What happened behind the unique ending of “SINoALICE” [CEDEC 2024]

At CEDEC 2024, PokeLab Yui production engineers Misato Takada and Junya Etsuda gave a session “How to end a social game that remains deep in the user’s memory ~ Will the user himself enter the grave?! A unique gaming experience A story about the technology that supports it~'' was held.

"SINoALICE" (iOS / Android / PC. SINoALICE), which was developed by Mr. Takada and Mr. Etsuta, ended its service on January 15, 2024, but just before that, a large-scale event was held as an ending. In addition to the plans, various other measures were taken, such as the offline version of the app ``Sino Alice Da Nanika'' , and it became a hot topic.
Let's report on the behind-the-scenes session.

Festival ending

Sino Alice is a dark fantasy RPG in which characters such as Alice, Little Red Riding Hood, and Cinderella fight to revive their creator. It also featured real-time guild battles of up to 15 vs. 15.

It is said that Sino Alice had a plan to create a solid ending from the beginning, and with the desire to ``not just end it'' and ``enjoy it like a festival until the end,'' they created various plans titled ``Sino Alice Finale Plan'' . Measures were developed.

The climax is when the Sino Alice app turns into the player's grave, ``Nanika who was Sino Alice'', but in order to engrave their name there, they must go through a raid battle with a guild member and watch the ending of the game. be.

However, the road to get there is quite difficult. Players must clear chapters 1 to 6 of "Yokubou-hen" distributed on December 20, 2023, and then go into battle with guild members in Chapter 7, the true final chapter, distributed on December 26. I need to try. The service will end on January 15, 2024, so there will only be about two weeks from the implementation of Chapter 7.

Moreover, for the final battle, all guild members had to come together at the same time and challenge the battle. Additionally, in order to play the Yokubou arc, you must also clear the stories distributed up to that point. The expected play time is 16 hours, which is quite a difficult condition for returning players.

Therefore, Mr. Takada and his colleagues thought of a remedy. We had decided to implement a battle support function that would make it easier to clear the game even with low strength, but in addition to that, we decided to provide a skip function that would allow you to start the game from the Yokubo arc.

This idea came about after a planner said, ``I wanted something like a secret trick that could generate buzz.''

When an engineer heard about this, he came up with the idea that ``If you use device shaking, you can implement it in a short period of time.'' ``If you shake your device 100 times on the home screen, you will be taken to the place where you can start the Yokubo arc.'' It was realized as a function. did.

Since it was just a trick, the management did not announce it when it was first implemented, and waited for players to notice it. It seems that Mr. Takada and his colleagues were watching the game in suspense every day, but as more and more players gradually became aware of the situation, the official released the information in the form of a ciphered tweet on January 1st. The code was reportedly created by a marketer.

In addition, the person in charge of sound came up with the idea of ​​``each time you shake it, a sound would come out, playing the song that plays in the gacha,'' and that idea was also adopted.

After the trick became recognized, the number of players who reached the ending as intended increased, and Mr. Takada said, ``It was a good measure.''

Technology that supported the ending

Here, Mr. Etsuda took the stage and explained the work that was done to ensure that the ending event proceeded smoothly.

The major issues were ``guild raid synchronization'' and ``login restrictions'' .
First, let's talk about Guild Raid synchronization. As mentioned above, the ending guild raid battle required all members to participate in the battle. Additionally, there was an order that they wanted the scenario that plays before and after the battle to run at the same time.

In order to make this happen, the issues were ``how to start synchronization'' and ``how to recover if the app crashes.''

Therefore, Mr. Etsuda set up a new "member waiting area" before the battle. Furthermore, the path to ``Sino Alice was Nanika'' was divided into phases such as ``pre-battle scenario,'' ``battle,'' and ``post-battle scenario,'' so that the player has information on where they are. If he were to drop out, this information would be used as a basis for determining the point at which he would return.



　もう1つの「ログイン制限」が必要になった理由としては，エンディングのイベントでDAU（Daily active users）の増加を狙っていたことがある。あまり前例のない企画だけに，どれだけプレイヤーが増加するかが予測しづらく，負荷が上がった場合に対応できるか，対応したところでコスト的な問題は発生しないか……という懸念があったという。

　そこで，プレイヤーが想定以上になった場合は，リクエストレート制限という手法でログイン制限をかけることになったが，前述の通り，ギルドレイドバトルはメンバー全員で挑む必要があるため，細かい条件を設定した。

　具体的には「プレイ中に制限がかかって進行を止めることを防ぐため，制限をかけるのはアプリ起動時に使用されるログインAPIのみ」「ギルドメンバーの誰かがプレイ中であれば，同じギルドのプレイヤーはログインAPIを突破できる」といったものだ。

　悦田氏は，ログイン制限が予想のつかないアクセス増加への対策として大きな意義があるとして，自身のパートをまとめた。

人がいなくなる中でのタスクマネジメント

　ここで再び高田氏が登壇し，エンディングの開発におけるタスクマネジメントを振り返った。

　エンディングの開発は，通常の季節/周年イベントなどの作業と並行して進める必要があったとのこと。
　エンディングの仕様は，関係者から伝え聞くような形で断片的に降りてきており，あるエンジニアは「タスク量はあるみたいだけど，今の人数ならいけそう」と話していたものの，いざ正式に仕様が決まって開発がスタートしてみると，そううまくは進まなかった。

　大きな要因の1つは，人の異動が発生したことだった。プロジェクトの終了が近づけば，別の場所に移る人も出てくるうえ，人員の補充もされなくなる。こなすべきタスクに対してエンジニアの人数が足りないというピンチに陥ってしまった。

　ここで高田氏は大規模開発のタスク管理経験が少なかったこともあり，「タスクマネジメントの基本に忠実に従おう」と決めた。
　具体的には，大きなタスクは小さく切りわけて工数を把握し，実装が間に合うかを確認。対応順に優先度を付けて，工数が逼迫する仕様は圧縮を検討するといった具合に，とにかく「見える化」を図った。

　人員不足はプランナーでも起こっていたため，エンジニアから「FIXした仕様がないので，工数が出せません」という“開発現場あるある”がさらに高い頻度で起きていたという。

　これに対しても高田氏は，地道な確認で仕様を確定させていく。その際には「この仕様でいっていいですか？」といったように，エンジニア側から仕様を提案したそうだ。

　努力の甲斐あって，エンディングは遅延することなく実装できたのだが，高田氏は一番の理由として「マイルストーンの設定」を挙げた。
　2週間ごとに区切りを付けて「この部分はここまでに実機で確認できるようにする」と決め，実際にプレイ会を行ったという。

　もちろん，すべてが予定通りには進まなかったが，プレイ会があったおかげで「この部分は遅れます」といった報告があり，フォローもしやすくなったとのこと。高田氏はこうしたコミュニケーションを「健康診断を行っているような」と表現した。

　プレイ会には別のメリットもあった。厳しいスケジュールで開発を進めるスタッフには，「本当にリリースできるのか？」「面白いものが作れているのか？」といった不安のようなものが生まれていたが，作ったものが実機で動く様子を見ることで，それを一掃できたという。

　高田氏は最後に，「シノアリスならではの，『サービス終了を全力で楽しむ』ということを，エンジニアもプランナーもマーケティングも前面に押し出していけたのが本当に良かった」と振り返り，セッションをまとめた。

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