"So, what is the content that the game creator really wants to express?
"It's actually very easy to distinguish.
"The real problems reflected in the game are also the content that the official Weibo campaign is collecting. This is the role of the 'mirror' of the game, Struggle. It uses elements of reality to allow everyone to see reality through the game.
"However, if it were to reflect reality completely, it would be obvious that documentaries or documentaries would be a better medium to show all the content more objectively to everyone.
"Struggle is a game. The reason why it uses a game as a medium is that the creator can combine the content that he wants to express with the game's mechanism!
"Therefore, those parts that are combined with the game's mechanism are the content that the creator is really hinting at through this' mirror '!
"Next is a series of questions and answers. These questions are unreasonable parts that the creator left in the game, and it is precisely because they are unreasonable that they are puzzles.
"Everyone, please think about the meaning behind them."
"1. Why is the game divided into a poor version and a rich version? Why are they priced separately, and why are there rules that no discounts can be enjoyed if you buy them together?
"On one hand, it's because the pricing itself is a kind of performance art. For example, it emphasizes that 'there are no second chances in life'. We can choose the game, but we can't actually choose our own lives. On the other hand, it's to encourage the poor to buy the rich version, and the rich to buy the poor version. That way, we won't be stuck in our own world, but we can really be in each other's living environment.
"In the game, the living environment of the poor and the rich are so different that they can't understand each other at all.
"The rich protagonist asks why the poor can't take time out to spend with their children. Can they be busier than the CEO of a big company?
"That's because the rich protagonist has never really brought himself into the poor's situation, so he can't understand why the poor at the bottom have no ability to control their own time.
"The poor protagonist thinks that as long as he struggles, he can obtain a better life. He wants to learn from outstanding people, change the way the poor think, and change his own life.
"That's because the poor only see the hard work of the rich, but they often ignore the huge amount of resources behind the rich. Many rich people preach that they have 'zero wealth other than hard work' and that they started from scratch, but the poor still believe them. Why? It's because the poor have no way of knowing the rich's connections, way of thinking, educational background, and so on, and how much benefit they bring to the rich. "
"Including the killer's belief that the rich man was a liar, it was also because he initially believed the rich man, but later he realized that the rich man had only told him part of the truth.
"Therefore, the pricing strategy itself is to encourage the poor and the rich to experience each other's lives in the game, to walk out of their cognitive blind spots, and to look at the problem from a more comprehensive perspective.
"This method is breaking the dimensional wall and using real-life decisions to determine your experience in the game. This method can only be achieved through an artistic medium like the game."
"Why is the English name of the game STRUGGLE?"
"That's the wonderful thing about language. If you want to express the meaning of 'struggle', then 'fight' or 'strive' would obviously be better. These two words are more positive, positive, and more in line with the original meaning of struggle. "
"But the word 'struggle' doesn't just mean to struggle, it also means to struggle. Combined with the English background of the story, it's easy to find that it's actually a pun: the rich are struggling, and the poor are struggling. "
"After understanding this layer of meaning, looking back at the Chinese translation of 'struggle', there's an additional layer of irony. You'll know that although they're both struggles, the struggle of the rich and the struggle of the poor are not the same thing at all."
"The struggle of the rich is in the ethereal clouds. If they want to struggle, they fly up, and if they don't want to struggle, they lie down and roll around. However, no matter how much they struggle, they're still in the clouds.
"On the other hand, the struggle of the poor is a quagmire that keeps sinking. Even if they struggle hard, they'll only prevent themselves from sinking further. Once they stop, they'll immediately be swallowed by the quagmire."
"Why do the characters in the game have to be so stereotypical?"
"When playing the game, everyone will realize that the rich are all handsome and glamorous, while the poor fit the stereotypical image we have of such people."
"Even the style of the game has exaggerated the appearance, demeanor, and expression of each character so that they no longer look like a living person, but a bunch of faces."
"This is obviously not in line with the theme of the game because the theme of realism has to be as real as possible in order to highlight the sense of realism. Stereotypical characters and exaggerated artistic performance will weaken this sense of realism."
"On one hand, it weakens the players' discomfort. On the other hand, it also makes players not too obsessed with the character's own perspective. They can look at these problems from a higher dimension and a more detached state of mind."
"Stereotypical characters are highly condensed images of each character. At the same time, it also symbolizes that the story of 'Struggle' is highly condensed from many stories."
"Each face in the game represents a certain type of person, and the game also uses the lives of a poor and a rich to reflect the lives of all the poor and all the rich."
"This is obviously an implicit expression rich in symbolic meaning, just like the publicity method."
"Why does the game only have one ending, and why can't it be changed?"
"The rich will be killed no matter what choice they make, and the poor will fall into a cycle of poverty no matter what choice they make."
"At first, I thought that this was a kind of fatalistic thinking. It implied that no matter how hard people work, they can't change their own fate."
"However, I soon realized that this was obviously wrong."
"The reason is very simple: the creator of this game, Boss Pei, can't be a person who believes in fatalism!"
"Although I have never met Boss Pei, anyone who knows a little about the inside story knows very well that Boss Pei is different from the rich protagonist in the game. He really started from scratch!"
"From The Lonely Desert Road to the successful games, and then to the various industries, we've witnessed Tengda's rise in the past two years. No matter how hard we try, we can't find any signs of capital involvement. All the signs point to Boss Pei being born in an ordinary working-class family. He started from scratch, one step at a time.
"Boss Pei himself is a person who changed his life completely by himself. How could he promote a fatalistic thinking?"
"It's like a top student who studies hard and scores 100 marks in every subject tells you every day that studying is useless. Would you believe it?"
"If you use your brain, you would know that this view is completely unfounded!"
"Then, why does the game only have one ending and why can't it be changed?"
"Just like I said before, the game is using the life of a poor and a rich person to reflect the lives of all the poor and rich people.
"Everyone's life is different. The poor and the poor, the rich and the rich … there are huge differences between them. Therefore, once the game opens up more endings, it would dilute the ideas that the game is trying to express.
"There are two considerations for the game to force the poor and the rich to have only one ending.
"First, like most stories and movies, a single ending can ensure the integrity of the entire story and allow the creator's ideas to be expressed.
"If there is no limit to the ending, the beginning and the end of the game would not be able to echo each other.
"The kind rich will end in tragedy, and the kind poor will also end in tragedy. The story will have more tension, but if a happy ending is used, the tension of the whole story will be diluted, and the idea that the creator wants to express will go astray."
"Second, this is a higher level of 'fatalism'. It does not emphasize that people cannot change their own fate, but it emphasizes that in such a social environment, an individual's choice would not be able to change the entire class.
"The rich might die a violent death, or they might enjoy their old age. In fact, most rich people would enjoy their old age. However, the hatred between the classes has been established, and the poor's hatred for the rich is irreversible. Then, 'killing the rich' will become inevitable. The only difference is' who kills the rich 'and' which rich person kills'.
"The poor might become rich, or they might go bankrupt and become beggars. However, the relationship between the poor and the rich remains the same. Just like in the game, if the poor are always exploited by the rich in various ways, then it is inevitable that the poor will always be poor. Even if there are individual exceptions, from the perspective of the entire group, it will become more and more unsolvable.
"Therefore, the game deliberately locks the ending, making us go through all kinds of side quests in the game over and over again, making different choices, searching for the hidden storyline of the two versions … In the end, nothing changes.
"Why can't we change the ending? Because the game's mechanism is restricting us.
"In other words, the poor people in the game can't change their lives through hard work because the entire game mechanism of society is restricting them."
"Here, the game's dimensional wall is broken again. In a certain game rule, no matter how hard you work, you will not be the real winner.
"5 There is only one clothing brand that appears repeatedly in the game. What does that mean?
"Many people should have seen the brand 'luxury', which is the golden'LL 'logo. This is the only brand that appears in the game. It is a luxury brand that is managed by the rich protagonist's father and inherited by the rich protagonist. It has also appeared on many characters.
"From the perspective of the game, the player's memory is very limited. If you make two brands, it is very likely that you will confuse them. Therefore, the best way is to make only one brand to represent luxury, and the one without the label is an ordinary product. This is the basic concept of game design: Occam's Razor, express certain content in the most concise way.
"However, this kind of expression is very magically integrated into all aspects of the game. It is not just a decoration.
"Did anyone notice the biggest difference between the rich version and the poor version? No matter what you choose, the rich version will only change from one kind of success to another. As for the poor version, as long as you make the slightest wrong choice, you will immediately fall, ushering in the end of the cycle of poverty in advance.
"What is the difference? The game has actually given a hint, it is in the numbers.
"For the poor, life is a long series of numbers because they have to be careful to maintain the chain of life. Once there is a mistake in a number, it will trigger a chain reaction, causing the entire chain to collapse in an instant, instantly clearing all previous efforts to zero.
"On the other hand, no matter what the rich choose, no matter how much money they spend, they will immediately have more funds to make up for it.
"Therefore, the game mechanism has always been controlling the number of money in the game, constantly 'putting the struggling poor back on track', working hard to clear the number of money to finally usher in the only ending.
"Why is it that as the poor's income increases, their expenses continue to increase? Some people think that it is because many poor people lack financial awareness and are brainwashed by consumerism. However, we have to note that we do not have a choice in many of the expenses in the game.
"For example, why would the poor spend a month's salary to buy a luxury suit, a belt, and a briefcase? Does he really need these things? Can't he use cheap things? "
"Yes, he really needs them."
"Because in the environment of the game, if he wears cheap clothes, he will be ostracized and isolated by his colleagues and the people around him. He will never be able to integrate into that circle."
"That's why many people want to maintain 'dignity'. That's because dignity is not only a matter of face, but also a matter of real interests."
"That's right, this is consumerism that we are familiar with."
"And the brand 'luxury' is the condensation of consumerism, a concrete symbol."
"In the game, both the poor and the rich wear this brand. The only ones who don't wear it at all are the tramps and homeless."
"Once the poor protagonist finds a better job, he has to change into luxury clothes, live in a better house, and drive a better car. Because if he doesn't do that, the people around him will constantly remind him in a malicious or kind way. "
"Malicious people will avoid you, ostracize you, and prevent you from entering certain circles. Kind people will remind you and tell you why you need these things."
"Therefore, be it the poor protagonist or the players, they have no choice. This is another design that breaks the fourth wall."
"You are angry because you clearly made the right choice, but you still can't save money. Yes, the poor protagonist in the game feels the same as you."
"What's even more ironic is that the rich protagonist never wears luxury clothes. Is it because he is more disciplined? No. "
"It's because he is the son of a luxury CEO. He has a private horse farm. So what if he wears luxury clothes or not? No one doubts whether he can afford to wear it. It's normal for him to wear it because he supports his own brand. He doesn't wear it because he has the virtue of simplicity. "
"The rules and regulations for the poor don't exist for the rich at all. That's because no matter what the rich choose, it will become a virtue under the blessing of a specific halo."
"Thinking deeper, the rich don't wear luxury clothes, but they use the high profits of this brand to endlessly harvest all the poor. The rich desperately preach consumerism and the quality of luxury goods, making you feel as if you can live the same life as the rich if you use luxury goods. It even makes the entire group form a consensus that they will spontaneously ostracize the poor who can't afford to wear luxury goods. That itself is a cage for the poor, and it has established a game rule that the poor can't break. No matter what they choose, the rich will win."
"It's like rolling dice. The poor are betting on their luck, while the rich have six dots on each side no matter how they roll."
"Are there really only two classes in the game?"
"Obviously not."
"I believe many people are trying their best to find the connection between the rich protagonist and the poor protagonist. They might even think that the rich protagonist was killed by the poor protagonist or the son of the poor protagonist."
"But the game is desperately denying this. You can't find any connection between the poor and the rich."
"Why? Because this is not a complete closed loop. "
"There is actually a third class in the game, which is the 'homeless'. You will find that it is the link that connects the entire closed loop. In fact, it runs through the game and is everywhere. "
"At the beginning and ending of the rich version, the person who kidnapped the protagonist's mother and killed the protagonist are all homeless."
"At the beginning and ending of the poor version, the protagonist's father worked hard to prevent the protagonist from becoming homeless, so the protagonist was grateful to his father. The protagonist fought all his life and deceived his son to continue fighting so that he and his child would not become homeless."
"Just like my previous metaphor, in this game, there are not only the rich who are in the clouds and the poor who are struggling in the mud, but also the homeless who are completely swallowed at the bottom of the mud."
"At the beginning, the poor tells us that these people at the bottom of the mud are dropouts from sewage schools, prisoners in prison, beggars on the subway, and mental patients. They are homeless people who will die in society after receiving relief and can only live on the streets for the rest of their lives even if they are healthy."
"Once the poor give up, they will become homeless. That is why they struggle hard in the mud. Struggling may not necessarily lead to climbing up, but if they don't struggle, they will definitely sink. "
"The faster they give up, the faster they sink."
"So, why did the poor protagonist say that to his child? Didn't he know that he had been deceived by his father's lies all his life? "
"Maybe he had a fluke and thought that his child would be different. Maybe he just had to tell this lie."
"Because if he tells his child that it's useless to struggle, then his child will sink and become one of those homeless people. And the protagonist knows very well how tragic that will be."
"So, the poor protagonist had no choice but to tell his child to struggle. If you look at the result, this struggle is meaningless because it can't get you to the clouds. But if you look at the bottom of the mud, you will know that this struggle is meaningful. At least it won't sink. "
"What about the rich?"
"The rich protagonist almost died when he was born, but he never believed what his father said. He made friends with the poor and worked hard to write books, wanting to help the poor change their fate."
"But he didn't realize that the people who kidnapped his mother were not the poor but the homeless. The people who killed him were not the poor but the homeless. He could be friends with the poor in college, but it was impossible for him to take a second look at the beggars on the subway."
"So, he thinks that the rich can be friends with the poor, and that's right. But he doesn't realize that it's the rich and the homeless who can't understand each other and become two different species, and the poor are only the part that he can see above the quagmire. There are more people slowly rotting under the quagmire, and he can't see them from the clouds."
"The most ironic thing was that the rules of the game that made the poor homeless happened to be set by the rich."
"So, the homeless said that the rich protagonist was a liar because, to the homeless, this person preached to struggle while taking everything away from him."
"And this is something that the rich protagonist will never understand."
"In the game, there is only one relationship between the poor and the rich. How many kinds of relationships are there between the poor and the rich that Boss Pei wants to express?"
"This is the last question and the last thing the game creator wanted to express after combining all the details."
"Actually, Boss Pei had already expressed this content long ago."
"Do you remember the movie Tomorrow is Beautiful? That was a more tragic scene than Struggle. "
"It's not hard to imagine that the society in 'Struggle' will become 'Tomorrow is Beautiful' after a few decades of development.
"In Tomorrow is Beautiful, there was an Easter egg at the end. Someone threw a gun into the protagonist's room. The meaning was obvious. When social conflict reached the level of Tomorrow is Beautiful, the poor only had one choice. "
"However, there was no such choice in Struggle because the environment they described was different, and the emphasis they wanted to express was different."
"Violent resistance cannot cure all diseases. It is not the best choice in any situation. This might be an option in the environment of Tomorrow is Beautiful, but there is no soil for such a possibility in Struggle. We can imagine that even if the poor chose to resist, he would only become the next murderer who muttered 'liar' and was locked up. He would be condemned and criticized by tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people. He would only make his situation worse. "
"Then, is there a third situation?"
"Actually, there is. It is the real world we live in."
"In the game, the poor do not have a channel to rise, but in reality, we do."
"In the game, the poor cannot fight against consumerism, but in reality, we can."
"In reality, most people do not define a person by their clothes, clothes, and luxury goods — except for a few people who are deeply influenced by consumerism."
"Therefore, the solution that does not exist in the game exists in reality."
"In the game, the poor have no choice but to continuously increase their consumption level. In the end, because of some unexpected factor, a certain number will go wrong, and everything will collapse and return to zero."
"However, in reality, we have a choice. We can refuse consumerism, continue to save money, complete the initial accumulation of wealth, and change our fate through hard work."
"As long as we have hands and feet, and become rich through hard work, we can get out of the quagmire."
"In the game, no one tells the rich and poor what they should do."
"However, in reality, someone is telling us what we should do. The game 'Struggle' is telling us what we should do by breaking the dimensional wall. "
"It's actually telling us that we should work hard in the real world, because our current struggle is meaningful."
"Many people complain that we are living in hell because they have not seen the real hell."
"After seeing the world in Struggle, we'll realize that we're actually living in heaven."
"Although this heaven is not so perfect, at least we are still full of hope."
"Many players do not understand the plot of the game very well because these plots do not match our lives in reality. Therefore, there will be a sense of estrangement and the choices of the characters in the game will be very strange."
"And this actually proves that what we take for granted is actually a great happiness."
"Using the game Struggle to make us realize the happiness of real life and encourage us to cherish the present and work hard. That is the deep meaning of the game creator creating this game."
"For all game creators, Struggle is a textbook-level work because it repeatedly breaks the fourth wall in various ways and truly expresses the greatest advantage of games as the ninth art form: in other art forms, you are just a bystander, but in games, you are a participant."
"Many things can only be seen clearly from the perspective of a participant."
"This method of repeatedly breaking the fourth wall represents that the creator's ability to control the art of the game has reached the pinnacle and the point of perfection. Every detail has its own meaning of existence."
"So, let's go back to the original question."
"How does Struggle surpass the four basic game theories under the premise that it seems to violate these four basic game theories?"
"Choosing the wrong publicity method is to break the fourth wall and make the publicity method part of the game content."
"Choosing the realistic theme of interactive movie games may seem unpopular, but in fact, it provides convenience for breaking the fourth wall and builds a bridge between the game and reality."
"At first glance, the private goods in the game may make people feel uncomfortable, but the deeper you dig, the more you can be inspired. Suffering in the game can lead to happiness in reality."
"Its existence is not to dig for needs, but to create them. In fact, most people do not realize that we need to understand these principles in order to live a good life. Therefore, after understanding all of this, we will suddenly realize that we need this game. "
"Therefore, I think that Struggle is by far the highest artistic peak of domestically-produced standalone games. It is even a valuable spiritual wealth for players."
…
After finishing the last full stop, He An still felt that he had not had enough.
He seemed to have a lot more to say.
In fact, there were many details in Struggle. Each detail could be expanded to write hundreds or even thousands of words in detail.
However, He An decided to stop here because Tengda's official Weibo's attitude was very clear.
The reason why the game was all-encompassing and had countless details was because it had the function of a 'mirror'. Analyzing these details was actually analyzing reality, and reality could not be analyzed completely.
These should be done by all the players on Weibo.
He An believed that his mission was to stand from the perspective of a game designer and analyze the top design concepts in the game to drive the progress of the entire domestic game industry. At the same time, he would also analyze the deeper meaning that the game designer wanted to express in the game.
That was just right.
Therefore, He An checked the entire long Weibo post and pressed the send button.
The content was a little long and boring.
People who had not played games before might think that this was meaningless preaching, but people who had played games should have some resonance.
He An felt that this was precisely the charm of the art of games.
The sugar coating on the outside of the pill seemed to be useless and could not really cure the disease, but it could make the patient less painful when taking the medicine.
It was just candy, and it could not cure the disease.
It was just that the pill would not be accepted by many people.
Coating the pill with sugar and really helping some people was precisely the ultimate goal of He An's life as a game designer.
Just like the Landlord Game that he had created before, it was also to achieve this goal.
Although he had experienced the disaster of domestic standalone games during this period and had no choice but to turn to online games for the survival of the company, he had always regarded this as his mission and pursuit in his heart.
Even if his own ideas were outdated, even if he could no longer produce works like the Landlord Game, He An had never given up on this pursuit. He would try his best to pass on this pursuit during teaching.
Now, Struggle had completely surpassed the Landlord Game in all aspects.
This meant that there was a real leader in domestic standalone games. He An felt very gratified.
Although he had never met Boss Pei, he could be considered a confidant through this kind of communication in the game.
"Once I tell Boss Ma all of this, my teaching content will be complete."
"The previous four basic theories were overthrown and completely reshaped, and then perfectly matched at a higher level.
"Struggle is also a comprehensive and in-depth interpretation of the Landlord Game. It can explain what a truly responsible and ambitious game designer should do.
"Boss Ma will definitely be inspired after listening to this content, right?
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