleasant surprise for us.

Since we don't have the resources to organize extensive game testing, consulting "Let's Plays" is our main source of bug hunting and player behavior analysis. After we found in the video that players couldn't fully understand the burning effect of fire magic, we updated the guidance to make it easier for players to understand. By the way, I would like to thank all the LPers who have given us excellent feedback.

After the early version of the game containing two chapters was released in February 2016, the entire game was ready. The last map of the game has been given the finishing touches, and the bugs are decreasing day by day as we polish the game. Our game is ready and waiting for that day (release day) to arrive.

Soon, in just a few weeks: release day!

The game has been polished so that it is shiny and reflective. It took us a few months to prototype the game, then a year and a half into development, and finally we were ready to hit that green release button.

Over the next few days we were ecstatic. Players love this game! Critics love it too! We love our game so much and we're extremely proud of our achievements!

But this is only the first part of the journey. Today, a year after the game was released, we are still making progress – albeit slowly, as most of our team has focused their attention on other projects.

This article was compiled by GameBang. Please indicate the source when reprinting, or consult WeChat