People and ghosts have different paths.
We all know that there are many ways to play with cards as the carrier in the game industry, such as the kitten fishing that the children downstairs will play, the "Legend of the Anti-German Heroes" that the eldest cousin upstairs was once addicted to, or the "card king" who is too lazy to read too many words. From poker to electronic cards and then to physical cards, it seems that there is always a way for players to play a hand if they want to.
However, although the card game is played in a variety of ways, if you put the context in the present, you will be surprised to find that once you mention the card game, it will most likely not belong to the above list - neither TCG nor CCG, but more likely to be a "spire like" with meat pigeon elements.
The collapse of "Slay the Spire" has created a combination of meat pigeon and card pairing, and to use a somewhat exaggerated analogy - if you happen to find ten card games on the Steam market, then nine will probably be meat pigeon DBGs. This trend came earlier than "Survivor" and lasted longer than "Auto Chess".
On the bright side, it's a world-changing title that has broadened the preferences of many players. On the downside, Slay the Spire's overly mature design approach is often seen by other developers as a reliable template for commercialization. Whether it is a domestic developer or a foreign creator, they have all started routine production with this set of ready-made templates.
In the end, the meat pigeon DBG in the market is not only of uneven quality, but also has the same game experience. In many cases, players may even suspect that it is not an indie game that is running, but a folk mod from the Workshop.
Before players get tired of aesthetics, we urgently need some works that can change the status quo of the market, whether it is gameplay or choreography, it needs to make players feel refreshed. For example, "Killing the Spire" originated in Western fantasy, so is there a way to localize it?
This is exactly the same idea as "Lan Ruo Strange Tan". To this end, it starts from the two aspects of the underlying gameplay and plot narrative, bringing players a different meat pigeon DBG experience - "Lan Ruo Strange Tan" is not a rigid copy of local anecdotes as the background of the world view, and then combines three fees and a large-scale mod for changing pickup cards, but from the underlying gameplay to the use of mechanisms, all of which have been ingeniously and innovatively produced.
In this type of game, players are always looking for ways to reduce the cost of cards in exchange for high value, but have you ever wondered what it would be like if the cards didn't cost anything?
The first change in Romance is the drastic removal of the cost mechanic, which doesn't require either the "land" in Magic or the crystals in Hearthstone, and there are no rules other than the cost explicitly stated in the card effects.
This means that players can throw cards unrestrainedly and enjoy the most powerful positive feedback in the card game - storytelling, infinite loops, and a variety of card combinations. Rather than imposing shackles, the game encourages players to open their minds and conquer their enemies with pompous combos.
This allows you to not be a card game master, so you don't have to worry about the difficulty barriers caused by resource management and obscure entries. From the perspective of the underlying design, "Lan Ruo Strange Tan" has a straight ball look and feel of "making you cool", and implements the design essence of the meat pigeon game.
But if there is no cost to the cards, will the depth of the game be lost and evolve into a clicker game without brains? After all, if the PVE cards are completely reduced to Zhuge crossbow killing, one is considered fresh, and two will be a little boring.
And the changes to the game mechanics in "Lan Ruo Strange Tan" are also subtle. While abandoning the cost mechanic, it also introduced straight pair bombs in poker gameplay, and used more familiar down-to-earth gameplay as part of the game content - multiple cards can work together to unleash more powerful abilities, and inconspicuous damage can also be transformed into tactical nuclear bombs, and then a single shot into the soul.
Stacking DeBuff and upgrading card values?Before similar games jumped out of the framework of "Spire Like", "Lan Ruo Strange Tan" has begun to improve the underlying logic of the game, it tries to use less sophisticated fields, entries, and rules to improve the gameplay process of Meat Pigeon DBG, and give this type of game a new sensory experience through local gameplay that everyone can understand.
Under the cost mechanism, players often think about the current round, but Lan Ruo Strange Tales abandons this mechanism, and the content that players need to deliberate has been broadened from the round to the round - whether to play the damage card as soon as possible to free up the upper limit of the hand, or to keep the cards to recuperate and wait for the opportunity to make a splash. Forbearance and outburst, this is the strategic space of "Lan Ruo Strange Tan".
In a way, this has a bit of mahjong flavor. Stubbornly keep the card, into the card will become less, wanton play, and difficult to draw the card. Whatever choice you make, you'll have to face the risks while pursuing the rewards, and those seemingly unreasonable tricks can become a god in the next turn.
This makes the game even if there is no cost limit, but it still derives the level of game understanding - the last players, where the light is up; beginner players, will take the initiative to leave cards and wait for the opportunity; Dacheng Gao play, not only has a keen choice, but also polishes the card deck construction, according to Xi to form a theme that conforms to their own style and genre, and plays a card-printing machine-like extraordinary.
From the abandonment of the fee mechanism to the integration of poker gameplay, "Lan Ruo Strange Tan" reduces the proportion of luck in the game as much as possible, so that the game process no longer needs to look at the face of the "seed".
There is no such thing, there is only one who can fight but not fight, who can play but don't want to play. Broadened to the strategic considerations of the game, the winning hand of the draw that follows the word, and the one-shot soul of the bomb straight, "Lan Ruo Strange Tan" brings players a novel and self-consistent card game experience with localized gameplay.
Obviously, the improvement of "Spire Like" in "Lan Ruo Strange Tales" is the most popular improvement, because it is trying to make players as cool as possible - the plane is connected, the straight is sealed, and even the "Dark Archmage" is gathered at the beginning, and the cool point of the meat pigeon DBG is brought into full play.
At the same time, the game will not lack benign feedback from the strategy side - just the right retained card operation can always make players feel that "my step is meaningful". Even if you don't have good luck, you can still forcibly dispatch by searching for cards, and make up for luck with builds. And BD collocation and deck construction, isn't it the essence of meat pigeon DBG's gameplay?
In addition to the localization improvement of the gameplay side of the meat pigeon DBG, "Lan Ruo Strange Tales" has also made targeted enhancements to the consistently thin process narrative of "Spire Like" and the weak plot line - it uses local anecdotes with multi-perspective dramatic conflicts to create a foggy suspenseful atmosphere, supplemented by the reincarnation gameplay of meat pigeon elements, to build a twists and turns for players.
The rebirth of the meat pigeon gameplay over and over again has laid a criss-crossing plot line for players, and the different choices of each game are a meticulous collection of clues. Observing the beginning and end of the game world from different perspectives, making up for the regrets of the previous game in different rounds, and driving to different endings through different footprints is also the gameplay of "Lan Ruo Strange Tan" based on the process narrative.
Let's go into more detail - the exploration experience of "Lan Ruo Strange Tales" is completely free, players can not only go to the same location repeatedly to trigger different dialogues, but also arbitrarily disrupt the course of action, and go to the right place at the right time to trigger the hidden story.
This is like the flow of AVG's text adventure, so that the game's scene unfolding is no longer a step-by-step trigger program, nor is it no longer the eternal "spire like" to climb the tower and choose one more, you can advance but not retreat.
While this may be a little less strategic than climbing towers, the freedom to explore the new gameplay dimensions will give players an unparalleled sense of immersion, and the few words used to polish the text will also become a reversal of the ending.
When the game is halfway through the process and the player already knows how to play the game, there is still a reason to support the player's perseverance, such as "HADES" and "The Other is Hell" and other story-focused meat pigeon works - even if the gameplay is a little boring, the player is still willing to keep moving forward for the truth. When the plot and gameplay are intertwined, the self-consistent and complete localized content jumps onto the page.
Another ingenious design of "Lan Ruo Strange Tales" also lies in this, the game provides players with two closely connected professions, humans and ghosts, and from the perspective of functional use, the purpose of multiple classes is to create a rich gameplay genre for the game. From the perspective of the fictional layer, the two individuals with very local colors will implicate very different plots due to their different identities, so as to provide players with different interpretations of the same event from different angles.
If players want to understand the whole picture of the truth, they have to piece together the hidden secrets from the fragmentary clues, and the motivation of "100 million more games" is not only provided by the cards on the gameplay side, but also the wonderful twists on the story side will also make players think about it.
In similar games, plot narrative and card battles have always been incompatible elements, even if there are other works that have tried to integrate a certain plot, but they can't achieve a self-consistent balance, resulting in the plot is just a plot, a tool background board for going through the motions.
What's great about "Lan Ruo Strange Story" is that it buries the content of the main side story in the player's path - the blacksmith shop to upgrade the cards, the medicine hall to replenish the state, the mysterious ancestral hall in the mountains and wilderness, and the old temple that has not been repaired. These ground editing facilities already have gameplay-based functions, and at the same time, they can provide players with clues outside of gameplay, so players can obtain spiritual plot puzzles and substantial improvements to gameplay content without spending extra energy.
Uncover the truth and refine the deck, and the two ways of playing are independent of each other and affect each other.
If you're just an idiot who loves to play cards and doesn't care about the content of the plot, you can completely ignore the content of the plot, and you can even treat "Lan Ruo Strange Tan" as an ordinary meat pigeon DBG, and only enjoy the functional role of the ground weaving facility - upgrade cards, buy cards, build a deck, and finally defeat the boss, which will not affect the game experience too much.
Didn't let the plot become a drag on playing cards, didn't let playing cards affect the progress of the plot, the text script was not an inconsequential cutscene, and the racial profession was not just a divergent genre of gameplay. The self-consistency of the gameplay of "Lan Ruo Strange Tales" is based on the localization of the depth of the game, which covers everything from poker techniques to mythical anecdotes, which makes every aspect of the game extremely solid.
"Lan Ruo Strange Tan" is undoubtedly very interesting, it does not choose to use the mature template of "spire like" like other meat pigeon DBGs, but instead uses localized improvements to give this type of gameplay a unique exploration experience.
This has allowed its audience to expand from a single card fan to even GALGAME fans, and the game's diverse content has attracted players from different fields, and it is not difficult to understand the "special praise" of the Steam version.
The localization transformation of "Lan Ruo Strange Tan" is far from over, the crossover from the PC platform to the mobile terminal is its first step, and the game is committed to serving a wider player base, so that users on different platforms can experience this ingenious meat pigeon DBG.
In the future, it will also introduce a new class, Immortals. Needless to say, this means that players will be able to experience a new genre of gameplay, collect unique cards from the immortal system, and use more fantasy mechanics to slay demons and eliminate demons, which, on the other hand, means that the story of "Strange Tales of Lan Ruo" has not yet been fully revealed. After the human ghost, what kind of vitality can the immortals inject into this reincarnation, and where will the ending of the story, which is already nearing the end, go?
I can't wait.