Unlock experiences in the new world that are different from real life.

By: Mable Jiang

Today, I spent three hours reading "Creativity and Rhythm" by the famous Japanese game planner Hideo Yoshizawa. This book has had a deep impact on Gas Hero producer Johnny. It introduces many thinking frameworks and methodologies about game planning to form creativity and rhythm.

As I read, I reflected on how these frameworks could be applied to Gas Hero, combining my observations and insights from the past half year, and made some notes.

Core Idea [Theme / Concept / System (Means + Path)]

The starting point of a game is often an idea, but in reality, very few ideas can become core ideas. Often, they cannot support a complete game or generate more supporting ideas (used to strengthen the core idea). Of course, the idea does not need to be completely new; usually, it is the result of combining existing elements in a new way.

The initial origin of Gas Hero, I have never really delved into what it is with Johnny, maybe he doesn't even know himself (I'll keep this a secret for future podcasts). I am often curious about the creative process of game planning and ask game planners from various angles if they have thought about complex theories like xyz during the creative process.

He honestly told me that it's not like that. The process of reaching the core idea is more like a spider weaving a web, weaving here and there, and finally reaching a center. And this process, game planners constantly ask themselves many questions and then try to answer them. This process of gradually reaching the core from chaos is more like artistic creation than rational organization. Many times, the logical thinking in the AMA is actually summarized afterwards (laughs).

So when there are no correct answers for the time being, I will try to organize it according to my understanding using Mr. Yoshizawa's framework.

Johnny was deeply influenced by a game in Cairo. He has forgotten the name of the game, and even GPT couldn't figure it out, but the core presentation was a bunch of settlements with interactive possibilities between them. He thought this was a very good social experiment, but unfortunately, the interaction there was too single (my understanding is that it was mainly cooperative), so the rhythm was not good (too slow, easily boring), and the sense of social interaction did not continue.

But this inspiration itself is actually the initial inspiration for constructing the core idea of Gas Hero, determining the theme of the game: social interaction. This step is probably similar to the "shogi" gameplay inspiring "Dig Dug" as mentioned in the book.

So how can we build sustainable social interaction?

Every day, people live under the rules of society and give meaning to their existence. So in other words, as long as the assumption "humans are social animals" holds true, if a game can abstract the interactions in human society, it may be able to construct a good social field.

Therefore, I boldly further deduce that the concept of the Gas Hero game, "What should players play here?" is "to construct a virtual human society where everyone has the motivation to interact continuously."

But this abstract statement (constructing a virtual human society) is easy to say, but in reality, the human society is such a complex system. The core is to select means and paths that better serve the core concept of the game, leaving behind the most essential rules and removing the noise as much as possible to preserve the essence of human interaction.

The focus in this concept is not "virtual human society," but "continuous motivation to interact." Based on this, we need to dig deeper into what causes human sociability.

This question may not have a correct answer. Yuval Noah Harari said in "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" that since ancient times, Homo sapiens are the only beings with the ability to tell stories and imagine, and can organize and mobilize large-scale actions far beyond the number of people in their tribes (which were around 150 at that time) by "creating hope."

Therefore, we have found an important supporting concept that supports the core concept—hope. Many milestones in Gas Hero are accompanied by different types of hope, some are small surprises, and some are big goals. I always joke with everyone, saying "Regret is the driving force of human progress," as hope comes from regret. Only by constantly generating new hope can players continue to have the motivation to interact within it.

Another important supporting concept is bonds. What are bonds? In the same settlement, it is a bond to work together to achieve a goal, and it is also a bond to almost win the PvP championship this time and strive to win next time. It sounds somewhat similar to "hope," but here it mainly refers to the relationships between people in the game setting that arise from the game process, whether it is the joy of working together to complete guild challenges or two respected opponents hoping to meet again in the next PvP match.

There may be some other supporting concepts, but I won't go into more detail here (after all, I'm not the game planner's confidant!!!), I want to leave some Easter eggs from the planner himself to share with everyone in the podcast.

After clarifying the overall core of the game and supporting concepts, the rest is to continuously select means and paths that can better present these concepts as a whole. Some are additions, and some are subtractions.

The tree-like world structure of Gas Hero is an addition: it is a more complex setting than a simple flat world, but with this three-dimensional design, the concept of "hope" can be very well developed. Automatic combat is a subtraction; its role is to minimize the player's energy investment in operations as much as possible and leave more experiential points for interaction between people (sharing the luck of each opening and birthing, allocating their respective combat tasks).

All these achievements of big and small hopes, the generation of topics and behavioral interactions between people, revolve around various in-game assets. Because of the very low wear and tear on the blockchain, the possibilities for interaction between people in Gas Hero have become exceptionally rich.

It is worth noting that, because Gas Hero presents a virtual society, the process of considering paths and means inevitably needs to consider the various problems that human society faces, the most fundamental of which is economic inflation, bubbles, and even stagnation. Personally, I think the most amazing thing about the solutions given by the game planner in the work is the integration of the solution with the overall structure of the game: from ordinary citizens to the fate of the world elders, they are all bound together through the corresponding incentive structure, sharing hope and mutual bonds.

Rhythm

There is a joke that I have always found very funny, that the game planner of this game really hopes that the rhythm of this game is "five minutes a day" and "relaxing." This is also why I firmly believe that the game in Cairo, which includes elements of settlements and neighbors, may be the initial inspiration for Gas Hero, because the game in Cairo is the kind of style that can be picked up and put down at any time, making people feel warm and comfortable.

In fact, the experience of Gas Hero is that you really can't click a few times in the game every day ("Achievement unlocked every five minutes"?), whether it is "relaxing" is open to debate (😂), but it is definitely "irresistible."

The energy consumption is indeed gone in an instant, but you feel that you have to look at the hero combinations in the white paper again, discuss strategies with others, remind the members of the same settlement to quickly gather resources, and then see if there is anything worth buying in the auction house at this stage. After buying, should you use it yourself or go to the secondary market for arbitrage? At this point, as in-game assets as NFTs, not only do they circulate within a closed system, but they are also influenced by many external factors, bringing additional rich curve changes to the game experience.

The realization of these experiences is fundamentally about the game planner clearly laying out what to do each day in a campaign cycle. The first two days are for auction house bidding, the third day is for challenging the settlement boss and challenging the settlement leader, and the fourth day is for the first batch of birthing… For players who want to become officials or develop challenges in PvP, the rhythm is quite tight. Therefore, in the macro melody of compact and orderly situations, simple operations can remove many player experiences that lead to "tiredness" in daily life. The auction house brings excitement every six hours, and in the daily rhythm, birthing, opening boxes, reforging weapons, upgrading pets, and so on, are all smaller fluctuations in experiential rhythm. The larger the time range, the more certain the rhythm segment, while the daily rhythm changes are quite unpredictable. The overall presentation is like Bach's Three-Part Inventions, with an overall regularity, and the details always have some surprising breaks in the monotony.

In the words of the game planner himself: "A product, with different experiences, each experience has its own rhythm; the superposition of the rhythms of these different experiences is like the taste of a Fourier transform; and how these different rhythms are combined, how the peaks and valleys are superimposed, the more coupled experiences there are, the richer the experiences will be."

Core Idea x Rhythm = Comfort

After explaining the above two parts, this part is actually unnecessary. After reading this book, I told the game planner that he really likes to use the word "comfortable," probably influenced by Hideo Yoshizawa.

But I also want to mention one thing that makes me very comfortable with Gas Hero, and that is the beauty of symmetry.

The heroes' life span corresponds to their quality level.

Energy recovery time and the auction house both occur every six hours.

The GMT destruction ratio for upgrading breeding and the auction house.

The income structure balancing the power line and the glory line, located at the two ends of the wealth arbitrage line balance.

The game of Gas Hero ultimately presents an extremely complex form, but the coupling of simple rules is the framework for the complex presentation. Mr. Yoshizawa also proposed the viewpoint in the book of "accomplishing as much work as possible with as few parameters as possible." If simple rules can allow for the appearance of various complex behaviors through permutations and combinations, then that is a good path. Conversely, overly complex rules will limit players' creative behavior in the game.

After reading "Creativity and Rhythm," I asked myself, what exactly makes people comfortable in Gas Hero?

There are many possible answers, but I might say: it is an experience where a player unlocks something different from real life in a new world, an experience that is unknown, exciting, and where anything is possible.

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