Recently, I read the 2017 Tencent WeTest quality development platform based on the test data released by Tencent Quality Open Platform, Yingbao data, Tencent Yingbao data and other third-party platform data, focusing on market hardware, compatibility, client performance, server performance. "2017 China Mobile Game Quality White Paper", which provides in-depth insights and in-depth analysis of the mobile game R&D quality perspectives that mobile game developers are most concerned about, such as security, user reputation, etc., has a certain understanding of the production details and quality evaluation of mobile games. knowledge and experience.
1. Hardware configuration and development of mobile games
The report mentioned that in 2017, the hardware configuration of mobile phones increased as a whole, the market demand for low-end hardware was reduced, the configuration of memory was improved, and the screen resolution and processor performance were further improved.
I think it reflects that players have increased demand for high-profile games, or that players themselves have higher requirements for game picture quality and fluency.
First of all, the article mentioned that role-playing, action, and strategy games accounted for more than half of the top 1,000 best-selling games in Apple's app games . Games such as "Honor of Kings" and "Fantasy Westward Journey" are very popular. It shows that the number of players of this type of game has increased. However, the hardware requirements of the game are relatively high. Taking role-playing games as an example, because it has a considerable number of characters, compared with card and action fighting games, there are more protocol interactions between characters, and they have responded earlier. The time is too long, and at the same time, in the comprehensive scenario with the highest CPU usage, many role-playing games take up too much CPU. In addition, the performance of frame rate (fps) is related to CPU and memory. Maintaining game fluency has a certain relationship with high memory usage. Memory size also affects compatibility and APK crash issues. Game freezes, slowness, and flashbacks may cause users to There are problems such as poor experience and appreciation operation errors, so in order to meet the basic needs of the game, higher requirements for hardware configuration will be put forward.
In addition, due to the portability of mobile phones and the improvement of hardware, as well as more and more old-fashioned games such as "Fantasy Westward Journey", which migrate from PC to mobile, there are many players who switched from PC to mobile and long-term mobile players. There are certain requirements for image quality and fluency. As a developer, it can be said that he has made certain requirements for game logic and renderers, which increases the cost of game production and the threshold for stable game operation. Take Unity and Unreal Engine4, the mainstream game engines on the market, as examples. Although Unity now has lightweight packages, simple tutorials and low-threshold development requirements, it has become the mainstream engine for developing mobile games at a low cost. The building tools are not perfect, the rendering is poor, the lighting system is bad, the shadow baking is wrong, and it can barely reach the entry level of 2A games. The controller support is poor, and some functions such as handle vibration and VR controller spatial positioning are not integrated. There is no material editor for third-party plugins or extra code, third-party plugins are required, Prefab does not support inheritance, and there is no built-in Level Stream support. In contrast, Unreal Engine4 performs well in lighting system and physical rendering, and the powerful material editor really makes developers addicted, but C++ language is the first thing that makes many developers headache. The support for the host platform is not enough, the development of PS4 games needs to recompile the engine, and it takes at least an hour to dynamically link the code alone. When using a 12-core server and 24 threads to compile at the same time, it takes twenty to thirty minutes, and it takes about a dozen to compile a new project. minute. If you switch platforms, you need to compile thousands to tens of thousands of Shaders. Installation, debugging and packaging are inconvenient, and the time required is significantly longer than Unity. In addition, because the package file is too large, the logic and rendering of blueprint nodes are too complex, and the configuration requirements are also very high. A certain degree of graphics card support is required on the PC side. Even if some performance of UE4 has been reduced, the performance requirements of mobile phones are still Very high, it is generally suitable for long-term, high-quality large-scale game development, and it is also prepared for enthusiasts who are willing to spend money on mobile games. Therefore, if the mobile phone hardware can keep up, the upper limit of game picture quality and fluency will be limited. Constraints won't be that low either. The game industry and the hardware industry are closely related and complement each other, and there is still more room for development of mobile games.
In addition, major mobile phone manufacturers have made certain improvements in the screen, such as full screen, different screen sizes and resolutions, screen edge gestures, etc., which have put forward new requirements for the adaptation of games and the avoidance of errors caused by overlapping functions. In addition, if it is equipped with new technologies such as VR, it will also bring a better experience to users with high-resolution equipment.
2. Focus on performance issues and security issues
The report focuses on the performance issues and security issues of mobile games, and puts forward certain solutions and precautions.
Among them, performance optimization includes solving compatibility problems, client performance optimization and server performance problem solving. The problems most reported by players are login problems, disconnection problems and freeze problems. These problems also have a great impact on game evaluation and are easy to cause. Negative emotions, as well as network problems such as servers, are easy for players to focus on complaining, and also greatly affect the player experience.
The issue I am most interested in is actually the security issue, because I usually play less games, but I can also hear rumors about game cheating, etc., and now that the game industry is hot, security issues cannot be avoided. In the " 2017 China Mobile Game Quality White Paper", it is reflected that flying shooting, sports competition and racing parkour games are prone to cheating. Strong interaction requirements can easily become a "hotbed" for plug-in vulnerabilities. It may be that the user's input and output have not been properly closed and the verification code, etc., or the developer's logic errors and logic loopholes will be found. Therefore, designers and developers Also communicate more.
Although the more popular "chicken-eating" game "Jedi Survival" has attracted a group of players because of its exciting and thrilling game content, it has also been criticized for plug-ins for a period of time. In fact, there is a reason why shooting games are most popular with plug-ins. First of all, compared to the "full picture hanging" of MOBA games (which allows you to see the enemy's position), the perspective hanging, self-aiming, and burst hanging in shooting games can more directly allow you to win the game. The improvement of shooting skills by plug-ins is intuitive and obvious. The see-through hanging can let you see the enemy hiding in the corner, the wall hanging can make you elusive, the self-aiming hanging can make you a sharpshooter, and the plug-in that cancels the recoil can make you more stable and worry-free. After using the plug-in, your win rate and KD ratio will be greatly improved. In addition, self-aiming and perspective are very good "acting", and combined with the user's own strength, these hang-ups are not so easy. will be discovered. This super concealment is also one of the reasons why shooting game plug-ins can last forever.
Another reason is that multiplayer shooting games need to calculate very complex and huge data such as movement, ballistics, recoil, decision box, etc. In addition, shooting games have extremely high requirements on the number of frames and delays, often in tenths of a second. If you move the mouse and take a step, you have to upload it to the server for real-time data exchange. With the current technical level, it is impossible to guarantee a smooth game. then what should we do? Only part of the data calculation is carried out locally, only the data of key nodes will be uploaded to the server, and the server will correct it, and then feed it back to the local. Compared with other games, shooting games with a lot of local computing content naturally become the favored object of many plug-ins, because these changes will not be uploaded to the server side, and local modifications are convenient and difficult to find.
Furthermore, in games like "Traveling Frog", the number of items can be changed by changing the local data file, which also makes the game unfair.
Although the report mentioned that the security issues of mobile games can be improved by hiding and encrypting the key logic dynamic library DLL files on the client side, programmers pay more attention to encryption processing and hiding of output data, and change the encrypted key. The flood of security issues needs to be dealt with more severely in the market. Game companies also need to pay more attention to the protection of key logic and data. There is a long way to go to solve security issues.
3. The quality of mobile game research and development is refined
"The trend of high-quality mobile game R&D quality is unchanged. Good games that have performed well in the market and won the reputation of players have always been high-quality boutiques." This is an overview of the "2017 China Mobile Game Quality White Paper". The mobile game market is becoming more and more clear. Ten popular games such as "Glory of the King", "Onmyoji", and "Fantasy Westward Journey" were selected for compatibility testing in the article, and it was found that their performance was better than the average level, and the number of compatibility problems and their impact were far lower than the average level of other games. , which shows that an excellent mobile game not only has rich game content and gameplay, but also cannot be underestimated in the hard power of its game quality.
Summarize
By reading the " 2017 China Mobile Mobile Game Quality White Paper", I learned that it is not only the meticulous planning, but also the need for programmers to clarify the logic to implement the game, test and improve the game and find out game problems, and make full use of existing hardware resources and Player experience, the cooperation and assistance of the Quartet, can create a mobile game with a good reputation. As a game-oriented student of digital media technology, although I have a certain understanding of the production process of game development, I know very little about the issues to be considered in mobile game production in the industrial world. For example, the proper nouns such as PVP\PVE and server stress test do not understand the meaning. After inquiring, I realized that the server stress test is a test of the server's carrying capacity to examine its functional limits and hidden dangers, and I learned a lot about the game industry. proper noun. In addition, this article quotes some insights from Daniel on Zhihu and blogs plus my own understanding. This report can spur me on in the future game development work, pay more attention to compatibility issues, client performance issues, server performance issues and security issues, etc. in the production process, focus on testing, and constantly improve the work, and strive to make my own game better. The game is able to reach a new height.