When the time came to July 2106, schools around the world began to have summer vacation, and the game industry also entered a peak season.
All major qualified manufacturers have begun to release new products or update old products. Qingyu Company is no exception. Its subsidiary Ghost Hunting Company took the opportunity to launch a new version of "The Epic of Life" for netizens.
The prototype of the game "Epic of Life" is based on the masterpiece "Spore" from Zhong Shanze's original world, or at least to Zhong Shanze, it is a sacred throne that contains his childhood memories of the past.
It's a pity that since EA acquired and disbanded the studio, "Spore", a game with outstanding creativity, has disappeared and fallen into the dust.
Of course, "Spore" is not an original game. Its inspiration may come from a Japanese game called "4.6 Billion Years Story".
At a certain point, when a writer named the book, he borrowed the title of the latter game. Zhong Shanze remembered that until he traveled through time, the book had written thousands of chapters and was still unfinished.
Although there are similarities between "Spore" and "4.6 Billion Years Story", they are generally just spiritual successors. The analogy is "Assassin's Creed" and "Prince of Persia".
However, in Zhong Shanze's view, the spiritual sequel "Spore" is too dazzling, completely overshadowing the long-standing "4.6 Billion Years Story".
In the original "Spore", players will experience five eras in the game, namely the Cell Age, the Animal Age, the Tribal Age, the City Age, and finally the Space Age.
When he was young, Zhong Shanze once thought about what attracted him to this game? After he figured it out, he was still in the penguin space and typed this paragraph affectionately:
"I still remember that in the distant animal age, the earth was a space with no end in sight. The animals I controlled ran and ran here, so small compared to the world."
"But when my species evolves into the space age and can circle the world in less than half a minute, I suddenly find that the once vast world now seems so small."
As for the five eras this game has experienced, it can be said that each era has its own characteristics, which can prevent players from feeling tired.
The first era is called the Cell Age in the game. Zhong Shanze always felt that there was something wrong. Either the developers didn't understand paleontology, or there was an error in the translation into Chinese.
After all, even the young Zhong Shanze knew that a creature with a spine should not be called a cell no matter how it is classified.
But in short, that’s what the Chinese version is called, and the basic gameplay of the Cell Age is an enhanced version of the big fish eating the small fish. The first few versions of “Epic of Life” heavily referenced the Cell Age of “Spore”.
The Cell Age is divided into three paths. If you hunt other animals to eat meat, you will become a carnivore. If you don't hunt other animals and eat vegetarian food, you will be a vegetarian. If you maintain a balance between the two paths, you will become an omnivore.
The player has no way to control the size of the cells. Instead, the size of the cells will automatically increase as the player consumes nutrients.
Of course, although the size of the cells cannot be completely controlled, the appearance of the "cell organism" can be fine-tuned by controlling the length of the spine and setting the fat or thin with the mouse wheel.
In this evolutionary step, in addition to fine-tuning, components collected previously can also be assembled into cells to gain capabilities.
When the cells controlled by the player absorb a certain amount of energy points, they can enter the next animal era. Zhong Shanze thinks this is the most interesting era in the entire game.
The species evolution interface in the animal age is the most complex, because in addition to the adjustment of the vertebral shape, the number and types of parts that can be loaded on the body have increased significantly.
The components of the Cell Age are extremely limited, basically just flagella and spikes. There are 2 lists of mouths in the Animal Age level. There are 4 levels of mouths in each list, and they need to be collected by digging bones or completing animal herd interactions.
In the animal age, the point of evolution does not come from nutrition, but through interaction with other animals. This interaction can be hostile or benign, and this determines the three routes of the animal age.
As players continue to grow in the animal age, their brains will become smarter and smarter, which is reflected in the increasing number of companions in the game.
At the end of the Animal Age, the game can give players one last evolution. After this evolution, the appearance of the player's species is determined and cannot be changed after that.
The next era is called the Tribal Era. The animals in the past were finally smart enough and formed tribes to form civilizations. According to Zhong Shanze, the interest of this stage is second only to the Animal Era among the five eras and is on par with the Cell Era.
The currency point in the tribal era is food, which can be used to increase the satiety of tribesmen, create new tribesmen, and purchase buildings.
Food sources come from hunting, gathering, fishing, or taming animals to eat eggs, so generally at this stage, players will change species to omnivores to avoid being unable to eat the collected fruits.
The way of evolution in this era is still interaction, forming alliances with or destroying the other five tribes. When the interaction between the five tribes is completed, you can enter the next stage.
The fourth stage of the game is called the civilization stage. Although it can be seen that the production team wants to do something, such as a favorability system between different cities, it is generally too rough and has no sense of civilization at all.
The players are mainly city-states. There are no villages, fortresses or ports at all. The tribes that were allied in the tribal era have disappeared in this era.
This stage is closely related to the three routes of the tribal era, which will cause the city to become a military, economic or religious civilization, which determines whether to conquer, purchase or convert other cities in the civilization stage.
When the last space age comes, players will be given four different special abilities based on the routes chosen in the first four ages.
As for the last space age, Zhong Shanze feels that although it has certain merits, overall it is the failure of the entire game, and it has no sense of civilization compared to the civilized era.
The way the player's civilization expands and colonizes depends entirely on the protagonist driving a small broken ship and working hard there. The pirates come and the protagonist is needed, and the biosphere is destroyed and the protagonist is needed.
What's even more speechless is that there is a war in the interstellar empire, and the protagonist is fighting against the opposing empire alone. The mother country... can be simply treated as non-existent. Even the defense turrets of the mother country's city-states need to be purchased by the players themselves.
But the reason why it has merit is because of the insignificance of an individual in the vast galaxy and the loneliness of wandering alone in the universe. The space age produced this very well.
