Folding paper to explore the open world, a new vitality for women in gaming?

Can female-oriented games also feature open worlds?

With the issuance of a new batch of game version numbers, Fangzhi's new work "Infinite Warmth" has undoubtedly become one of the most watched games. The combination of dress-up adventure and open world is a game for women. The market has brought new surprises.

As the fifth work in the Nuan Nuan series, "Infinite Nuan Nuan" can be said to have achieved a very big leap compared with the previous work. On the basis of changing the costumes, it combines Combat elements, scene interaction, and map exploration have brought more new vitality to the Nuannuan IP that has gone through 11 years.

What deserves more attention from the outside world is whether Fangzhi’s exploration of the open world can become a new opportunity for women to play games?

Nuan Nuan explores the open world

What kind of effect will the combination of the Nuan Nuan series, which mainly focuses on dress-up gameplay, and the open world show?

This should be the most curious thing to the outside world, and it is also the biggest highlight of "Infinite Warmth".

As the first open world dress-up game on the market, "Infinite Warmth" has been receiving great support from players and the market since its first PV exposure in November 2022 and its version number in February 2024. attention, and this expectation mainly comes from the open world.

In fact, stacking paper has certain advantages in making open world products. The Nuan Nuan series itself has a relatively grand narrative, such as Nuan Nuan saving the Miracle Continent, humans challenging the authority of gods, etc. At the same time, Miracle Continent Seven The country also has various landforms such as wastelands and volcanoes, making it easier to set up both the plot and the scene.

Regarding the open world of "Infinite Nuan Nuan", neither the old Nuan Nuan series players nor the industry are worried. What everyone is more concerned about is whether Nuan Nuan's adventure in the open world can bring more Freshness.

Judging from the PVs exposed so far, through the construction of an open world, the stage scenes, puzzle elements, and level design of "Infinite Warmth" have indeed been further improved. Rich, special skills and free exploration also bring more space and more fun to the game, such as parkour, jumping, fishing, insect catching and other casual gameplay.

But there are certain differences between "Infinite Warmth" and conventional open world products.

The first is the issue of the sense of substitution. The general rule of open world games is to allow players to get an immersive experience. Both scene construction and narrative serve this rule.

But "Infinite Nuan Nuan" still continues the characteristics of the Nuan Nuan series. Nuan Nuan is always the only protagonist of the entire game. Players are more about accompanying them to grow up, so the sense of immersion will definitely be reduced.

The second is the weak combat design. Generally speaking, the combat system is the focus of open world products, but the foundation of the Nuannuan series is still a dress-up game. Traditional combat is actually not in line with the tone of the game. .

The traditional combat mode is not feasible. The gameplay of "Infinite Warmth" mainly relies on suits. By wearing different suits to activate special abilities, attack monsters, combine combat skills with suit attributes, and fight The scenes are bound to be less than those of ordinary open world games.

Objectively speaking, although "Infinite Nuan Nuan" incorporates an open world, it still continues the characteristic style of the Nuan Nuan series. Both the main line and the gameplay are centered around " "Set", and the exploration of the open world is also to find more materials for making sets.

In fact, the core gameplay of the entire game is a closed loop, collecting sets - acquiring set skills - using skills to collect more sets. It is essentially in the same vein as the previous games in the Nuan Nuan series, and is very friendly to old players.

On the basis of continuing the dress-up gameplay, bringing richer content through the open world mode, and completing the upgrade of technical capabilities, we can see the ambition of folding paper through "Infinite Warmth".

Why open world?

A question that everyone is curious about is why did Laizhi choose to build an open world in the Nuannuan series? After all, the two seem completely unrelated.

For the Nuan Nuan series, beautiful and exquisite suits and raising daughters are the highlights that can retain players the most, so the focus of stacking paper to create Nuan Nuan IP is on art modeling and a sense of companionship. This actually applies to all female-oriented games.

But building an open world means spending more energy on gameplay and level design. This is something that past dress-up games and even female-oriented games rarely did. As for why paper folding is done this way , it seems not difficult to understand.

Since the advent of "Nuan Nuan's Dress Up Story" in 2012, Nuan Nuan IP has been in operation for more than 10 years. It can be seen with the naked eye that Nuan Nuan IP has improved in terms of art modeling and companionship. Do it to the extreme.

On the one hand, as a mobile game, the art performance of the Nuan Nuan series has reached the top of the industry. It has evolved from 2D to 3D, and the "Shine Nuan Nuan" set has more than 80,000 modeling surfaces;

On the other hand, the Nuan Nuan series has a single protagonist from beginning to end, and all content and gameplay are centered around Nuan Nuan. However, 10 years of companionship will inevitably cause some players to suffer from aesthetic fatigue, leading to user dissatisfaction. drain.

For the purpose of upgrading content and technology, Fiezhi chose to inject vitality into the Nuan Nuan IP by carrying the very popular open world at the time, to make up for the problem of single gameplay in the Nuan Nuan series, and to bring players more How fresh.

At the same time, as a long-term mobile game, the fifth generation should not be the end of the Nuan Nuan IP. The open world can accommodate more innovative content and lay the foundation for the subsequent content planning of the Nuan Nuan series.

And more importantly, Fangzhi seems to be no longer satisfied with being labeled as a game that specializes in women, and is trying to further broaden the market by creating open-world games. Bringing more commercial presentation, this can also be seen through another new work of Fold Paper, "Hundred Faces and Thousands of Faces".

Compared with "Infinite Warmth", "A Thousand Faces" has actually made a bigger breakthrough. It has completely shed its female-oriented label and is instead a Chinese-style open world action mobile game. Playability, expressiveness, etc. have all made leaps and bounds.

For stacked paper, perhaps building an open world is just the appetizer, and challenging industry trends is the focus.

Is the open world the future of gaming for women?

To be honest, before "Infinite Warmth", it seemed unimaginable for women to contribute to the open world of games.

Currently, the mainstream of the female-oriented game market is love cultivation. Among the top ten popular female-oriented games on TapTap, B-games account for 70%, and the remaining three are about cultivation. Relatively speaking, the themes The content is relatively monotonous.

This does not mean that female players only play B games and develop, but that they have no choice at all. As the proportion of female players in the game market increases year by year, there is still a huge increase in the number of women entering the game market. However, it is obvious that the development of the market cannot keep up with the growth rate of female players.

Yao Runhao, the founder of Folding Paper, has long seen through the dilemma of women entering the game market: Many people say that women do not play games. In fact, it’s not that she doesn’t play, she just doesn’t have games that suit her. People do rather than no one plays.

A very real problem is that most game manufacturers are involved in the female-oriented game track, either making B-games or developing games. This is not to say that these types of games are not good, but they are relatively rich and playable. Poor, not taking into account more female players.

The open world has undoubtedly opened up a gap in the game world for women who mainly focus on love development. Richer content, freer exploration, and more immersive experience have all brought new opportunities for women to games. vitality.

But the question is, can the open world really be the future of gaming for women?

The domestic open world craze began in 2019. The first test of "Genshin Impact" once set off a boom in open world game development and became a "fashionable list" of domestic games. "Product", and "Infinite Warmth" was also launched in 2019.

But what is unavoidable is that the current domestic open world game market is not optimistic. The open world is more like a concept and a gimmick, and rarely achieves the quality that truly satisfies players, even "Genshin Impact" It is also facing the problem of declining revenue. The revenue in the fourth week of January was even surpassed by the two major B games "Love and Deep Space" and "Beyond the World".

On the other hand, although Folding Paper has invited Kentaro Tominaga, the creator of "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild", to serve as the executive producer, Tominaga, who has rich experience in open world game planning, once made the outside world think about "Infinite". "Nuan Nuan" is full of confidence.

But in fact, there are essential differences between the two games. "Breath of the Wild" is a buyout system. The rich content and gameplay of the open world actually increase player consumption and encourage players to pay for it.

As a long-term non-buyout mobile game, "Infinite Warmth" cannot learn from the experience of the former in terms of commercialization. On the one hand, how can the payment points of the dress-up game be implanted in the open world? , on the other hand, players will also worry about the bottom line of krypton gold in the open world.

This problem extends to female-oriented games as well. How can female-oriented games be commercialized when combined with an open world?

Objectively speaking, the open world does bring new possibilities for women to enter the gaming circuit, but there are still many problems. Perhaps these doubts can only be solved when "Infinite Warmth" is launched.

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