Malfunction  Ghost

PROJECTS
  BLESSING PART I
  Polo’s Advanture
  Xiangshan Master: Legacy in Wood
  Ascending Souls

ABOUT ME

Xiangshan Master :
Legacy in Wood

「 Game carriers culture and civilization. 」

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BEGINNING

My college major is architecture, and there is a course called Traditionnal Architecture Investigation. During the summer vacation, I went to Shanxi Province for two weeks. The vast majority of what we learn in university is the design and theory of modernist architecture, with little involvement in traditional Chinese wooden buildings such as temples, wooden towers, and wooden buildings. At the beginning of the investigation, I didn't show much interest, but as the journey deepened and I learned systematically, I learned a lot about the stories of local architecture.

The most touching thing for me is the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, which has existed for thousands of years and is the tallest, largest, and oldest existing pure wooden tower in the world. Years of earthquakes have caused the wooden tower to tilt, but due to the loss of skills in wooden construction, it is difficult to rescue the tower. Standing in front of the wooden tower, listening to the wind chimes made me feel an unprecedented sense of calm, but learning that the tower may collapse one day in the future made me feel very sad.

So during the rest of my journey, I often wondered if I could create a game with traditional culture as its theme? I made some attempts, such as shadow puppetry style action games or card games, but they did not make it due to some reasons.

DEVELOPMENT

In the autumn, I took a course on digital scene design and had some discussions with the professor about games. At that time, he was working with a wooden architecture school called the Xiangshan in Jiangsu. In history, the Xiangshan participated in the design and construction of the Forbidden City in Beijing and the gardens in Suzhou, both of which are world intangible cultural heritage sites. In order to publicity, Xiangshan needed a digital project, so the professor approached me and hoped that I could create a game with the theme of popularizing wooden architecture.

I think this is a great opportunity to make up for the regrets during the inspection, so I immediately agreed to start production. After several days of design, I have decided to create a visual interactive novel game that popularizes traditional architectural knowledge.

The project itself is not very large, and the programs involved are not that complex. The main challenge is how to combine the game itself with knowledge of wooden architecture. If the knowledge is too specialized, it will make players lose their fun. In order to enable players to quickly get started, I only covered some simple knowledge inside.  

The initial idea that came to my mind was to create two NPCs, one named Huaijin, a young female apprentice who had just arrived at Xiangshan to learn from a master, and the other named Fangzheng, a master of Xiangshan. So I quickly drew their images.

OVERVIEW

Xiangshan Master : Legacy in Wood is a visual interactive novel type popularization game, mainly telling the story of Xiangshan apprentice Huaijin learning traditional architectural knowledge at Xiangshan School and finally graduating from the old master Fangzheng. 

The game is divided into eight parts, namely: dougong, mortise and tenon, corner, roof, street building, rockery, characters, and works. Each part has an independent story, covering Xiangshan's historical and cultural popularization, Xiangshan's wooden construction skills, etc.

Overall, the significance brought to me by this game production goes beyond the game itself. Being able to promote traditional architecture knowledge to more people through the medium of games is already enough for me.

 Games are not just entertainment, but also carriers of culture and civilization, which has always been my viewpoint.

ARTWORK

PROGRAM

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