Question 1. When will the game be release and where can be play.
Dev: They've finished alot of the tecnincal stuff, game script and combat. and is now filling out the game, but they need more people, the current team is only 30 something people(Not counting external hire help)
Dev: The PV framing, sound editing, line and other are all done by Yocar himself, he had to go learn new thing to do it
Including the current demo, it's only meeting their minimum requirement, with alot of thing still needing to be fix, with the current team, they will not be finish in 2~3 year time, so they need to recruit more people.
Dev: This is why they released this PV, because compared to other big studio, Game Science is still unknown, and even if telling people they are making a high quality single player game, most people don't know what their goal is, so this is why this PV was made and release, to show what they have done in 2 year, and to recruit more like minded people to join.
Dev: The new studio is not close to the city center, but it's a big building with nice sceneary and big space, to give people more comfortable to complete
Question 2: When did the idea start, and why is it Journey to the West?
Dev: Yocar and the other "founder' have stated, their goal was to make a great singleplayer ARPG, and even if they take on other job, they never forgot this dream, they made two game, Lost Heroes and Red Tide that solve their funding issue and ensure the survival of Game Science
Dev: They decide to ignore if they have funding, or if the market is there and other complicated market thing, and start with art and technical thing, when starting, they had considered Wuxia(Martial art), shenxia(God fantasy) and other Chinese mythology, but no matter what, when it goes to Journey to the West, everyone has an idea and opinion, and because they worked together for 6~7 year on Lost heroes and other reason they have regrets, so they want to make a game they can be proud of.
So it was decided to be Jounrey to the West, and no plot or other relation to their previous game
Dev: Yocar understand Journey to the West as 3 phase
Phase 1 : Seeing Wukong fighting and their journey and fun
Phase 2: During university year read a wukong story, and conclude Wukong represent freedom, not being under a system or authority, " My life is mine, it is not the heaven or others"
Phase 3: Now that he is older, he can see not from the character view., and notice all the other interesting character and their life in Journey to the West, and they deserve a story to be told too, not just Wukong and the gang.
Dev: In their previous game, they did try to give the wild monster some background, but due ot the format of the mobage, it was not very detail, and doesn't fit into the main plot good
Dev: So this time, hope to make a more believable living world, "bad" guy with understandable motive and life, a living Eastern Mythology world
Dev: their goal for the game is to make edit, not make their own story(Not sure how to use English, but "fan" work can be split small into going into exisiting with some tweak, or using the setting and character but going complely own story that is big change)
So everything they do ingame, they want to be able to find similiar or doable base on the origional story
Dev: One of the earlier plan was to do travel like Soulborne serie where each region is connect ot another region, but the team decide that the long Journey is a key part of Journey tot eh west, so each region needs to be unique, and the start point of East Land and End Point of West Heaven, and the vast distance between them, so a lot of work going into big region design, and needing to use the Flying cloud to travel between the region.
They also try to recreate the cavern and lair of each of the monster in the journey, and compare them to real life location and try and combine them together
Dev: For example, the golden cicade can be saying of Tang Sanzang who in his previous life is called little golden cicada, or the most common bug form of Wukong, the taking the staff from the ear, 72 transforming, metal head and brass arm countering, spliting into many from hair are all from the origional story, but also with their own interpration of the origional story.
Dev: They also want to take into consideration of the buddhism, doaism, and other different group and their area they rule.
For example, in the origoinal story, the black bear monster after being defeated was taken by Guanyin to train, but ingame, he came back and rebuilt his temple with his other monster friend, the dev add in their own take on the story.
Dev: And there are 3 possible Wukong shwon in the PV, the monkey we control, the monkey in full armor that we stop, or the old monkey telling the story.
Play the game and find out
Quetsion: The hardship they've endured so far
Dev: After th eir last failure, they had to step over that and start over, also the popular notion on Chinese media only making old thing, not using new thing, is a sign of no trust in their new culture and instead relying on old history
They say they know this feeling, but it's because of their art person, Yang-Chi, who say, who care, the fact you are thinking that is sign of no confidence, all that matter is do you do a good job?
Can it make the creator heart skip, then is it worth th e time to put time and money to share with other
Their goal is to make game they love
Next is the technical issue, in the first year, they only had 10 people working, and what seem impossible, but after trying, they slowly figure out how to do it
They've gotten alot of technical experience in the animation of player character, hitting animation, and 4 leg beast animal, and can figure out the elite and normal monster fight
But still 2 problem remain
Problem 1: They need more people and techincal to do motion capture a nd other such technical thing
Problem 2: CHaracter, monster and background interaction need to be improve, they say Naught Dog and Santamonica already did it, for example, character can stand near table and all animation to pick up resource look natural or not breaking through chair and other hting.
Problem 3: Try and get computre to design and make a stage(Village or forest for example), making their art team more free to do other thing, they say Ubisoft is a good example to learn from.
This is why they are hiring to find people to join their team.
Question: Money going into and what is coming out
Game Science beside their current mobage, and the Black Myth Wukong game in development, they also have two more mobage being made using Unreal 4 like Wukong
At the current quality, each region will cost tens of million yuan, isn't that a big risk for a game company, like a big gamble?
Dev: The work being put into Wukong, can also be put into the other two Mobage, which is a investment strategy, and only making what they love do they put in the most energy,
Even mobage market is now the red sea, even big company making a game with large budget might not succeeed, so let's make what we want, if chance to fail is same.
And funding currently is no problem in the short term, and even if funding in future, they beleive they can convicne new investor or publisher with this and the other two game to get more funding
Yocar ask Mango Ice OL if possible any problem with the PV showing?
Mango Ice OL repond, people expecation might be too high, or wait too long, and shortly after release, his fear seem to be proven true.
News Media, Game publisher show interest, investor too, but also head hunting people that is interfering with their game development
So the team decide to close up and stop all interaction with media, and focus on making the game, until they reach a level they deem acceptable
www.sohu.com
