The screenshot of the game Once Upon A Time in Northeast
Social Critical Game, Seven Scenes.
Platforms used: Unity3D, Procreate, Photoshop, Meshy, CSM, Meshlab, PIFU, DeepMotion, and Freesound.
Programming languages: C#, C++, ShaderLab, HLSL, Makefile.
Position: Project Manager/Artist/Designer/Second Programmer.
Link to the project (downloadable):
Windows: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p9W7qe_qnhFHo2-uakYM2gcYPYelrWu3/view?usp=sharing
Inspiration and Background
The Pressure in Life and Study for the Millennial Generation
In the new millennium, living conditions are upgraded dramatically with technological advancement. In general, more people are afforded better food, education, and health care than in the past. However, people born in the new millennium are still not guaranteed to live easily, which is a new challenge we need to consider in the context of globalization.
In China, youngsters face more stress than the will of just living more. Since most families only have one child, multiple eyes focus only on one teenager. Many parents would like to urge their child to have a more successful life in the social sense, as the single child represents the future of the whole family. Since the social expectation for every person is to pursue a degree, academic success is the most important factor in evaluating a teenager. Many students are overloaded with coursework and training in school and after class, which leads to physical and mental problems for many teenagers.
High-intensity urban life also contributes to this deteriorating situation not only for children but also for adults, who take the burden of living and feeding the family while consumption levels rise. Under tremendous stress, people born in the new millennium are in a great need to release and express themselves.
The Rising Tide of Short Video and A Story in the Northern East of China
At the same time, as technology advances, amusing oneself with an electronic device becomes more affordable than before. The popularity of smartphones and the emergence of short video platforms have made sharing life within reach. After recording a video with the phone, adding information for the content, and submitting the work in several easy actions, a post on platforms such as TikTok has been published. The common content of the short videos could be spreading news and knowledge, sharing a skill in cooking, or even just a part of a daily story. However, in the days when the regulations on short videos were not mature and complete, the topics may be wilder than now, and “Dongbai Past” is one example of them.
In 2016, "Dongbai Past" was published. It is a series of short videos that tell a continuous story of friction between gangs and the struggle of the underworld but in an absurd way. These videos were featured for their reflection on the characteristics of the northeast region of China, as well as the amusing elements generated in the product. The storyline is about the grudges between the two gangs led by Brother Tiger and Captain Eccentric respectively, which started from making a statement to the other party and escalated to a battle in an empty lot. However, the shooting techniques are very immature, the performance is poor, and the story content is not serious enough. Initially, many audiences treated it as funny videos instead of a series of episodes.
Two years later, some internet users discovered these videos and considered them absurdly hilarious. These users compiled these videos into a collection, gave the title “Dongbai Past," and reposted them on video sites. This series gained dramatic impact from its old-fashioned style, memes, and online buzzwords. Also, the way of understanding the videos has changed, to a certain degree, as time has changed.
Unprecedented Wave of Derivative Works
In addition to the popularity of the original series of short videos, many derivative works pop out on social media and video-sharing websites. One of the famous works among the derivative works based on "Dongbai Past" is a short video cut "For You, I Will Remember That One Minute." Citing classical lines from the film Days of Being Wild, the creator combined the absurd screen content of the series with the pop music "SUMMER COZY ROCK" of Orange Ocean. This magic mixture of the three works, which are irrelevant together, created a dramatic impact: "For You, I Will Remember That One Minute" has been reposted multiple times with conservatively millions of views. Thousands of audiences leave divergent comments on personal understanding, which are far beyond the content of the work.
There are also combinations of "Dongbai Past" with the culture of games. For instance, there are derivative works on other popular games, based on the plot and lines in the original short videos. Direct production of games, based on the series, is also not rare. Another interesting derivative work is A Summer in the Northeast of China, a visual novel adapted from the story of "Dongbai Past" with all the figures in a gender-transitioned version. The story of that game is that a youngster, who comes to work in the Northeast by the will of their parents, coincidentally meets with Sister Tiger and Sister Knife and then becomes intertwined with Captain Eccentric. This game is published on Steam with rave reviews, many players commented that while presenting a thoughtful story, this work is also about actual locations and cultural features in the Northeast region of China.
Amazingly, the video series itself serves as a base for the derivative makers to present their creativity, including comments, videos, and games, which are not limited to the content of the original video series. To a certain degree, "Dongbai Past" is a medium for people to release their thoughts.
Hence I Created My Derivative Work
Thus, like other audiences, as well as creators, of "Dongbai Past", I expected to create work that resonates with the Chinese millennials and registers this event happening on the internet. In high school, due to academic stress, I surfed on video sites very often to find interesting objects that obtained my attention and released my stress, and "Dongbai Past" was among the videos I watched for their appearance in searching. More than the series of videos itself, its origin and culture also had my interest. Because the game, as a medium, is one of the most interesting ways to analyze and understand ourselves, my derivative work is in the format of the game to unravel and represent its influence.
Process of Making
Early Stage: Characters, Models, and Motion Capture
Character
Without hesitation, the characters in this game will be Brother Tiger, Captain Eccentric, and Five Knife, who embody the major makers of "Dongbai Past." The suit of Brother Tiger is the one that he was in when he was making his "Declaration of Independence"; the blue hair of Captain Eccentric is from his wig; and the shirt of Five Knife is the one that he usually wore to comic exhibitions after they were famous.
Brother Tiger
Captain Eccentric
Five Knife
Models & Motion Capture
By experimenting with various modeling platforms, and applying the shaders, I received the final draft which combined PIFu's photo modeling through Google Colaboratory with hand-painted vertex colors created using MeshLab. Later in Unity, I applied Keijiro's repo for point cloud to render the characters. The shape and color of the models do not appeal to the conventional aesthetic, but I consider they maintained the styles of the original series of videos.
Example of Models in Unity with Shader
The Construction: Design, Programming, and More Art Assets
Mechanism
The presentation of the entire game loop
In the game "Once Upon A Time in Northeast," the player is a short video maker who earns a living based on the reward from publishing works. There are seven levels in total, and the player passes each level through the check on the number of followers, views, and rewards.
In each level, there are two parts: one tells the experience of short video makers offline, and the other reflects the life of the audience online.
In the offline part, the player goes through the video-making process of designing the content, recording the videos, and publishing the work on the platforms. Discussing the content of the videos, the player sends messages to the characters. Then, in the recording interface, the player goes through the proposal they made in the message interface. After that, in the publishing interface, the player decides the title and tags of the work, which influence the type of audience and the numerical values of the followers, views, and rewards.
In the online part, the player will be able to see the reaction from the audience toward their work and have a look at the effect of the work on the daily life of the audience. By clicking on the electronic devices on the screen, which demonstrates the contact between the maker and the audience, the player would see the items that represent the daily life of the audience. Clicking on the items, the player will see the influence of their works on them.
The narrative elements for each level, including the messages, the animations, and the tags, are designed based on the content of the original videos. In addition to the levels, there will also be an introduction to the story and the map of the northeast region to get the player familiar with the background.
Collaborating with a skilled programmer, I implemented the mechanism with assets in Unity. In the combination of the two lines, this game is supposed to present the player with a dynamic result of interaction between the work “Dongbai Past” and the audience.
UI
The game is designed with a 9x16 screen ratio, mimicking the experience of using a mobile phone through the vertical interface.
The design of the elements for the user interface is intended to depict the industrial-style old sites in the Northeast region of China, where the series "Dongbai Past" was recorded. The title is made in reference to a classical film, "Once Upon A Time in America," which is also the inspiration for this project coming from.
The icons of "Success!" and "Well...?" are made in correspondence to the illustration for endings.
Illustration: the Groups of Audience
I generally described the audience of "Dongbai Past" in three groups, by comparing ways of appreciating and spreading it. Some of the audience consider the series as funny videos to amuse themselves; some of the audience want to spread more interesting moments on social media by discovering past videos; and some of the audience express their opinions by explaining the content of the absurd videos in literary writings. Either way, "Dongbai Past" serves as a medium for its audience to express themselves and mitigate the pressure of social norms and regular routines.
I also made the sprites for the objects in the gameplay. By pressing on the objects, the player gets a sense of how the short videos impact the life of the audience.
Audience Type#1
Audience Type#2
Audience Type#3
Device Type#1
Device Type#2
Device Type#3
Illustration: Two Possibilities
End: Hard to Make Living
End: Discovery of True Self
I drew illustrations to represent different endings of the short video production participants in the game.
The left one is the representation of failing the game. The dark blue sky, the brass-colored construction site, and the city beyond are the compositions I did with respect to my favorite book The Great Gatsby. The trio, sitting in the shadow, shares a comical sense of frustration and is only a part of those who do not make it.
And the right is the other side of the reality. This is a reference to a typical moment in the video, "For You, I Will Remember That One Minute." At that moment, Brother Tiger was standing swaying by the water with only one leg, with the line "This bird can only land once in its lifetime." I think absurdity and freedom coexist at that moment.
The techniques and design in the drawings are very different from my customs, and I am pretty satisfied with doing them since I regard them as a successful expression of my intention.
Final Presentation
Here is the screen record of the game (around 2 minutes 31 seconds in Google Drive):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QFrQMsNi0cX8hZM9T1ym1lrO9dEf0mCr/view?usp=sharing
