"One Piece: Journey" lead programmer Dan Bei Leng: We want to become the team of the game king

"One Piece: Thousand Voyages" built on Cocos 2d-JS is the first officially licensed ONE PIECE mobile game in mainland China. It won the top spot on the iOS paid list on the first day of its release and continued to dominate the list for many days. It is now in a limited free period.

According to official sources, the revenue of "One Piece: Thousand Voyage" exceeded 1 million in 2 hours on the first day of testing, breaking the first-day revenue record of DeNA China's products. In this issue, we invited the lead programmer of "One Piece: Thousand Voyage", Dan Beileng, to talk about the story before and after the game was launched.

【Cocos】What is the background of the production of "One Piece: Thousand Airs"?

[Beileng] "One Piece" is now almost the most popular Japanese anime IP in China, and DeNA China also attaches great importance to it.

[[127159]]

At the end of 2013, DeNA was following up on this project. When the production team took over in February 2014, we wanted to use the theme of "One Piece" to make a horizontal scrolling game + semi-automatic combat. The planning prototype was ready and the leadership approved it. However, more than a week later, "Dota Legend" came out.

Although we were one step ahead of our competitors, we did not give up. Below I will introduce some of our advantages compared to "Dota Legend". At the same time, the company still has high expectations for this game. In addition to regular publicity, we are also the first mobile game to be advertised during the prime time of CCTV-1, and it is also a mobile game with Japanese IP, which is particularly rare and a great encouragement for us.

[Cocos] Are there many OP fans in the "One Piece: Thousand Airs" team?

[Beileng] That’s absolutely true (immediate answer).

When we recruit people, from planners to artists to programmers, we prioritize OP fans. When making a game, love is very important. Didn't Luffy and his friends meet many friends in the process of becoming the Pirate King? I think we are similar.

[[127160]]

"One Piece: Journey to the West" team photo

Most of the people who make games are young people, and everyone likes this game very much. We also cherish the opportunity to make an authentic "One Piece" mobile game.

Of course, with more OP fans, there are many strange plots. For example, we hold internal tests with the theme of "One Piece" every week, where you can guess the gameplay by watching the actions, or guess which character this skill belongs to, which chapter this gameplay occurs in, etc. In addition, many people will spend a lot of money to buy Japanese comic books, discs, and figures. After the game came out, even girls who don't usually play games are playing "One Piece", and many of them are crazy about spending money.

In the end, all the salary we earned from working on One Piece was given back to One Piece. This is where we came from and where we are going back to (laughs).

【Cocos】One Piece: Journey to the West is the first official One Piece game in mainland China. What do you think will be the greater value it brings to players compared to similar non-official games?

[Beileng] The first point is to ensure the original charm of the original. We worked directly with Bandai Namco Games in Japan and received a lot of advice and guidance from them. You know, the Japanese are very strict about being faithful to the original.

[[127161]]

From the skill settings to the clothes and accessories, they will check every level. The story must be closely related to the original work, and the art must be absolutely accurate. In short, there is no room for compromise.

For example, if this monster appears in the sea in the original work, it must not jump onto land in the game. With this strict control process, players can enjoy the fun of the original One Piece in the game.

[[127162]]

The group photo of the "One Piece: Thousand Islands" team, does it look familiar?

The second point is that for us, genuine products are a motivation. With such a good IP, we don't want to disappoint the fans. Of course, we are fans ourselves. The quality of the game must be higher than the current market level. This is our requirement for ourselves. Now that the game has been released, many people say that it feels different from the games on the market and is very interesting, which encourages us.

Third, there will be more benefits. In the future, when we hold events, we will give away genuine figurines, peripherals, etc. These are all under consideration. In short, we will bring as many surprises as possible to fans and players.

【Cocos】What are the core features of One Piece: Journey to the West? What is the biggest highlight?

[Beileng] To be honest, when One Piece: Thousand Islands was in development, Dota was just released, which put a lot of pressure on us.

[[127163]]

After a lot of consideration, we decided to stick to the route we had at the beginning, but we set higher requirements for ourselves, such as a richer combat system, more gorgeous animation effects, cooler skill changes, etc. With the background of the game "One Piece", we made a lot of designs with a stronger sense of substitution, and the goal is to let fans, ordinary players, big spenders and small spenders have fun. For example, we have a celebrity social system, so players can get closer to classic characters. There are also ship cannon systems, underwater prisons, bounty wanted lists, etc.

Due to time constraints, the gameplay and values ​​of the entire game are still being further optimized. What we can reveal is that in the future we will launch new gameplay that will make everyone's eyes shine. Please give us some time to continue to polish this game.

【Cocos】How did you decide to use Cocos2d-JS engine tool to develop "One Piece: Thousand Voyages"? What are the main factors to consider?

[Beileng] When we were working on NBA Dream Team, we used other engines, which lacked the hot update function and were quite troublesome. So when we were working on One Piece, we specifically chose Cocos2d-JS, mainly considering the following two points:

1. Hot update. Needless to say, this is very practical.

2. High efficiency. The game can run well on inferior machines. In addition, this is a 2D horizontal game, so it is natural to choose Cocos, which is better at 2D.

【Cocos】Cocos2d-JS 3.0 was officially released in September last year. Which version did you use for the technical prototype?

[Beileng] The old team used version 2.0, and we used version 3.0 from the beginning.

I often come into contact with third-party code at Ericsson. My personal experience is that many third-party tools evolve and iterate very quickly. Only by keeping up with the pace can we enjoy the benefits of version upgrades. I believe in the Cocos 2d-JS team, and I also have requirements for my own team: although many game teams modify the code, our team should modify the code as little as possible. If changes are necessary, they should be expanded outside the engine as much as possible, so that they can follow the engine upgrade. Basically, we have achieved this.

For performance and efficiency reasons, we still use C++ to write some of the core logic of the game, such as the battle system. Then we bind it to JS so that it can be decoupled from the game engine itself. In addition, the upper interface and other game logic are written in JavaScript. We can upgrade smoothly without changing the engine. Basically, we can synchronize with the latest version of the engine with very small modifications.

We have been upgrading from 3.0 Alpha to 3.2. This also shows that the iteration of the engine is very reliable. If we really need to make changes, we will use new directories and new libraries (without affecting the engine itself) to isolate the changes. Facts have proved that this decision is correct.

Some people think they are awesome and like to modify the engine code, but this is not a good idea, especially for a game engine like Cocos 2d-JS that has a fast iterative development. Unless you encounter a major problem, I suggest you keep Cocos 2d-JS unchanged. This way you can quickly enjoy the new features brought by the engine iteration.

To sum up, unless you are particularly capable and can surpass it, it is recommended to use the standard version of the engine tool to keep up with the times.

【Cocos】What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of Cocos 2d-JS engine compared to other game engines? Is there room for improvement? Do you use any Cocos-related peripheral tools?

[Beileng] I still want to talk about the advantages of Cocos 2d-JS first.

1. Good support for hot updates.

2. The entire development environment and language of Cocos 2d-JS are very good.

3. Apart from core developers, the requirements for R&D personnel are relatively low, which makes it easier to recruit people and reduces development costs.

4. The architecture is advanced, and JavaScript can be used in both the front-end and back-end (node.js is used in the back-end), achieving code sharing and knowledge sharing.

Based on the above reasons, we gave up Lua and chose Cocos 2d-JS. However, it must be mentioned that JavaScript is more mature than Lua, although its performance is not as good as C++. So we still use C++ for the core.

Regarding supporting tools, our artists use Cocos Studio, which is mainly used for UI and animation, and the scenes are written and controlled by code. However, the files of Cocos Studio are currently too large and there is a lot of data redundancy, which we hope can be improved in the future.

In addition, we also use Cocos Code IDE, which is quite good when used to connect to the upper-level compilation. However, we occasionally encounter problems when nesting and compiling directory resources. We hope that Code IDE can continue to strengthen its support for mixed environment development and improve the design of the startup program.

I hope that Cocos can continue to improve its tool chain in the future. I have four main suggestions:

JS Profiling tool to help find hot spots and optimize memory management

Debug tool to help locate bugs

SpiderMonkey optimizations, such as GC calls and non-ref class bindings

Direct support for Native Notification Service, photo album, browser and other native functions.

【Cocos】The Cocos team will launch a series of value-added services this year, including corporate training, Cocos membership, etc. What do you think?

[Beileng] Currently, our team pays attention to and learns about Cocos Engine mostly from websites such as Cocos Chinese website and Cocoachina. We read both Chinese and English versions, or communicate internally. It would be best if there is a professional team to provide targeted guidance.

We particularly welcome the enterprise customization services launched by Cocos, and the senior VPs are also paying attention to it. As far as I know, there are currently 4 or 5 teams in DeNA that are using Cocos engine tools. So whether it is enterprise training or in-depth cooperation, we are very interested.

【Cocos】What is the next plan for "One Piece: Thousand Islands"?

[Beileng] Our game has many characters, and the rendering of action moves is very gorgeous, so the requirements for loading and memory management are relatively high. At present, our most important and urgent task is to stabilize the game, adjust the numerical gameplay to the best, and provide the best user experience.

The next goal is to top various rankings.

【Cocos】Are there any final words you would like to say to everyone?

[Beileng] I really hope that everyone can support "One Piece: Thousand Voyages".

In addition, I also know that there are many developers reading this article, and I hope that colleagues can provide suggestions for game improvements from a technical perspective~

Finally, we also hope that Cocos Engine can get better and better. In the future, 3D games will develop rapidly, and we hope that Cocos Engine can launch a tool chain and a complete solution as soon as possible. After all, for developers, we all hope that Cocos is a universal tool that can solve all problems, and it would be best if it can handle both 2D and 3D (laughs).

[Cocos] Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to accept our interview. We wish "One Piece: Thousand Voyages" a great success!

【Beileng】Thank you.

【Introduction of interviewees】

[[127164]]

Shan Bei Leng has been in charge of DeNA's platform technology projects for a long time. He led the development of NBA Dream Team in 2013 and One Piece: Departure in 2014. He is also a super dad with cute little girls and handsome little boys.

【Game Introduction】

"One Piece: Journey to the West" is the first authorized ONE PIECE mobile game in mainland China, developed by DeNA China and Bandai Namco Games. It is the first exciting real-time action game, with all the famous characters from the original appearing, and they will travel the great route together and become the glorious road of the pirate king.

Game download address: https://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/hang-hai-wang-qi-hang/id944574195?l=zh&ls=1&mt=8