Hi there!

It's been quite some time since our last update!

Recently, we had the pleasure of being interviewed by V - The Magazine[www.vgmag.it]. We are delighted to have this opportunity to share more about the gameplay and design approach behind The Bustling World. We hope this article will give you deeper insights into our game.

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1- The Bustling World has an incredible variety of activities offered to the player, with several layers within, from the fate of the single man to the construction of a city. How have you managed to make all these spirits coexist?

Our game solely focuses on single man’s journey as an open-world sandbox RPG. When you progress to becoming the lord of the city, the city-builder and sieges begin. Differs from other city building games, the management part won’t be in a God view. It still relies on one player’s perspective.

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2- Was it challenging to manage the complexity of a gameplay like the one you designed for The Bustling World with such a small team?

It is rather challenging. Compared with the innovation of aesthetics or the construction of programming structure, the design aspect is the biggest and most critical difficulty. We have gone through at least ten versions of gameplay design to avoid feeling lost given total freedom in a sandbox world, to motivate players to discover various mechanisms, and to couple the levels of mechanisms to provide a good depth of experience.

We get asked a lot what game(s) The Bustling World resembles the most. To give everyone the short answer, it’s Stardew Valley plus The Sims, plus Mount and Blade, plus Civilization. But instead of a blatant mash up of genres, we hope to create a whole new open-world experience where every citizen can interact to each other, and every house can be entered. NPCs will react to the player’s every behavior. For example, if the player sneaks into a residence at night to steal, he will hear it on the street the next day, and a wanted statement will be posted at the government office to alert the presence of thieves.

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3- In the game you will be able to conquer cities. There will be any strategic turn to the gameplay?

A certain strategic gameplay will be introduced. The siege and the city-building parts continue the player's state in one person’s perspective.

After the player becomes a city lord, residents will show up. They automatically move in, build houses, and engage in agriculture or business in family units. Different types and levels of residents bring different bonuses to the city. If the famous General's Mansion becomes a player's resident, it will increase the combat effectiveness of the player's army. Players are still capable to travel from city to city as a city lord to lure the high-level residents to relocate to their own cities through interactions.

If incidents such as theft murder and fire occur in resident’s homes, it will not only cause their output to be reduced and generate debuffs, but may also cause them moving away from the players’ city. In addition to building public facilities from city management level, such as building watchtowers to prevent fires, players may also interact with the residents to prevent them from relocating.

Since the player’s operating perspective remains unchanged, walking on the street or entering houses before and after becoming a city lord will cause similar reactions from the NPCs. However, if the player behaves cruelly, NPCs will ran away in panic when they see the city lord; if the player and the NPCs have a high favorability, they will show courtesy to praise the lord when they encounter.

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4- Will the player have the possibility to choose his path and model the game world based on his morals? There will be consequences for “bad behaviors”?

The game does not encourage players to amplify violence and evil behaviors. Although moral constraints are not shown in numbers, such as rigidly stipulating what players cannot do when the moral value drops to 0, we designed the legal system, and NPC reactions to restrain extreme methods to play the game.

If a player commits a crime in the game, if there were witnesses, he will be reported to the police and enter the arrest state. Depending on the level of the crime, different options will be presented to seek escape for the arrest. When the player becomes the city lord, although he is no longer bound by the laws of the city, unethical behavior will directly affect the satisfaction of residents, thereby affecting the AI behavior logic of NPCs.

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5- How about the storytelling? Will it be key to the game experience or will the player have a consistent freedom?

There is no main storyline in the game. Players play their true selves. Through the guidance mentioned above, player can choose any path without restrictions.

NPCs have their own backgrounds, character relationships, preferences, and unique support for players. For example, the casino owner can teach you how to cheat, the elders of the Sunflower Sect can help you improve your stealing skills, and the NPCs who are good at manufacturing may unlock more work benches for you… some NPCs counter each other, players will eventually choose one to develop relationship with. Players can always select a preferred route to either managing a rich side, or taking the exploration to solve puzzles and dig for treasures, or traveling around the world to fight and kill. No matter which way to choose, players have corresponding ways to become a city lord. The wealthy players develop to unlock buying official positions, the benevolent unlock abdication, and the highly skilled in martial arts revolt. Once becoming a city lord, players can continue to develop production and achieve economic victory; you can develop military, launch wars and unify other cities by force; or you can develop trade and have peaceful alliances.

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6- There is this recent trend in video games where ancient art comes to life. I'm thinking about games like Pentiment and Inkulinati, but your game is truly amazing, like seeing a living painting. How did you come up with this idea?

There is a category in ancient Chinese paintings called gongbi painting, which is a careful realist technique that we like very much. It expresses the unique charm of ancient Chinese style very well. However, this style of painting can be perfectly expressed when drawn in a 2D state. But for the game world, 3D scenes bring a better sense of immersion, so we spent years to explore the unique combination of 2D and 3D – using 3D models to represent 2D textures. Moreover, the clothing performance in the game is also a method we have innovated for a long time, which perfectly shows the cloth effect of the broad robe and large sleeves, instead of using traditional technique of rigging and partial clothing.

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7- Will The Bustling World be a one shot solo adventure or do you plan to have some sort of cooperation among players?

Our game supports multi-player co-op. You may invite friends and family to join you. When you run a store, they may take care of the house. When you explore around, they can help create supplies. And when you are warfare, they follow you to appease the residents and manage the home city. Some NPCs in the city can also become your friends or even confidants. You may entrust them to build facilities, or arrange for them to increase revenues in the stores, or settle them to manage the conquered city.


Thank you for your continuous support and patience! Rest assured, we're putting our hearts into creating a fun and engaging game for all of you.


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