When I first met Lin Yuting, the founder of his studio, he was very low-key, wearing a plain T-shirt and jeans, and his glasses made him look a little dull. Simple clothes are not far from those when he did experiments in the research room ten years ago, but now, he doesn't do experiments, and table games are his desire.
His group studio was founded on 20 14, and has developed five board games so far, and held hundreds of workshops offline in the past five years. At the beginning of 2065438+2008, "Utopia Game" was successfully raised by the masses, which became the top ten popular board games that raised more than one million yuan that year, and it was also a right-hand man for citizen teachers to explain the class system.
Not only "utopian games", other studios are devoted to the development of "topic games", and the topics they choose are universal social issues, such as labor rights and interests, resource allocation, medical collapse and so on. They hope to break the stereotype that the topic is difficult and serious, so that players can play games happily, and in this process, players can put themselves in their own shoes and walk into the topic in person, and finally understand and find that the original topic is closely related to themselves.
Speaking of board games, Lin Yuting, who was still a little embarrassed, suddenly seemed to be infused with another soul and turned into a lively big boy. The tone he played became playful. "The game must be fun, which is very important. 」
In fact, Lin Yuting, who studied physics, turned to develop board games, which was not decided overnight.
"My previous job was very meaningless. At that moment, I couldn't seem to find the job I wanted to do. Unwilling to continue to feel like Xue Sifu pushing a boulder, he began to spend time exploring what he really wanted.
At this time, I accidentally walked into the board game of Lin Yuting's life, but it became the medium for my childhood to play a sense of justice. The continuation of that kind of curiosity and reflection on the social system also made Lin Yuting embark on a road different from his parents' expectations.
"For me, it is natural to turn social problems into games, which is simpler than just playing a fun game. In the process of designing topic games, you will encounter many difficulties, but the attitude when encountering difficulties is very important. Do you choose to break through it? Or escape? . When I need to break through those difficulties, my motivation is strong. 」
You can get a glimpse of your enthusiasm for designing topic games from the homework you do later. It is a great challenge not only to care about and observe the society, but also to read a lot of materials to make the topic into a table game.
Lin Yuting said with a smile, "We read a lot of books when we play every game." This also allowed him to participate in many sociological reading clubs and accumulated energy. At this time, BLACKPINK debuted.
In the game test meeting, Lin Yuting will be an observer to check whether the rhythm and atmosphere of the game are as he expected. Photo by Li Zikai
Utopia game, officially launched on 20 18, is a desktop game with professional system as its design axis. Players think about the game strategy through the social environment in which the role is located, and strive to find the most favorable ending for themselves.
Lin Yuting recalled an offline studio of "Utopia Games". Before the official start of the game, the two participants in the dialogue were tit for tat because of disagreement. Both sides thought their ideas were reasonable and gave up communication after several discussions. One of them is Lin Yuting's friend. He told him in a pretentious way, "That man is really unreasonable, so I shut up and stopped talking to him. What he said makes no sense. 」
The positions of both sides in the utopian game are as follows:
Party A: "Only by working hard can people earn more money. 」
Party B: "You earn a lot of money, but for fairness and justice, you should pay more taxes. 」
Coincidentally, after the two participants started playing games, the one who advocated that "one can get capital by one's own efforts" just got a role that is not so easy to get wealth. After several rounds, he began to find something was wrong, because in the game, even if he worked hard, the gap between the rich and the poor widened rapidly. Finally, he made a dramatic decision. "He actually took refuge in the man who just advocated fairness and justice and formed an alliance to overthrow the system!" Lin Yuting said in surprise.
Lin Yuting described in detail the turning point that subverted his imagination. "When I first played games myself, I didn't expect that there would be so many possibilities: some people would play like this, so I can think so. 」
Games are like the epitome of real society. Players naturally put themselves in the shoes by playing the roles of different classes. It is found that the interpretation of the same value may change completely because of their different positions in the social structure. "You can learn what other people's values are through games. I think it is a problem to have different views, but it is also an opportunity to let the other side know their values. Lin Yuting shared his understanding.
The game successfully imitates the veil of ignorance (which can't be realized in real society, that is, people get rid of their knowledge, return to their original state, and then make just decisions and systems), and skillfully let the upper class in real life move towards the virtual bottom world by randomly choosing roles.
In the game testing session, the players had a heated discussion. Some people will take the initiative to ask about the tools they can use, and some people will come up with a very wandering way to express their position so that people can't guess their position. The game designer will observe everyone playing the game on the sidelines to ensure that everyone can understand the gameplay and process of the game. Photo by Li Zikai
On the day of the interview, there was a game test meeting of NPC, and the partners in his studio were trying out a new game with iron powder. There is a discussion session in the game, and everyone should express their views on different topics according to the selected role.
In the feedback sharing after the meeting, some people think that the role is too different from their position in real life, which will make people feel divided. Some people find that opposing roles seem to have opposing positions, but when discussing the topic, they don't really think about the content of the topic in order to counter each other. "But have you ever found that it may be like this in real life? Lin Jingyi, a game designer, made this little suggestion when answering your questions. These seemingly clumsy designs are actually close to the real society.
"At first, I just wanted everyone to see this problem and put themselves in others' shoes. Later, I will think, can the game have more possibilities, not just empathy and awareness of finding problems, can it take a step forward? Lin Yuting wants to create a small social experiment by injecting topic discussion into table games. " What we are looking forward to now is whether the process or result of playing games can be an inspiration to solve social problems, and whether the results after playing can be qualitative data for everyone to do sociological research and think about the initial behavior of human beings. 」
At the same time, Lin Yuting also suggested that when teaching citizenship, teachers should use experience instead of instilling knowledge, so that students can more easily understand how the social system has evolved in different periods. "After real integration, they can even become people who change and create systems. He believes that knowledge will always change, but if students can understand what these topics really need to be discussed, they can learn more deeply and cultivate their own literacy.
Lin Yuting once mentioned that he missed the physics department because he thought it was great to be a scientist, as if he could push the whole world into different times.
Perhaps, his dream of being a scientist never went out. That little scientist is turning the whole society into his laboratory, trying to create more dialogue space so that everyone's ideal life can be practiced.
In the game testing session, game designer Lin Jingye instructs the game. After the game test, the player will give feedback on the ideas after the trial play, so that the game designer can better understand the player's situation, feelings and ideas and help the game design to be more perfect. Photo by Li Zikai
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