From ordinary Shufen to ancient 3D martial arts games, it indirectly constitutes the memories of a generation. This article is from the WeChat official account: game Research society (ID: yysaag) , author: watermelon Krabs, from the title figure: ordinary Shufen
Speaking of “Ordinary Shufen”, younger friends may find it stranger.
But if they see these pictures, many people may open up their long-held memories and think of the afternoon when they peeked at romance novels in class, or the happy time of buying new pirated game CDs in the Computer City. Ping Fan Shufen, a group of well-known Taiwanese painters who drew these popular illustrations.
Ping Fan Shufen refers to Taiwanese illustrator Ping Fan and Chen Shufen. “The eyes are like a star, the eyebrows are like a crescent moon; the skin is like fat, and the spring is like rouge” can be used to describe the most classic characters in their writings.
Ordinary Shufen couple
Ping Fan Shufen has been deeply involved in novels, magazines, comics, games, illustrations and other fields in Taiwan and Japan for many years. The overall style of the two men blended together. Early works were mainly gouache and watercolor, most of which were portraits.
After he came into contact with computer CG painting in the later period, he added a style similar to oil painting, and the characters painted were more delicate and realistic. Because of the elegant colors and beautiful pictures, the contours between the eyebrows and eyes of the characters and the treatment of light and dark colors are exceptional.
This kind of “male handsome and beautiful girl” illustrations can easily attract the attention of the publishing industry. After all, the cover “photo trick” is a big killer to increase sales and clicks. This has never changed in 20 years.
In addition to the conventionally published collections of paintings, Ping Fan Shufen’s works were legally and piratedly used on the covers and illustrations of romantic novels, notebook covers, postcards, etc., which were popular at the time.
The influence is so profound that even in the second half of 2020, if you search for “romantic novels”, the pictures that come out have similar shadows. The level and influence of the two works can be seen.
Speaking of the publishing industry, it is inseparable from the computer game industry that was in the ascendant in Taiwan at that time. Since the mid to late 1980s, a number of masterpieces from Taiwan’s Zhiguan, Daewoo, Yuquan and other game companies have appeared frequently. Players are familiar with classic games such as Legend of Sword and Fairy, Monopoly, Xuanyuan Sword, and Legend of Jin Yong. All appeared in this period.
The most famous example of ordinary Shufen’s connection with the game is the 1995 “Legend of the Sword and the Fairy”. The cover picture drawn by Chen Shufen is a classic.
And what really expanded the impact was a series of 3D martial arts games that Ping Fan Shufen cooperated with Yuquan International.
The martial arts game market at that time was greatly influenced by Japanese games. Most of the market on the market was “Legend of the Sword and Fairy”, “Xuanyuan Sword”, and “The Legend of Jin Yong”. The characters were mostly three to three. The cartoon-like ratio of five heads and bodies is a standard feature in martial arts games.
And the 3D game “Final Fantasy 7”, which was born on the PlayStation platform in 1997, brought a great shock to the industry at that time. “The original game can be made like this?” With such a surprise, It must include Cai Junsong, the producer of Yuquan International at the time.
At that time, the proportion of domestic game characters was relatively cartoonish
After Cai Junsong joined Yuquan in 1997, he recruited many talents and developed Yuquan’s first generation 3D engine Lizard. And the first 3D game he tried to make was “Princess Demon World” produced in 1998.
Because of the antiquity, this game is hard to find online. According to reports, “Prajna Devil” is an action-adventure game with “static 3D scenes and multi-shot interaction to interpret the plot”, which belongs to the type of 3D characters + pre-rendered scenes.
“Prajna Devildom” cutscenes
The plot setting of the game is a bit strange. It tells the story of a Chinese man, an American man, and a Japanese woman who bravely ventured into the Prajna realm after the nuclear war in the future. In addition, the game itself has many bugs. The market response of “Prajna Devildom” is relatively average.
Tsai Junsong commented on himself, “The Prajna Demon Realm made him feel the pain of making 3D games, and it also opened the door to making 3D games.” However, the follow-up “Prajna Demon Realm’s Capital Demon Realm Biography” also received mediocre response for similar reasons.
The actual screen of “Princess Demon World”
However, Cai Junsong and Yuquan already have industry-leading 3D engine technology, and they only lack a good theme.
Yuquan, who was on the cusp of the storm at the time, made two very important decisions-one was to sign the copyright of Jin Yong’s number of martial arts novels and games; second, to invite Ping Fan Shufen to do art design for martial arts games.
In this context, “Swordsman of the Sun and the Moon God” came into being in 2000. It has the title of the first 3D martial arts stand-alone game, plus an adaptation that is loyal to the original work and cutscenes with full voice, especially the exquisite characters drawn by ordinary Shufen,
The “Swordsman of the Sun and the Moon God Swordsman” ignited the market at that time with sales of over one million copies.
Ping Fan Shufen portrays Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying
But looking back from the current point of view, limited hardware conditions have led to rough picture modeling, too many mazes + mine design, and BUG, which are all negative factors that prevent players from enjoying the game. This also leads to It is difficult for the game to reach too high a height.
The screen of the actual game, it still looked amazing at the time
Received by “Swordsman of the Sun and Moon God”Encouraging success, Yuquan launched the “New Condor Heroes”, “Swordsman Swordsman of the Five Swords”, “New Condor Heroes II” and “Swordsman Swordsman 2 Gaiden: Rising from the East” in one go from 2000 to 2002. And many other 3D martial arts games adapted from Jin Yong’s works, the style is the same as “Swordsman Swordsman”.
“Swordsman Swordsman of the Five Mountains”
“Swordsman Swordsman 2 Gaiden: Resurrection in the East”
The author happened to have a box of genuine games of “New Condor Heroes II” that I bought back then. I recall that nearly 20 years ago, a teenager in a small border town would spend 69 yuan to buy a genuine game, except for Yi Yi In addition to the brilliant copyright awareness, the more important factor should be the beautiful packaging and attractive cover of this game.
It is not difficult to imagine how attractive this kind of cover + martial arts theme painted by Ping Fan Shufen was to a 13 or 4 year old boy.
Little Dragon Girl Entity (Left)
In addition, it can be seen that the genuine games produced by Yuquan at that time are of high standard. The package contains a detailed manual and 4CD game disc. The printing production is still of excellent standard by current standards, even There is also a physical doll of the little dragon girl (Although the shape is somewhat acceptable…), I vaguely remember that after I bought it, I felt that the money was spent It’s worth it.
The cover of the manual uses a distressed effect
Includes an original soundtrack and a client CD of “Swordsman Online”
From the back cover, we can see that the game uses Motion Capture technology, but the effect is really mediocre
Cute but bald little dragon girl doll
Ashamed, due to academic and BUG reasons, the game was not cleared at that time. Because I wanted to write this essay, I tried to install this old game on a computer with WIN10 system, but unexpectedly it can be installed and run normally.
Try the game for a while, the resolution is acceptable, but the colorful maze maps and the dark thunder battle that makes a loud noise every 10 steps made me really unable to hold on and quit the game.
The game can be installed normally, EagleⅡ.exe in the picture is
The colorful maze map and the scary sound effect of the dark thunder persuade people to leave
To be fair, although the polygons are missing, the characters in the game are still acceptable
Classic art works in the history of martial arts games
Similar to Yang Guo and Xiaolongnv on the cover of “New Condor Heroes II”, Ping Fan and Chen Shufen can also be regarded as the industry’s “spiritual couple”. In the future, a series of art works created by them also left more impressions on the game industry.
Compared with the game itself, what left more impressions on the industry was a series of art works created by Ping Fan Shufen.
The two have a professional understanding, relatively complementary personalities, and countless common hobbies. Over the years, they have cooperated and supported each other and produced excellent works. They are also one of the few Chinese illustrators who can penetrate the Japanese market. Later, the more well-known “Legend of Sword and Fairyman III” and other game characters and illustrations also left fond memories for those who like these works.
This version of the fairy sword 3 person set was drawn by Ping Fan Shufen
At the time, Yuquan started with “Swordsman of the Sun and Moon God”, based on a relatively mature but not successful game design, produced “New Condor Heroes II” on the assembly line. 3D martial arts games, although there are ordinary Shufen exquisite original paintings and sophisticated product packaging design, but these products failed to achieve a progressive optimization improvement over the previous one.
Although there are occasional innovations such as the linkage between “Swordsman 2 Gaiden: Resurrection of the East” and “Swordsman Online”, but the game screen, core gameplay and even BUG types are caught in shackles, and the market sales decline This is also confirmed.
A game, in the final analysis, the core competitiveness should and must be “fun”, and these 3D martial arts games mentioned in this article, if you take away the story of Jin Yong and the original paintings of ordinary Shufen, I think it is difficult It’s fun.
Although Yuquan later launched the Bai Yueguang “Meteor Butterfly Sword.net” that many players have thought so far, it was almost the last swan song.
Today, Yuquan has switched to mobile games and children’s education, and in fact has moved away from large-scale game development.
Yuquan International Official Website
And the ordinary Shufen couple, both of them are over half a hundred years old. From the daily sharing of their social media, it can be seen that painting, traveling, gaming, riding… are still immortal couples, but the style of painting has also undergone new changes.
The ordinary Shufen couple now, the picture comes from “Good Days” magazine
Many of the works they shared began to incorporate ink and wash styles, which looked classic and simple:
Occasionally I see them, just like today’s players, they also pay attention to recent games, such as “Death Stranding” last year:
Ping Fan Shufen’s Sam
“Twenty Years of a Fu Liuying”, today’s game and publishing industry, the format of the business has undergone tremendous changes, physical romance novels are almost extinct, domestic martial arts games are groping up and down in the difficult, but there are still people who can expect Hope.
As a middle-aged person, I am very grateful to Pingfan Shufen and Yuquan International for weaving a beautiful but not perfect martial arts dream for us back then. With the greatest enthusiasm and hope, I hope this martial arts dream can be Better to continue in the future.
This article is from WeChat official account:Game Research Club (ID: yysaag), author: watermelon Krabs