"The lighthouse effect applied to the game is not the socioeconomic lighthouse effect, it is more intuitively presented. As the name suggests, it is like a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean, guiding the way for lost ships. ”

"In a linear game, the presence of the lighthouse effect doesn't matter, and a lot of the time NPCs, quests, item rewards, and all sorts of things can guide the player forward."

"But the open world gives players a lot more freedom, and it's important to get players to set goals out of confusion."

"Let's take a simple example. One of the most obvious lighthouse effects in Elden Ring is the Golden Tree. ”

"The Golden Tree standing at the Junction can be seen from any angle unless you are in the underworld, it is like a beacon to guide the player, no matter where the player goes, it will eventually move towards the foot of the tree."

"Arriving at the Golden Tree is an invisible traction, but many game manufacturers on the market, when designing the open world, draw on this 'giant beauty', they set up a variety of conspicuous buildings, and did not play a good guiding effect, just make it look visually impactful, some giant buildings can't even interact and can't be entered, it's just a sticker, such game sales are not ideal from my statistics."

"Let's take a look at how Zelda uses the lighthouse effect."

"Friends who have played Zelda should know that all over the continent of Hyrule, you can see a towering teleportation point called Hikata." (Those who have played the original can be understood as the statue of the Seven Heavens)

"Actually, temples that have been unlocked in the game can also be used for teleportation, so why is there a Hikata?"

"Ready Player One isn't a game company that likes to design useless stuff."

"Obviously, these Hikata, which stand all over the world, make players look at it from afar, and they are the lighthouses that guide the direction of the sea."

"Of course, it's not enough to get the player's attention, you have to give the player some benefits, like ...... Once you've climbed the Hikata, you'll be able to unravel the map fog of the area. ”

"This is also true in Elden, but compared to the inconspicuous and even easily missed stone monuments in Elden, Zelda, which uses the lighthouse effect to the extreme, is clearly better designed in this link."

"Now, the lighthouse is tied to the reward mechanism. With all of this, the player will at least have a short-term goal in mind. Whether I'm taming horses or cooking now, catching butterflies or snowballing, sooner or later I'll climb the nearby Hicata and unlock a map of the area. ”

Then rely on the Hika Towers to guide the player slowly and invisibly. So don't think that "Zelda" has no guidance, on the contrary, the strongest design in "Zelda" is their guidance system, but this guidance system is too good, without the player noticing, it leads the way out, but it does not delay the player's exploration, anyway, the lighthouse is there and will not run, even if the player gets lost, as soon as he looks up and sees the landmark Hika Tower not far away, he will get back on track. This sense of design is undoubtedly very clever. ”

"That's something I've seen that none of the open world games on the market have done yet."

"And then there's the second core of Zelda, the triangle."

"Maybe I'll just say the noun, and many players will find it difficult to understand the meaning."

"I found the side-by-side comparison of "The Land of the Gods"

Brother Bei Ci interspersed a game picture from "Gods Continent" in the middle of the article.

In this image, the design is very full in terms of points of interest.

There is a vendor on the far left side of the city gate, and after leaving the city, you can see an NPC who is handing out side quests.

On the right, there is a mine with torches lit.

Further ahead, there is a huge waterwheel with strange lights shining on it.

In the middle of the city gate, there is a carriage that has fallen to the ground, which is obviously an interactive task that requires the player to come forward to investigate.

If you look at the top of the hill in the distance, you can see a Gothic-style tower building with the irregular sound of bells.

Looking up at the sky, the flock of birds will periodically flutter back and forth, and the huge leader bird seems to have a letter in his mouth.

These are just some of the more conspicuous interactive events, and there are more small details in the game that have also been circled in red by Brother Beici.

This is a screenshot of the game at the gate of the secondary main city of Almia, not long after it started. It can be seen that there are so many points of interest that guide the player that it is dizzying. ”

"But in reality, too many points of interest not only do not arouse the player's interest, but also cause boredom because there are too many choices."

"At this time, it only takes a simple way to change the current state, see Figure 2 for details."

Brother Bei Ci added a picture below.

He put a wall up at the gate of the city, making it look like the wall of the public toilet with signs for men and women on the right.

"At this point, we can notice that when this wall appears, the targets we can choose from in our field of vision are instantly reduced to only the vendors on the far left and the mine with torches on the far right."

"Players only need to choose between the two, go left if they want to interact with NPCs, and go right if they want to venture down the mines, it's simple and intuitive."

"And when you get out of the mine, you can give a small number of points of interest guidance."

"Of course, you can't use such an intuitive example as me in the game, and you can't just put a public toilet wall here in any scene, which is too dramatic. And if you change to other close-up occlusions, once or twice is fine, but if there are too many times, players will definitely think that the field of vision is not wide enough, after all, you emphasize the open world, what is the matter that you always block my field of vision? Not at all free. ”

"Let's take a look at how Ready Player One handles this in Zelda."

In Figure 3, Bei Cige intercepted the scene inside the game "Zelda".

Vista, a mountain.

On the left side of the mountain there is a post where you can rest and trigger side quests, and on the right side is an inactive temple.

And then it's gone, except for a few cosmetic environment items and scattered gatherings, which are all the points of interest that the player can see.

"Through comparison, we can find that the number one player directly uses the method of 'a mountain as a shield', so that the player's eyes can only be locked on two or three more conspicuous points nearby, and these conspicuous places are the player's next goal."

"It's obviously not like I'm trying to make up for the number one player, if you get to the temple on the right and then look up at the mountain from a 'temple-side vant' view, you'll see that the points of interest around you change again."

"As shown in Figure 4, the Hikata, which was originally not visible from the perspective of Figure 3, will be displayed halfway up the mountain on the side of Figure 4, and a camp of Pokebrin will appear on the right, which cannot be seen from the original perspective."

"Through comparison, it is not difficult to find that Zelda almost implements the principle of triangle design to the end, so that no matter what angle you are in, there are only two or three points of interest visible to the naked eye, which makes it easier for players to make choices."

"Why is it called a triangular design? Because you will find that the shape of a mountain looks like an isosceles triangle from a macro perspective. ”

"Mountains are supposed to exist in nature, and they can be seen everywhere, and there is no abrupt feeling of 'public toilet walls'."

"'Always keep the player interested in it, but not distracted by too many points of interest,' is the second thing I think Zelda's design is very strong."

"The third point is what I think is the absolute king of Zelda's design concept! Under normal circumstances, I feel that even selling courses for a fee is not excessive, and there are no other evaluation articles on the market that throw this point of view. ”

"However, the old audience who is familiar with me knows that Brother Beizi is not a person who is greedy for this little cheapness, and even if I don't do it today, it is estimated that with the character of the designer, after the first wave of popularity of the game drops, the number one player should also announce the design principle, so I am at best a character who borrows flowers to offer Buddha, so I will only receive a small like from everyone, if you think the quality of the article is good, you can also help share and forward it to your friends/Yaya/Yaya"

Halfway through the article, Beici also made a small joke, but soon got to the point again.

"The third point, the frame structure - the reason why I put it in the last place is because the entire open world core of Zelda is completely supported by this structure."

"Before I get into the details of this framework, for ease of understanding, I will first talk about how other game manufacturers' open world frameworks have been designed in the past six months."

"Perhaps deeply influenced by the originator of the open world, Elden Ring, the open games born in the past six months have a very significant feature - a large free map for players to explore."

"But to be honest, even the originator of "Elden", the core of its most attractive player is actually the experience of ring like, not the open world, which is just more inclusive than ring like, so many manufacturers will choose to work hard in this direction."

"But after the ring like element is removed from your open world, the content left is completely insufficient to support the player's desire to explore."

"There are often problems such as 'uneven distribution of points of interest', 'improper control of the pace of upgrades', 'unbalanced distribution of side rewards and main rewards', 'maps are bigger for the sake of being bigger', and so on."

"Even if it is the "Gods Continent" designed by the Blizzard team that has the deepest understanding of the open world except for "Elden", I must make it clear here that the so-called 37 principles of Blizzard's chief president Mead are really nonsense."

"The definition of the open world is not at all, 3 into the main line, 7 into the branch + exploration point construction, this understanding is really too one-sided, just like primitive people saw a thunder in the sky, and then the trees caught fire, and they firmly believed that thunder was a necessary element to produce flames."

"And the design understanding of more manufacturers is even worse than that of Blizzard. The open world as they understand it is to throw something on a large map, whether it's a branch, a point of interest, or an item, just make it look evenly distributed and let the player always have something to do. ”

"Zelda handles the framework very well, it's definitely textbook-level, let's see how Zelda does it."

In the article, Bei Cige inserted Figure 5, which is an overlook map of "Zelda", and all the relevant branches, props, points of interest, enemies, etc. are densely marked on the map.

"If we look closely, it's not hard to see."

"The framework structure of Zelda uses the principle of layering."

"First of all, put a castle in the center of the map, "Hyrule Kingdom", and then the biggest main story of our entire game came into being. That's to go to the castle to rescue Princess Zelda, right, everyone knows that. ”

"Let's call it, the first-level framework, is the biggest driving force for players to play this game. Some people may think that I had a great time in Hyrule, and I have no intention of saving the princess...... However, this is only on the premise of having this main line, if there is no premise of saving the princess, and the player has no ultimate goal, then all adventures in the Hyrule continent are meaningless, and everything you do feels like a waste of time, and you will naturally lose interest. So although this main line looks chicken, it can definitely hold the first-level framework. ”

"Of course, this main line alone is not enough, the huge Hyrule Continent is equivalent to a blank piece of paper at this time, and there is nothing else, then the player only needs to arrive at the place of the chess piece to end this game, then this kind of game is undoubtedly boring."

"Therefore, on the basis of the first-level framework, the engraved designer has refined and expanded the second-level framework."

"The four divine beasts are the second-level framework of the Hyrule Continent."

"The carver evenly distributed the four divine beasts on the four corners of the continent, the Thunder God Beast located in the sand dune area, the Wind God Beast located in the Snow Mountain Region, the Fire God Beast located in the volcano area, and the Water God Beast in the territory of Zhuola, dividing the entire continent into four."

"At this time, in addition to the main goal of the main line, players have a secondary goal, that is, to go to the areas of the four divine beasts respectively to collect their power and use it to increase the intensity of the final battle."

"Then the player at this time, when he comes out of the initial platform, will not go straight to the Middle Kingdom, but will first choose to explore the four corners of the continent."

"It's still the same old question, the big map of the open world will seem empty in the hands of many game manufacturers."

"Even if Hyrule has the Middle Kingdom, plus the exploration of the mythical beasts in the four areas, the progress of the game is short and not to mention, and the player will be very bored on the way to the four areas."

"If it's other game manufacturers, they may have already started to place points of interest along the road at this time, but as I said earlier, you have to figure out the priorities, if the player is too obsessed with the task of unlocking the four divine beasts, any of your points of interest will not stop him."

"Therefore, the engraver designer has made the frame refined again."

"This time, he used a three-level target, 16 Hikata located all over the world, and they evenly cut the continent of Hyrule in more detail."

"The effect of lighting up these towers is obvious, it can open the map of the current area, and with the map, players can better move towards the area of the four divine beasts."

"You see, if the point of interest doesn't stop the player, then let's introduce something more beneficial to the game to slow down the player's exploration progress and not make them feel offended."

"At this point, the player's attention will change from being in a hurry to activate the four divine beasts to unlocking all the towers first and lighting up the entire continent map."

"OK, we now have a first-level target - the Kingdom of Hyrule, a second-level target - the Four Divine Beasts, a third-level target - Hikata, the whole map looks a little denser, not so empty, and the player's path has been set. Now, they're more than happy to run around. ”

"But just by running around repeatedly opening the tower and opening up the horizon, will players really like this game? Does that alone make Zelda the best open-world game for Blue Star? Clearly not enough. ”

"So, the engravers have injected something more soulful into the entire map, and it's this move that completely makes the whole open world exploration fun overflow the screen!"

(End of chapter)