3 posts tagged with "indie game"

This article is republished with permission from Qingbao Ji.

Written by: Caibao

Layout: Luoya

"The distance between us seems to be exactly 1000 light-years"

"So I'm seeing the Earth as it was 1000 years ago"

"This means"

"The light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach you"

"And then, carrying your image"

"It traveled alone through the universe for 1000 years, finally captured by my eyes"

"I might be able to see the current you right now"

"Therefore"

"We might have known each other long ago"

"When we both look up at the starry sky"

"I might be gazing into your eyes"

This declaration, filled with the grand cosmic romance of a STEM mind, comes from a girl. She is alone, in a distant corner of the universe 1000 light-years away from you, and will die on an alien planet in two minutes, her oxygen depleted.

You can't do anything. You're just an ordinary person who wanted to play some games after work, only to find that Steam inexplicably connected to her ship's central control system. You met through a cosmic miracle and casually started chatting. There's no epic saga, no opera spanning the galaxy. You just happened to chat for a few days about trivial things, that's all.

You can't save her. Her companions are all dead, the ship is shattered, and the atmospheric sulfur dioxide concentration is 1.3%. She has been abandoned by the corporation; no search and rescue team will mobilize for her. Most importantly—

You live in 2024, while she, 1000 light-years away, lives in 3024.

But she isn't lonely. She even laughed and sent you a selfie. Because you're still with her.

Her name is Aliya. She asks you to turn off the heart rate monitor display on your computer. Because she doesn't want you to see the moment her life hits zero.

You respect her last wish.

She sends no more messages.

A few minutes later, holding onto a sliver of hope, you open the HRM again, wishing for a miracle rescue—

But reality is merciless.

You refuse to accept this ending. In the chat window, where no reply will come, you shout emptily, over and over.

Then you realize that millions of players are just like you... refusing to accept this ending:

But at the same time, another group of players have moved on, repeating in the comments the final cosmic romance Aliya gave them—the very STEM-heavy confession at the beginning:

……

Yes, this is the state of Bifang De Ta - Aliya — a text adventure game that costs only 9 yuan, small in size and simple in design, yet it carries the heavy, surging emotions of countless players, turning them into obsessed repeaters immersed in sorrow.

Of course, the opening story is just one of the five endings. Developed by TDGame and published by Anotherindie, Bifang De Ta - Aliya is a "Lifeline-like" multi-ending text adventure game.

"Lifeline-like" refers to a subgenre of text adventure games. As the name suggests, like the famous Lifeline series, it simulates a "real-time conversation between the player and the character" to drive the story, with the ultimate goal of helping the protagonist "escape". This type of game emphasizes "realism" — it syncs with real time, the player plays as themselves, and each reply sometimes takes minutes or even hours. The last time this genre went viral in China was with the well-known Yiciyuan Tongxun.

The story of Bifang De Ta - Aliya is more straightforward — as mentioned at the beginning, after opening the game, you inexplicably connect to the main control computer of a small spaceship adrift in the universe 1000 light-years away. The ship seems to have just experienced a disaster. It's a mess. In the chaos, someone frantically asks "you" for the correct medical measures to save a companion's life. The other party mistakenly thinks you are still the ship's main AI, COSMOS, unaware that COSMOS has been replaced by you. So, your next sentence will determine whether a life lives or dies.

After handling the matter, the other party slowly realizes that you are not COSMOS, but a living human from somewhere unknown. Her ship is on the verge of destruction, and she can only beg you for help. Through conversation, you find you're talking past each other — you are actually separated by a time difference of 1000 years. She is Aliya from 3024, and you are an ordinary player from 2024. You have no idea how you suddenly connected across time and space. But no matter what, you are Aliya's only lifeline. Next, you need to help Aliya repair the damaged ship, check the surrounding radio signals, monitor the ship's energy and oxygen levels, and step by step seek a glimmer of hope—

At the same time, chat with Aliya, get to know each other, and also exchange the chasm in human civilization shaped by a thousand years of time difference—

That's the story of Bifang De Ta - Aliya.

Actually, from the description above, you might have noticed that even compared to other excellent "Lifeline-like" games, this one has many novel, imaginative standout designs. Despite the touching script, it's those creative designs that truly give the game its soul. Without these mechanical designs, even the best story would lack expressive power.

Because the game is small-scale and belongs to a niche genre, the development team Tongdian Game Studio is also relatively strapped for cash. In fact, Bifang De Ta - Aliya didn't have much promotion — and the fact that it achieved "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews is largely due to word of mouth — just like the legendary ASTLIBRA Revision back in the day. This is a dream that many game developers can only hope for.

Saying the development team is strapped for cash is not an exaggeration — this team of college students really had to rely on taking on outsourcing projects until they were utterly exhausted, just to scrape together enough money to fund Bifang De Ta - Aliya. Truly impressive.

This time, Qingbao Ji was fortunate to contact the development team of Bifang De Ta - Aliya — the game studio [Tongdian Game Studio] from Chengdu University of Information Technology — and had a chat with game producer Wuli and team operations manager Steve. How did these young people, who worked themselves to the bone on outsourcing to fund their game with passion, come up with a bunch of creative "game mechanics" within the framework of a "text adventure game"? And how did they produce their first commercial game?

1. "The Story Moved Players So Much They Spammed, Passersby Thought We Bought Paid Posters"​

"Not long after the game was released, many players were repeating lines in the comments, flooding the same sentence. For example, 'I don't accept this ending.' It was so repetitive that many Zhihu users accused us of buying paid posters..."

Talking about the player spamming phenomenon mentioned at the beginning of the article, producer Wuli said helplessly.

Whether on Bilibili, Zhihu, or the Steam review section, you can see a large number of comments repeating two golden lines from the game. One is "I don't accept this ending," and the other is the romantic confession spanning 1000 light-years.

"But actually, when the reviews were still few right after release, seeing player feedback, I felt like half of my life's dream was already fulfilled. When I first wrote that line and tested it, the team's operations manager, Steve, said that those lines would definitely become golden phrases passed around by word of mouth in the player community. And he was right." Wuli said.

Especially in the complex gaming environment of 2024, a "viral quote" might indeed be more effective than many promotional methods. As it turned out, they succeeded.

And Tongdian Game Studio really didn't have the money to buy any paid posters. This comment frenzy was purely the result of word of mouth. When making this game, Tongdian Game Studio had to bear a fixed monthly expense of 10,000 to 20,000 yuan, and the six full-time members of the studio came from families with limited financial means. They could only scrape together game funding by desperately taking on outsourcing projects. If they didn't, they would starve. It was that extreme.

2. The Golden Rule of Realism​

Wuli believes that the reason the game's "story" resonated so strongly with players is mainly due to a combination of multiple factors.

First, Tongdian Game Studio is not actually a game development team that centers on "script". Wuli, who served as the writer this time, is primarily a systems and balancing designer. The highly praised story was actually born from a few "ideas".

Although this is a "text adventure game", the game's creation did not start from the script — they usually first determine "what experience they want players to have", then "what mechanism or interaction to use to achieve that experience", and finally "what script to write to support that mechanism". For a "story-driven" game, this might seem a bit "backwards", but in reality, this approach reflects a scriptwriting philosophy commonly used in commercial games today.

This point is clearly shown in their project initiation process written on Zhihu:

For example, to make players feel the realism of chatting with a girl in real time, they chose the "Lifeline-like" game format; to make players willing to help Aliya / feel the weight of her death, they designed Aliya to be cute and likeable; to make players feel that Aliya is a human with emotions and life, they created the "heart rate monitor" mechanism, dialog speed variations, and the system for missed conversations; to make players feel "the pressure and responsibility of carrying another's life", they visualized the "oxygen level" and introduced several mechanisms that could lead to Aliya's death. Of course, these cause-and-effect relationships are not strictly one-to-one but form a logical network that intersects — all design serves the purpose of "realism".

During early version testing, they received player feedback that the female protagonist's personality was too rigid, a bit troublesome, a bit like "Taylor (the male protagonist of the Lifeline series) without the sarcasm", bossing the player around and being annoying. Players didn't care about her, and of course, didn't want to help her or care about her survival. This made Wuli and the team realize that if the female protagonist wasn't likeable enough, it would be devastating to the desired effect of all subsequent gameplay.

So how to make her more likeable? At that time, he watched Shunji Iwai's The Case of Hana & Alice, and on a whim, decided to change Aliya to be more "childish", or rather more "lively, cute, and mischievous". In fact, many story segments were not designed to advance the plot but simply to create a chat experience between the player and Aliya.

Although Aliya now seems less reliable in terms of space exploration expertise, Wuli felt that this adjustment was the right choice to make players fall in love with the character.

It's not enough for the female lead to be just likeable; she also needs to be sufficiently "real".

Back then, Wuli and the team established a rule (they called it the Golden Rule): whether for system development, writing, or mechanic design, they must follow the principle of "everything based on real situations". For example, colloquial speech, verbal tics, mental overload, emergency cursing, humming in the shower, etc. — all these had to be kept intact in the game. They gave an example on Zhihu: if you ignore Aliya for too long, she can actually die from lack of oxygen (like in Metal Gear Solid).

To make the language colloquial, Wuli intentionally kept some grammatical errors in the game text, which caused a minor issue. For example, Aliya has a line:

"我听着在。"

It looks a bit confusing, but it means "I'm listening." Wuli is from Hubei. According to the dialect habits of Hubei, this sentence is written with this "inverted" structure. So he didn't realize that this line had regional characteristics. Some players didn't understand and reported it as a typo, which is when he became aware of the issue — but he still kept it.

"Maybe Aliya's ancestral home is also Hubei."

Wuli said that although many players reported the game was short and many options seemed meaningless, the current text actually amounts to 50,000 words. He devoted a large amount of text to variations in different options and Aliya's feedback to different player choices. For example, if the player doesn't speak and changes the topic, or if Aliya waits too long for a reply and goes to do something else, there are different variations. These minute branches require a huge amount of text, and he believes it is precisely these complex and diverse branches that make the conversations with Aliya more natural and realistic.

So, after shaping a realistic and cute Aliya—

They mercilessly handed the remote control that kills Aliya to the player.

After the player has had some degree of soulful communication with Aliya, the story opens up a new gameplay mechanic that truly carries the risk of death: controlling the engine.

Specifically, if the player intercepts a radio signal, it means there might be living people nearby, so they need to fly the ship to the signal coordinates to seek rescue. But the ship is already half-damaged, and control of COSMOS is in the player's hands, so the "engine switch" can only be operated by the player.

The operation method, simply put, is a countdown.

Although a countdown sounds simple, after a series of realistic interactions in the early game, most players have come to treat Aliya as a real girl. In this situation, the game tells you that her life or death is now in your hands. If you get the timing wrong even slightly, she will die because of your mistake, and die miserably, alone in the empty universe.

And precisely at this moment, to reassure Aliya, the player says things with incredible confidence.

You act casual, but the player is already sweating profusely, thinking "If I make even one mistake, she's dead." A countdown that would normally be simple becomes terrifying, making you doubt yourself. This design appears twice in the game: once early in the game and once near the end. The first is 8 seconds, the second is 15 seconds. Especially during the second critical engine burn, those 15 seconds of silence feel like an eternity. Who would have thought that a simple "countdown" mechanic, enhanced by the game's realism, could become such a nerve-wracking operation that increases the player's psychological pressure?

That's the effect Wuli was aiming for.

And if the player does cause Aliya's death due to a countdown error, you watch her heart rate drop to zero. The game doesn't offer any "restart" function. Dead is dead. Everything must start over from the beginning, no negotiations. Since progressing the game's conversation requires a fair amount of real-time waiting, replaying up to the death point really takes a long time. So for a text adventure game, such a death penalty is extremely severe, almost going against game design principles.

But Wuli ultimately decided to do it this way.

It's not that Wuli deliberately wanted to torment the player. In fact, the countdown window is designed to be quite generous. For the 8-second one, it's considered successful as long as it's within the 6-10 second range; for the 15-second one, success is achieved within 10-20 seconds, and Aliya will even urge you to close the engine at 17 seconds.

Wuli also thought for a long time about whether to give the player a checkpoint to retry if they failed. He said that many AAA games have "bridge collapse" sequences where even if the player is slow, the collapse speed slows down accordingly. But if the player still dies, they just go back to a checkpoint a few seconds earlier. For some exciting AAA games, that might not be a big deal — but for Bifang De Ta - Aliya, it would severely damage the immersion.

After all, Bifang De Ta - Aliya emphasizes "realism" from start to finish. If a "restart" design were suddenly introduced, both the weight of life and the emotional immersion would be destroyed. So in the end, he kept the severe death penalty, making the time window generous enough for the player to succeed, otherwise they die.

Wuli believes, "Because by this point in the game, players already have the tension of 'I must do well, or she will die' and care deeply about Aliya's life, this approach is consistent with the player's flow state. If we relaxed the penalty here, it might actually ruin the hard-earned emotional buildup."

This also shows that the game's script originated from ideas. First came the desire to "let players experience the tension of accidentally causing the female lead's death", then the countdown mechanic was born, and finally the ship navigation story to find the coordinates was written. But even this countdown mechanic went through several iterations, from "controlling the hatch" to "controlling the engine"...

Tongdian Game Studio, as an indie game development team, is indeed rare in its meticulous attention to these extremely detailed experiences.

3. Scientific Romance Across the Galaxy​

Apart from the design of gameplay and mechanics, the game's script also contains many humanistic romantic sentiments and outstanding sci-fi highlights, which are also reflected in their iterative thinking about the script.

For example, the ending scene at the beginning of the article, the confession across 1000 light-years, was not originally there. In the first and second versions of the game, Wuli did not include this scene. After playing through, they always felt something was missing, that the ending needed a climactic meeting scene between the player and Aliya. So the third version revolved around the core idea of "how to meet".

"If we used some method to make the player and Aliya physically meet, it would be too cliché and would affect immersion, since it's a meta-game set in different worlds. That would directly contradict the lore. So we thought about many sci-fi approaches, such as: the player somehow lives for a thousand years; or the player finds a way to talk to their future self a thousand years later; or the player passes down the belief 'remember to rescue a girl named Aliya in 3024' through generations of descendants; or suddenly the signal improves, allowing them to send frame animations to briefly meet Aliya... but none of them felt particularly good." Wuli said.

Finally, they decided to use the romantic description of light-years and time differences to conclude this rather "stream-of-consciousness" meeting, adding some cosmic-level romance and a STEM mind's imagination — the scene of seeing each other across the galaxy vividly came to life, and it was unanimously approved.

In fact, in the original setting, the distance between the two was not 1000 light-years either. The number 1000 was changed at the last minute to fit this meeting scene.

Wuli's mind is filled with this kind of cosmic-level romantic interpretation, including thoughts about the future form of human civilization. In the game, a thousand years later, human civilization is ruled by corporations. Planet explorers, who appear glamorous and admired, are actually slaves in the corporations' resource competition. The world of a thousand years later has lost the spark of imagination. Human rights have become the slaves of money. The spirit of star exploration has been tainted by profit. The gap between rich and poor maintains the surface-level cosmic cyberpunk aesthetic. Clones, Laika, Doll... various terms cover up the cannibalistic essence.

It is precisely because, in such a hopeless world, seeking some romance and beauty rooted in the human heart, and digging up some spirit of exploration long scorned by the secular world, becomes a thread of light at the bottom of the gravity well of desire. A thousand years ago, humanity's imagination of the galaxy, the fearless spirit of an explorer father against the times, and the cosmic adventure bought with the only desire in her short life — all are condensed into the brief conversation across 1000 light-years with you.

Before her death, Aliya can chat with you about the environment of Kelong 2-C, use her remaining oxygen to talk excitedly about the textures of new species never seen before, and, under the sunset created by the star, ramble on about how the afterglow of a red dwarf shapes golden snow-capped mountains.

In the white noise signal that no one will ever answer, she laughs, saying she dances in the afterglow of the Big Bang.

These chaotic and romantic elements across the cosmos, Wuli said, came from mixed inspirations. In fact, another ending of the game introduces a prop that explains "why the player and Aliya can communicate without delay across 1000 light-years". It's called the "Time Mapping Synchronizer", which can synchronize time differences and spatial differences (and also allows players in multiple playthroughs to skip waiting time for speedruns). Under the influence of this prop, Aliya sees a phone booth that can dial into the past — and the inspiration for this phone booth came from the TARDIS in Doctor Who.

And the ship's main control system, COSMOS, which the player occupies, was inspired by the dog named Cosmo in Guardians of the Galaxy, whose prototype was the first dog to go into space — Laika, the Soviet dog from 1957.

And the word "Laika" in this game becomes a derogatory term for those "space explorers". In this era where the spirit of exploration is eroded by corporate interests, "the dog that gave its life for humanity's space exploration" is indeed the most ironic nickname.

Similarly, the game also features a concept related to the core mystery of the plot — "Doll". Dolls are clones implanted with memories, unaware of their own identity, without human rights, existing only as company assets, consumables for exploring the boundaries of the universe. The design of these names also draws from various dolls in Japanese culture, such as the Fire Keeper doll in Bloodborne, little Ranni in Elden Ring, the doll aesthetics in Ghost in the Shell...

A vast and colorful range of experiences became the foundation for Wuli's creation of this wonderful story.

4. "All the Money from Outsourcing Went into Making the Game"​

As mentioned earlier, to make Bifang De Ta - Aliya, everyone at Tongdian Game Studio was constantly taking on outsourcing projects to earn money. Many media outlets have reported on various college student indie game teams, but few describe where these teams get their financial support, leading many to think that "college students" making indie games is a youthful, passionate endeavor.

However, that youth and passion only exist in the minority of teams that have funding, channels, technology, and connections.

Steve summed up the current state of Tongdian Game Studio in one sentence: If we don't do outsourcing, we starve.

Currently, Tongdian Game Studio has six full-time core R&D members. They actively participate in various college student game development competitions. Bifang De Ta - Aliya won the Best Story Design Award at CUSGA 2024. They also made it to the finals of the 2024 G-bits Future Game Developer Competition with their multiplayer party game Pengpeng Party, and developed a unique interactive narrative game called Ma Fan Ji Chu Zhe Feng Xin for the finals.

It's no exaggeration to say that their achievements today are the result of working to the bone.

In May 2021, Lilith Games' Avatar project happened to be working with university studios. Steve and the team serendipitously contacted a Lilith employee and established a game studio at Chengdu University of Information Technology, using this as an opportunity to form the team. In May 2022, they rented an office off-campus and officially began trying to pursue a commercial path. In May 2023, they registered a company and officially started their entrepreneurial venture. The team has now been working together for three years.

During these three years, until the release of Bifang De Ta - Aliya, they had no source of income — they relied entirely on outsourcing to keep the operation running.

"Since the monthly operating cost was 10,000 to 20,000 yuan, we had to spend a significant amount of manpower each month on outsourcing just to barely survive. The fixed expenses were there; if we didn't earn money, we'd starve. Moreover, we lacked channels, so we had to pick up the leftovers from others. When doing outsourcing, we could only take the jobs that others didn't want." Steve admitted.

"People in business roles know that with the current economic downturn and the deterioration of the game investment environment, many teams are taking on outsourcing, leading to a market where ten bidders fight for one client. In this environment, channels are king, and connections are most important. Without connections, you have to rely on middlemen — but many middlemen take a 40% to 50% cut just for connecting you. We still had to do the legwork ourselves, scouring various outsourcing order groups for leads, constantly looking for contracts. Being heavily deducted, getting orders canceled — it's all too common."

The situation Steve described is also a microcosm of the ecosystem faced by most college student teams silently dedicated to their game development dreams.

"Even so, we kept going." Steve gritted his teeth.

They often joked among themselves: Wealth and glory, go elsewhere; cowards, do not enter this door. Who among those willing to work in this industry isn't charging in with a passion for games?

But despite lacking channels and connections, they occasionally got lucky. For example, their team of six talented individuals, including the music producer for Bifang De Ta - Aliya, Azure_Lag, were all recruited from their own university.

Normally, the probability of assembling a complete team with clearly defined roles from the same university is relatively low. Most teams participating in various game development competitions are a mix of people from different schools. Moreover, Chengdu University of Information Technology is a comprehensive science and engineering university, so finding students with excellent art skills is quite rare. Wuli said that originally, they wanted to check out the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and Sichuan Conservatory of Music next door, but they had no connections there. Fortunately, they eventually found suitable art students from their own university — and these two art students are quite versatile, capable of handling all the art needs, including 2D animation, concept art, motion effects, etc.

Wuli said that for a small startup team, making a critically and commercially successful indie game involves a certain element of luck. Even now, he still has a slip of paper in his phone case that he got from a Taoist priest, inscribed with the words "Game Sells Well".

This endearing superstitious spirit is also reflected in the naming of the studio.

Out of admiration for Steve Jobs, Steve initially named the game studio "Think Different Studio". But they didn't dare to use that name when registering the company — what if Apple sued them? So they ended up using the initials TDS, changing it to "Tudousi" (potato shreds). When they participated in CUSGA 2024, they went on stage to accept the award under the name "Tudousi" team...

"But when we tried to register the company with that name, the commerce bureau didn't approve it. So we decided to change it to a more anime-style name and chose 'Tongdian'. But then we found out that 'Tongdian' was already registered. We were stuck. At that time, we happened to see an article reviewing miHoYo, which mentioned that the name miHoYo was inspired by the most successful internet companies from Silicon Valley, all of which had two 'o's in their names. So we decided to learn from miHoYo and add 'you' (游, meaning game) after 'Tongdian', so that our name would also have two 'o's. We thought the feng shui would be better." Steve added.

"Everyone has their own fate, and riches and honors depend on heaven. For a small startup team, especially a team of naive college students, there are too many uncertain factors in making a well-received and profitable game. Seeking these superstitions is also a way to motivate ourselves."

5. Conclusion​

As of early August, Bifang De Ta - Aliya has sold over 7,000 copies. For a small-scale indie game in a niche genre, this is a decent achievement.

They hit many walls. Initially, they planned to make a Hades-like game, but after six months, they realized that with their abilities, it would take at least three to four years to complete, with no visible progress in the short term. At the time, the money earned from outsourcing was immediately poured into a bottomless pit, leaving them feeling desperate.

In the end, they decided to abandon that game and change their goal. They would first make a small-scale project they could handle to learn the process of releasing on Steam.

Steve believes that whether in the game industry or the internet industry, for any startup team, it's crucial to quickly produce a game (product) to get market feedback and validate their design concepts. Otherwise, they risk building things in isolation. So they initiated Bifang De Ta - Aliya.

Wuli also shared his own experience: a common mistake for indie game developers is to want to go big from the start, investing a large amount of money and hoping for immediate results. After being tormented by the Hades-like project for half a year, the team was exhausted, depressed, and withdrawn. So they needed a small-scale game that could be released quickly to restore the team's confidence. That was the birth of Bifang De Ta - Aliya — messy, shameful, but effective.

"Fortunately, I started making games from my freshman year. The cost of making mistakes in college is low. I happened to step on all the pitfalls during this low-cost period, which was already lucky enough. If I had stepped on these pitfalls after graduation, I might have lost millions. Besides, starting game development in freshman year meant that by senior year, I could write four years of game development experience on my resume. That's a win."

Before the game's release, Wuli was caught in a state of internal conflict and self-doubt. Whenever he thought about his internal struggle while his teammates were giving it their all, he felt both guilty and pained.

Finally, when Bifang De Ta - Aliya was released and received overwhelmingly positive player feedback, his worried heart was relieved. At that time, the first thing he did every morning when he woke up was open Steam to read player reviews. This became his spiritual pillar, his motivation to make games.

He said that this was the moment when, as an indie game developer, he felt his efforts were not in vain — the most no-regret episode.

​summer vacation has always been a peak period for game event launches, and this "Indie Game Exhibition" might be the most "pure" event that Game Artists has participated in over the past two months.

Several Chinese international students from New York University's student-run college game club, NYU Gaming, took advantage of their summer break back home to host the second [Game Oasis] game exhibition in Shanghai.

More than 40 demos, 18 roadshows, and a public evaluation workshop... scattered across a venue of over 500 square meters. Indie games are moving away from many traditional exhibitions and toward college campuses, urban spaces, and small-scale curation scenarios.

Such a "game exhibition" is still quite far from business and transactions. But as the overall lead, Ruby, said, having run it for two consecutive years, the starting point remains the same: there are still many works on campus driven by passion, curiosity, and the desire to express, that haven't been seen by the public.

The entertainment industry has been talking about "super creation" this year, but the indie game field has long been the most concentrated place for it.

Most of the developers at the exhibition areas were students or small studios, with one or a few people handling everything from planning and art to programming and publishing. Teams participating in the roadshow had to clearly explain their gameplay and positioning within minutes; creators in the workshop had to accept public playtest feedback. The size of the on-site products was generally small, but the completion level of many works was already sufficient for players to test on the spot.

And the players these games attracted were also young people.

When the industry repeatedly asks what content young people are actually consuming, indie games have always provided an answer: works made by creators of the same age, directly responding to the interests of young players, are becoming a stable outlet for content consumption.

What Kinds of Games Are Today's College Students Making?​

A total of 18 works participated in this year's roadshow, covering various genres including text adventure, visual novel, interactive narrative, action, shooting, strategy, tactical RPG, tower defense, and party games.

The following are introductions to some of the roadshow games: First Half · Text Adventure / Visual Novel / Interactive Narrative

•"Dorim Department Store" (Idbony)——An OC visual novel about the chance encounter of a high school girl named Ringo who lacks inspiration for writing a song and goes out for a stroll. It includes NE/BE/TE endings, and the parts about creation and pressure are particularly striking.

•"Moonfall Dialogue" (Rashomon.D)——A choice-driven click-based visual novel. Hundreds of years later, the moon is about to fall. You choose to stay and witness it firsthand, clicking on the screen to collect fragments, triggering dialogues, and deducing the truth.

•"Oasis Trails" (Transparent Board)——A multi-ending post-apocalyptic visual novel. You take over a caravan that has lost its leader, allocating daily supplies and talking to teammates, gradually uncovering the story behind the commission.

•"Summer Syndrome" (Alice Future)——A sci-fi visual novel. Starting from a noble private school, an unexpected bond born from "financial embarrassment" connects events happening simultaneously in various places.

•"The Fortress That Responds to Everything" (Dark Swan Lab)——Possibly the world's first interactive video game based on a "knowledge lock."

•"The Missing Rolex" (Jay Has a Water Gun)——A missing Rolex, a newly moved-in neighbor, a face hated since school days; the suspense unfolds.

Second Half · Action / Shooting / Strategy / Tactical RPG / Tower Defense / Party

•"Bomb Island" (MaxJin Studio)——A voxel-style Bomberman-like action puzzle game. Use double bombs and bomb jumps to blast through three-dimensional levels, solving puzzles amidst explosions and danger.

•"Peace Island" (Pixel Core)——A top-down 2D dieselpunk loot-and-shoot game. You are a bounty hunter in lawless lands, exploring, building, and crafting weapons, fighting your way out before the island is consumed by a curse.

•"Lead Rain" (Wild Intelligence)——Both the protagonist and enemies die in one hit. Alternate between a sword and a pistol to eliminate infantry, artillery, and even entire armies in zero-error combat.

•"Dog of War" (Eureka!)——A third-person action adventure. You play as Beagle the Labrador, using a "dog twister" tail attack to fight against invaders and protect your home.

•"RhythmArc" (Unicat)——Rhythm shooting × Roguelike × high-speed combat. Fire to the beat of the music, experiencing the exhilaration of attacks and rhythm syncing together.

•"Night Fantasy" (Spring Leaf Games)——An indie SRPG combining roguelike progression with tactical RPG strategy. Lead three adventurers to storm the demon tower in a world of eternal night.

•"Lüyun Record" (Popo Cat Studio)——An original tactical RPG with a unique dynamic timeline system. Make decisions to adjust the order of actions between friend and foe, turning the tide of battle step by step.

•"Celestial Expeditionary Force" (Wooden Duo Xing Studio)——A Chinese-style tower defense game with art style and gameplay officially supported by Kingdom Rush. Lead heroes like General Guan on an expedition from Jiangnan to the Western Regions.

•"Chongzhen Simulator" (Giraffe Studio)——A strategy game developed using an AI model. You play as the Chongzhen Emperor, planning in the imperial court, where every choice affects the course of the era.

•"Blind Box Commander" (Jimu House)——A building block-style real-time strategy game. Units, buildings, and technologies are all randomly obtained through "blind boxes," making each game a completely new combination.

•"Doomsday Hoarding King Bye bye buy" (Yoland Studio)——A light strategy hoarding game. Judge disasters based on ambiguous broadcasts, rush into the supermarket to stock up crazily, and plan your warehouse.

•"Crush Party Game" (E304 Team)——An all-in-one offline party collection featuring Truth or Dare, MOTO, dice, etc. Playable on the spot.

Playtest Area · Other Game Introductions​

Visual Novel / Narrative: •"Insomnia Club" (Memo Studio)——An emotional visual novel addressing real-world issues. Play as a long-term insomniac urban office worker who meets people trapped by work, family, and self at a late-night club, leading to multiple endings through dialogue choices and a mood system.

•"The Empty Garden of the Impotent" (A Kind of Madness)——A chapter-based visual novel. Centered on the aimless youth Lu Zimu, it tells absurd stories about corporate slaves, containing adult themes and horror elements like "living spaghetti."

•"The Destination Welcoming Emu Ema" (Same-name Production Team)——A fan creation of Magical Girl Witch Trial. A linear text adventure featuring visual novel performances and a "judgment system" deduction mechanic.

Action / Shooting / Horror: •"Swinging Swamp" (chormic studio)——An action shooter set in an abandoned wetland where you swing and hang using spider silk, fighting against hostile creatures lurking in the micro-ecosystem.

•"IN (Intervention)" (VESSEL)——A first-person horror adventure. Operate a deep-space probe to complete tasks in a lost experimental space station. Each generator you restart brings the station one step closer to revival.

•"Touhou Kashingen" (Nishiki Murasaki Chou)——A pixel-art side-scrolling 2D action platformer with light roguelite elements, featuring random item/skill builds.

•"Horror Livestream" (Ray)——A horror game themed around spirit-hunting livestreams. Lock the door in an abandoned basement, fumble for batteries to power the elevator to escape, all while tens of thousands of viewers watch through bullet comments.

•"Wake Up" (Fried Sausage and Braised Meat Roll)——A first-person psychological thriller. Trapped in a lucid dream set in a childhood bedroom, the cycle tightens over ten nights, distorting reality and manipulating the dream.

Platform / Adventure / Exploration / Idle: •"Tammi (Aftertaste)" (Team Aftertaste)——A 2D platformer. Play as "Tammi," the tongue of a head chef who has lost his sense of taste, exploring a fantastic world made of body organs to regain flavor and passion.

•"Wildfire Deep Forest" (RottensharkStudio)——A desktop idle game. Play as a self-sufficient wild witch, automatically exploring and gathering during work and study, enjoying the fun of RPG building and collection.

•"Hunt the Strange" (Ludere Indie Game Mutual Aid Community)——A hand-drawn 2D side-scrolling action RPG. Play as an adventurer exploring the mysterious "City of No Faces."

•"The Nameless Tower Dwells in Water" (Noname)——A 3D action adventure / platformer / stealth narrative. Play as a dog protecting the last source of water in a dark world where you can only go downwards.

•"Plop! Diving Time" (Tinymo Games)——A healing ocean exploration collection adventure. Freely explore the seabed without oxygen limits, take photos, collect shells, and complete an ocean encyclopedia and diving log.

Strategy / Card Game / Tower Defense / Rhythm: •"Poker Warriors" (Poker Warriors)——A roguelike card battler centered on poker suits. Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, and Clubs affect survival, attack, money, and luck respectively. Build the strongest deck.

•"Corolla Strategy" (Peppermint Grass Games)——A deck-building × territory control strategy game. Deploy six racial cards to expand your territory on a randomly generated land.

•"Era Echo" (Xiangtian Zheng)——A strategic roguelike deck-building game set in a cosmic championship. Traverse nine eras in nine days, shaping nine versions of a hero to enter the duel.

•"Archechord" (ArcheprismStudio)——A top-down rhythm roguelite based on Jungian psychology. Combines roguelike building with a rhythm system, fighting through a sea of subconscious monsters to the beat of the drums.

•"Welcome to the Demon King's Castle" (Yitao Game Studio)——A tower defense real-time strategy AVG where you manage the Demon King's castle. Build rooms to form areas, fend off heroes, and expand the demon army, in an anime style.

Simulation Management / RPG / Survival: •"Underworld Village" (Stellar Perturbation)——A survival game set in the underworld after death. Hunt, gather, farm, work, and trade to establish yourself in the village of the dead, finding a way to be reborn and return to the cycle of reincarnation.

•"Otherworldly Forge Tycoon" (Sucrose Games)——A first-person forging and management simulator. Smelt, hammer, and attach handles to magical materials to create weapons, set your own prices, hire staff, and develop your humble forge into a legendary weapons shop in another world.

•"Mushroom Village" (DZGS)——A simulation management online game. Pick mushrooms in the forest, cook mushroom soup back in town. Some are poisonous, some have magical effects, and you can even "forcefully taste-test" your teammates.

•"Goulan Washa" (Suosuoban Game Studio)——A Chinese-style roguelite simulation management game. Manage a Washa venue in a fictional ancient setting, matching buildings, staff, and genres to complete tributes for the imperial court within a time limit.

•"Wind Song War Chronicles: Remnants of the Dragon" (Qingyu Group)——The dragon's footprints appear faintly, from the Star Tower to an ancient kingdom sleeping for a thousand years, a fantasy world where you write a destiny together with fated companions.

•"RD100: An Otherworldly Life Starting with Dice" (Yanlingxia)——An otherworldly life adventure RPG. After reincarnation, take on quests, make companions, learn skills, and grow from an unknown nobody into a legendary adventurer across the entire continent.

What the Game Developers Who Came to the Exhibition Had to Say​

•Bear Muddy (Vice President of Indie Light) | Overview of Chinese Indie Games 2014–2025 —— The essence of indie games is using games as a medium for self-expression, not as a tool for traffic monetization. On Steam, Scroll of Taiwu and Black Myth: Wukong have successively raised the bar. This decade has been a cognitive upgrade. The confidence of indie games rests on six words: big experience, small investment. Use limited technology to create an ultimate experience, achieving a maximum effect with minimal effort.

•Galaxy Lightbulb (Producer of University Hiking Disappearance Case and Suspicious Advertisement Investigation Case) | WIG (Web Puzzle Game) is the golden midpoint between traditional video games and hardcore ARGs. It uses realistic web pages to let anomalies erode the player's daily life, using the contrast between reality and fiction to activate the will to solve the puzzle. The low threshold actually led to a large number of creator explanations and player fan works. AI has expanded from writing code, generating images, and polishing text to generating ideas and creativity in the early stages.

•Rolan (Former AI Lead for Tencent Game Project, Co-founder of AI Game Company Talespark) | From Branching to Emergence: A Brief History of AI+ Games —— The evolution of AI games comes in four steps: AlphaGo's decision-making, ChatGPT's conversation, Stanford Smallville's simulation, and Cursor/Gemini 3's generation. The next step is the AI Director, letting AI orchestrate the entire experience like a director. But AI is just a lever to achieve a goal, because games are inherently designed for experience.

•Game Community Roundtable | Four communities—Ludere, Cybria, Game Living Room, and NYU Gaming—sat around a table to discuss the daily and extraordinary aspects of game community operations. The core retention factors for a community are shared values, an equal co-creative atmosphere, close physical connections, and meaningful, actionable exchanges. Ludere's motto sums up the original intention in one sentence: "Indie games don't walk alone."

•He Qian (Founder/Producer/Lead Designer/Lead Programmer of Liquid Meow Games) | The practical path from 0 to 1 for a student team. He analyzed the development history of Liquid Meow Games in detail, using cases such as team members, works, and award information to demonstrate that Liquid Meow Games has become a studio covering diversified businesses like game R&D, publishing, and co-branded licensing. He also honestly shared their real-world challenges from a practical perspective: small team, pitfalls they fell into, everyone a jack-of-all-trades.

•Jack (Lead Creator of the indie game Song of Maca, Manager of the "Wanderism" general game knowledge IP, AI Blogger) | Entering a New Era: A Self-Iteration Guide for Game Developers deconstructed the entire process of Song of Maca from project initiation to near release, also covering game community operation and social media account management. He also shared his learning methodology as a new-generation game developer and ways AI can improve efficiency in game research.

This article is authorized to be republished from "Game Artist".

Interview/Text: Xia Qingyi, Wang Chenqian

When it comes to AI games, most ordinary players might think of preset "Chatbot" AI NPCs that can hold conversations, "smarter" AI teammates or enemies in competitive games, or AI acting as a kind of GM to guide players through the game.

However, Maggie's Garden, an AI sandbox game planned for release this year, focuses on exploring the systematic application of AI at the game mechanics level.

In the game, players can import images to automatically generate NPCs, which are driven by AI to generate storylines, dialogue, and voice in real-time. This provides players with a more personalized and immersive experience, stimulates their motivation to create and socialize, and establishes a game ecosystem where users and AI coexist.

Zhang Haoyang, the producer of Maggie's Garden, previously founded startups in the VR/AR gaming and AI digital human fields. He later joined Tencent in 2020, where he served as a technical designer responsible for AI-related work in Game for Peace. During his time at Tencent, he also participated as a producer in developing Eden Island, an AI game similar to the "Stanford Town" concept.

In 2023, Zhang left Tencent and founded Shenzhen AutoGame Company, focusing on the integration of AI and games. The company has already secured tens of millions of yuan in funding.

Zhang believes that future AI games will undergo systemic changes. He divides the development of AI games into four stages and judges that the industry is at a critical juncture, moving from "AI NPC" to "AI UGC."

Among these, AI UGC will revolutionize the mode of content production and consumption, delegating the creative rights of the gaming medium to players, evolving into a brand-new ecosystem where everyone participates and creates together.

01

Do Otaku Prefer It?​

Let Players Create Their Own "Lifelike" AI Companions​

In October 2024, Maggie's Garden released a demo on Steam and began its first closed beta test. The game's novel gameplay and solid quality attracted a large number of players. Without participating in the Next Fest, it shot up to 45th place on the Steam New & Trending list within a day and accumulated over 5,000 wishlists in a month, exceeding the development team's expectations.

The game adopts a pixel art style and a Japanese fantasy story setting. Players take on the role of a retired hero, gathering resources, recruiting companions, battling on adventures, and gradually building and developing their own camp.

The main feature of the game is the unique "AI companions." Players can recruit their own AI companions by uploading images or inputting descriptions. Each companion has its own unique personality and story—they plan their own schedules, complain about the details of camp life, proactively build relationships with the player, and observe the situation and follow commands in battle.

Compared to traditional NPCs, with the support of AI, they are more like living individuals truly existing in the game world.

This "lifelike" feeling creates a stronger customized experience, satisfying players' need for emotional companionship. Some players raise their "OCs" in the game, others create their dream partners, and some have even played the small-scale demo for over 100 hours, just to repeatedly generate different characters to accompany them on adventures.

Zhang told Game Artist that the conception of Maggie's Garden was not a flash of inspiration. While still working at Tencent, he was optimistic about the potential of AI games and began conceptualizing the prototype of this game in 2022.

In 2023, Stanford University published the paper that sparked widespread attention across the industry. It built a virtual "Stanford Town," creating 25 AI agents with different personalities who autonomously act and freely live in the town.

The Virtual Stanford Town

This paper also greatly inspired Zhang, not only confirming his direction to some extent but also proving the trend and feasibility of AI games. So, he led an 11-person team to create a "Stanford Town-like" game called Eden Island.

Maggie's Garden is a further iteration based on Eden Island. He hopes to make it the "Avatar" of AI games, exploring more feasible paradigms for AI gaming.

For example, the sandbox genre was chosen because it can accommodate various mini-games, suitable for AI to shine. In the future, new features like AI-generated items, AI-generated complex tasks, and multiplayer can be added to further enhance playability. Based on these characteristics, sandbox games also have the potential to develop into social products.

From the user's perspective, players born in the 2000s and 2010s spend a lot of time on sandbox games and have a higher acceptance of AI, making them suitable as "natives of the AI game era" to be nurtured and cultivated.

It is understood that currently, the users of Maggie's Garden are mainly divided into three categories: one is the sandbox game audience, especially fans of games with similar art styles like Stardew Valley; another is users of AI voice chat products, who see the AI NPCs in the game as an upgraded alternative to AI voice chat products; and the third is the otaku audience, especially players who enjoy fan creations or self-insertion.

Zhang himself is also an "old otaku," a fan of Vocaloid (the virtual singer project to which Hatsune Miku belongs), and his work computer desktop features the female protagonist of Code Geass. He said that the game was not initially aimed at otaku players, but this group generally has a high acceptance of new things or enjoys derivative works. Maggie's Garden allows them to easily create their favorite anime and game characters in the game.

​

02

​

A Snowball Revolution for AI UGC

There are already many games on the market related to the AI concept. They range from small independent game teams creating small-scale games with AI as the core selling point, such as AI card games and AI text adventures, to large companies increasing their investment in AI, integrating it into their existing flagship products and projects. For example, Tencent's Game for Peace has deployed AI teammates in the game to improve player retention.

Zhang said that Maggie's Garden is significantly different from many existing games that incorporate AI. Its entire game world is built on top of scripting languages, and all game logic can be generated and updated in real-time by AI.

Whether it's using AI to assist with part of the text creation or deploying AI teammates in competitive games, the mainstream application of AI in existing games mostly involves embedding AI capabilities into traditional game systems to improve a specific game aspect or function.

In Maggie's Garden, the entire game system is combined with AI, leveraging AI capabilities in every aspect of the design.

The characters' actions and dialogues are all generated by AI

For example, to create an item in the game, you need to consider its interaction logic with other objects and characters, balance its numerical values, and create textures, etc. The various elements in the game system are interconnected. The latest demo of Maggie's Garden can already create this series of game logic through natural language input, with AI completing the work at each stage.

Zhang said that designing AI to be deeply embedded in the game system is intended to achieve a more thorough AI UGC.

He believes there is a supply-demand mismatch between the amount of content produced and the demand for content in the gaming industry. The cost of content production is increasing, while on the consumption side, not only are the quality requirements for content higher, but the consumption speed is also faster. Around 2020, a game of the scale of Genshin Impact would take three months to produce a new version that could sustain players for six months. Now, the same amount of content produced in the same time might be consumed in just two weeks.

In fact, the gaming industry explored this issue several years ago, trying to solve it through UGC. However, pure UGC can also become a drain on users. Adding AI significantly lowers the barrier to UGC and improves efficiency.

But AI UGC is not simply about using AI tools for UGC creation.

Zhang said that previously, tools or products that marketed the concept of AI UGC did not fundamentally change the traditional content ecosystem, mainly because the usage threshold was high, often requiring creators to have coding skills, and top-tier content dominated the attention of most consumers. For example, the top twenty games on the well-known overseas sandbox game platform Roblox might account for 80% to 90% of all creator revenue.

 

Roblox Creation Interface

The AI UGC model he more strongly endorses involves using AI to generate game logic, bringing systemic innovation to the game's production and consumption modes. If AI has the ability to create content for events, items, characters, and other aspects through natural language input, it can significantly lower the barrier to creation.

To form such a model, sufficient training data is needed, including player data reflecting play preferences, game code, etc. Rather than manually finding massive amounts of data to feed the AI, a more reasonable approach is to design a mechanism that continuously generates new code, allowing the AI to iterate and grow on its own.

Games are the best carrier for establishing this AI UGC cyclic ecosystem. Players participate in shaping the game experience and generate new data in the process, helping the AI iterate, creating a "snowball effect" that continuously improves the game world and proactively caters to player needs.

"It's like the hypothetical scenario in the anime Sword Art Online, where the activities of all players collectively form the server's history. There's no need to chase top-tier content because every player has created their own story."

03

From Big Companies to Small Teams

Everyone May Find Entrepreneurial Opportunities in the AI Game Era

Before founding AutoGame and developing Maggie's Garden, Zhang had two previous entrepreneurial experiences, involving VR/AR games and the AI digital human field. In his second startup in 2017, the focus was on using NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology to create smart speaker products that could interact with 2D virtual idol characters.

His previous entrepreneurial experiences and his time at Tencent made him realize the huge potential of combining AI with games, leading him to start his third venture.

In Zhang's view, the process of AI changing the form of games can be divided into four stages.

Stage 1.0 is called AI Novel. At this stage, AI only generates images and storylines, mainly used in text adventures or tabletop RPG-like games. Participants are primarily traditional algorithm engineers rather than game creators, and game design often has flaws.

Stage 2.0 is called AI NPC. At this stage, AI's function is to intervene in NPC behavior logic, providing players with emotional value and real-time feedback.

Stage 3.0 is AI UGC, where AI learns how the game operates and creates new content autonomously. However, due to insufficient data, human participation is still required.

Stage 4.0 can be called the "God Model," where AI understands both player needs and the rules of the game world. It can generate world events, new game rules, etc., without human intervention, directly changing the game form and creating new game content.

According to this four-stage division, AI games globally have reached stage 3.0, moving from the second half of AI NPC to the early stage of AI UGC. The ecology of future game content creation and consumption will change, and opportunities lie within.

Currently, there is no shortage of well-known game developers entering the AI game field. Former miHoYo CEO Cai Haoyu released a trailer for Whispers from the Star, a multi-modal real-time interactive AI game, on X, sparking huge discussion. Former Giant Network CEO Wu Meng and Zulong Entertainment's star producer Zhao Tongtong also left their jobs to start AI game ventures, both securing funding.

Whispers from the Star

Compared to star producers investing in large-scale projects like AI GTA or AI wuxia worlds, Zhang is currently focused on smaller prototype validation. For small startup teams, many niche AI game designs are already highly feasible from a technical standpoint.

Zhang said that the development of technology actually surpasses ordinary people's perception, but game products haven't yet fully utilized these technologies. AutoGame itself has overcome many technical challenges during application.

For example, to solve the problem of large language models not being able to upload unlimited contextual data, they conducted in-depth research on RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) technology. This gives AI better memory capabilities, allowing it to remember and understand historical events, main storyline progress, settings, and item connections in the game. At the same time, they need to continuously receive player feedback to iterate and optimize prompts. A single prompt engineering file might be thousands or even tens of thousands of words long.

Fortunately, many underlying technical issues of models are naturally resolved as external technologies develop. For example, early AI lacked advanced matting techniques, but in 2024, Layer Diffusion's author Zhang Lvmin solved AI matting, making it directly applicable to the real-time operation of games. This allows startup teams to focus more on solving problems in vertical niche areas.

04

Conclusion: In the AI Era,

No Game Creator Can Stand Aloof

"AI won't eliminate people; it will only eliminate those who haven't used AI," Zhang said. "That's what I thought before, and later Nvidia's Jensen Huang publicly said something similar."

Although there are still many controversies and risks associated with using AI in the gaming field, especially in art, the trend is significant. In Zhang's view, AI will completely reshape the entire gaming industry, and no game creator can remain outside it.

He reflected that in less than a year, AI's coding level has evolved from a junior/mid-level programmer to nearly an architect level. AI is getting smarter. Believing in technology, adapting to it, and leveraging it might be the better choice.

The capital market has recognized his views. AutoGame is advancing financing to support subsequent R&D. As of the first half of this year, multiple rounds have raised tens of millions of yuan.

Next, the team will go all out to develop Maggie's Garden. It is currently scheduled for October 13, 2025, to officially debut at Steam Next Fest, and may be ported to mobile platforms based on market feedback.

The game's release is not the end. Zhang and his team plan to continuously add new features, gradually polishing it into the ideal form they envision.

He hopes to be a pioneer on this path, to be the first to touch the future.