#200 word rpg challenge

[heelycular-manslaughter]

game i made for the 200 word rpg challenge but ended up being like ~300 words. sighs. kicks ground. rips hair out until i bl

Standoff at the Edge of Memory

2 players, 1 coin

You are a hunter being hunted by your prey. 

One player is the Flipper, and one is the Caller. 

There are 6 bullets. The bullets are split between each player. There are 6 rounds in game, the last round presents the final standoff. On a private piece of paper, draw 6 circles representing scenes, assigning bullets to scenes of your choice. The other hunter cannot know your order. 

Scenes:

 Each scene with at least one bullet on it is a Cross. Scenes that you have a bullet on make you a Hunter. If your opponent has a bullet and you don't, you become the Hunted. 

If both players have a bullet, the round is considered a standoff. The flipper flips a coin, the caller calls the result. If the caller is correct, the player with the least amount of bullets left dies; if the amount is equal, you both survive and run away.

If neither of you have bullets, you do not cross paths. On these empty rounds, players flip a coin; if the caller is incorrect, they are no longer the caller, as players' roles switch.

The Final Standoff

Players flip a coin

Each time the Caller has been Hunted, they have planned more for this encounter; increase the Situation by 1. Decrease the situation by 1 for every previous standoff.

Situations:

-1: Correct call leaves both alive, incorrect kills both

2: Correct call leaves both alive, incorrect kills caller

3: Correct call kills both, incorrect kills the caller

4: Correct call kills the flipper, incorrect kills the caller

5+: Correct call kills the flipper, incorrect leaves both alive

If there is only one hunter on the final scene, they flip a coin, the Hunted calls it. If correct, they survive.

If there is no hunter on the final scene, you cross paths, exhausted. You leave your prey alive.

[dreamerinsilico]

I Understood the Assignment (a collaborative-yet-adversarial narrative RPG for 2-3 players)

Dramatis Personae:

The Questor: You must complete the objective.

The Contrarian Forces: The Questor must be stymied (or enabled, while appearing to stymie).

[Optional] The Narrator: You frame the actions of Questor and Contrarian, arbitrating their conflict according to the Genre. 

Roll 1d6 for Genre:

Comedy

Tragedy

Satire

Romance

Horror

Parable

Any player may propose a Quest, or the Questor may roll 1d3 to assign one:

A MacGuffin shall be Retrieved

A Lover shall be Wooed (or a Suitor Rebuffed) (or Friend Acquired)

A Rival shall be Defeated

If there is a Narrator, once the terms are agreed, they set the scene.  Otherwise the Questor describes the beginning of their Quest, and play continues to the Contrarian.  (Narrator comments again each turn after Contrarian.)  Players should endeavor to tell the most engaging and genre-accurate story about the pursuit of the Quest that they can.  If there is a Narrator, they should provide genre-appropriate context for the actions described by Questor and Contrarian, and adjudicate the outcome of conflicts if Questor and Contrarian do not agree who won an interaction.

Contrarian “wins” a comedy/satire/romance Genre game if their enablement was agreed to be the most interesting contribution.

[bagf1sh]

"Fusion Core," A Short Game About Mechs for 2+ players

One player is the mech. One player is the pilot. Any remaining players are HQ. (If there are only 2 players, come up with HQ's orders together.)

Players need: at least one d4, notepaper.

Roll for the mission goal: 1. Sabotage 2. Assault 3. Theft 4. Defense

Roll for the target: 1. Belligerent 2. Artifact 3. Outpost 4. Diplomat

Roll for what the pilot wants: 1. Family 2. Love 3. Safety 4. Home

Roll for what the mech wants: 1. Destruction 2. Destruction 3. Destruction 4. Destruction The mech is a weapon. It wants to do its job.

When on missions:

HQ gives an order.

Pilot attempts an action. Will action follow orders? If not, HQ will find a new pilot. Will action further mech goals? If not, mech will not respond. Will action further pilot goals? If not, too bad.

Mech carries out the action. Roll a d4. 1. Great Failure: +2 breakdown 2. Failure: +1 breakdown 3. Success: +1 score 4. Great Success: +2 score

Repeat.

At 5 score you win! Describe how you extract victorious.

At 3 breakdown you lose. Describe how you let everyone down.

Permission is granted to archive this game!

200 Word RPGs 2024

Each November, some people try to write a novel. Others would prefer to do as little writing as possible. For those who wish to challenge their ability to not write, we offer this alternative: producing a complete, playable roleplaying game in two hundred words or fewer.

This is the submission thread for the 2024 event, running from November 1st, 2024 through November 30th, 2024. Submission guidelines can be found in this blog's pinned post, here.

[cosmotheo]

Grogjuice Quest

Grog thirsty. Grog want Grogjuice. Get Grog Grogjuice.

1. Make choice on paper. Grog or UnGrog.

2. If Grog, roll 1d10. That how thirsty Grog are. If Thirsty reach 10, Grog die.

3. If UnGrog, roll 3d10. That how much Unthirsty you have. Unthirsty make Grog Thirsty go down 1. If UnGrog reach Unthirsty 0, UnGrog die. UnGrog cannot Unthirsty when Grog Bash.

4. Grog Bash Enemy. Enemy Bash Grog. Enemy have 3 life. Grog roll 1d4+Thirsty to Bash. Enemy roll 3d4. Higher number deal 1 damage. Damage make Thirsty go up 1.

5. UnGrog make Grogjuice. Need 10 Grogjuice per Grog. Enemy body make 3 Unthirsty, or spend 2 Unthirsty to make Grogjuice. After, body vanish.

6. When Grog fight, UnGrog can make Bet at God. UnGrog Bet how Thirsty Grog have after fight. If Thirsty within 1 of Bet, gain 2 Unthirsty. If Thirsty 2+ from Bet, lose 2 Unthirsty. If exact, gain 2 Unthirsty, 2 Grogjuice.

7. If no Grog left, lose. If no UnGrog left and not 10 Grogjuice per Grog, lose. If 10 Grogjuice per Grog, win.

[goblincow]

CATS or What Is This RPG or Setting The Table

So I just heard about CATS courtesy of the good folks in the PlusOneExp discord server. CATS was written by Patrick O'Leary for the 2016 200 Word RPG Challenge.

It's nice and short (200 words even) and it's a compelling formula for the classic What Is This TTRPG segment that warrants a page at the front of every good RPG book.

I find it particularly interesting that this is imagined as a micro-RPG in its own right, a table activity for the start of game night that sets out to address what I have always found to be the most painful aspect of playing any TTRPG (besides tedious and arcane character creation rituals – I'm looking at you 5e PHB 👀): the friction that arises from players having discordant, conflicting, contradictory or incompatible expectations during play.

We can formulate the basic strucure of CATS in a variety of ways: Concept/Aim/Tone/Subject Matter, What/Where/When/Who/Why/How, Premise/Overview/Goals/What You Need, etc. all of which can be applied in two immediate directions:

In a What Is This RPG section, these are just codified methods for teaching the player/reader (more of my thoughts on the player/reader here) how to read and communicate everything that comes next in a way that's both more focused than a blurb (which might basically constitute the Concept/Premise/Hook) and more comprehensive than an elevator pitch.

As a launchpad for table play, these structures guide the conversation to establish the pillars of the shared fiction, and I especially appreciate CATS for the fact that it ends on Subject Matter. It could be the consequence of a tortured acronym, but having set the stage in every other way it seems appropriate to hop into safety tools as the final as the final negotiation before play, once all context is provided but nothing is yet set in stone.

That's all he wrote on CATS.

In THE PERILOUS PEAR & PLUM PIES OF PUDWICK I wrote a conversation guide to the meat of the adventure on pg. 11, following an introductory segment of the game that functions as a session 1 prologue of sorts before delving into the hexflower "dungeon" microsetting, inciting incident et al. It's interesting for me to look back at the way I structured this from the perspective of CATS.

If you're curious about TPPAPPOP and want a sneak peak of what you can expect, here's that segment from pg. 11, Inside The Tree:

Resources: the insects of the tree live in darkness and have varying weird diets – you might decide that tracking resources like light and food is important, or maybe at this scale adventurers can survive on the honeydew, leaves and strange meats that the insects eat. Sights and Sounds: footsteps might sound like earthquakes, voices like distant thunder. What are the twitches and mannerisms of the chittering language of insects? How does artificial light disturb the denizens of the tree? Setting and Tone: to adjust the game to your group's preference, you might lean into the existential conflict of intruding on and potentially dooming these fledgling societies, or downplay the crawling horror of an insect world to allow its cuter side to shine through.

[sabrinahawthorne]

Introducing: RULE

As you may have noticed, I have been possessed this month with an inexplicable urge to complete @200-word-rpgs challenge several times over, submitting four entries to this year's jam. For the record, I'd like to apologize to everyone whose notifications I've been cluttering about it. This will be the last one, I promise.

As it turns out, I didn't actually complete four entries - I completed six. Once I had finished OATH, I realized that this was a golden opportunity to not only get back in the saddle and do my job, but also to put out a first edition of an old idea that's been stuck in the back of my works-in-progress folder for years now. So I resolved to complete this: RULE, a collection of grim fantasy games which can be played together or separately.

This idea is one of my oldest, dating back to when teenage me first learned of the World of Darkness, and was struck with the idea to do that - which is to say, a line of standalone games which can also be run together - but using high fantasy concepts instead of urban fantasy staples. Thinking on it, I have no doubt that other authors have tackled that premise long before me (and if you know of those efforts, please point me in their direction). But what can I say? I know the space I like to play in, and this was a real treat to put together.

Oh, and David - I leave it to your discretion how exactly you'd like to treat this little fugue state of mine, in regards to the jam. Archive all of my entries separately or together, or just pick one and make that the "official" one. I don't have a strong preference.

For those seeing this release and noticing that I haven't mentioned CLASH! in several months - I'm sorry for the delay, but please don't worry. It's not exactly smooth sailing behind the scenes, but all of the problems that have been stopping me up are eminently solveable, and once the new year rolls around I promise to have information on the state of the game. The project isn't abandoned; it'll just be a little while before I feel comfortable showing off a new version.

[toy-dragon]

Nobody Can Find The Opening Band

-----------

A 3-6 player game.

The crowd is starting to get anxious. Although they came for the headliner, the opening band is late. Show can't start without them.

YOU are all members of the opening band, having a moment of crisis. Rumors, fame, and stress are tearing you apart.

Together, describe your band, your instruments, yourselves. Decide on a name and your shared history. Everyone gives a rumor about every other player that strains the band.

Everyone rolls 2d6 4 times.

These are now your stats for

RELATIONSHIP

DEDICATION

TRUST

STRESS LEVEL

The person with the most musical experience goes first. Choose another member and confront them about a rumor you've heard.

They will choose either RELATIONSHIP, DEDICATION, or TRUST to reason with the other member and roll 1d100. If they roll-under the stat, then they succeed on smoothing the issues the rumor causes and subtract the difference from their STRESS. Otherwise, they add that difference to their STRESS. Play continues to the right.

Once STRESS reaches 100, the member quits the band. That member describes why this will kill the band in the long run.

Once every rumor has been confronted, describe how the band changes forever.

------------

This may be archived off-site. Excluding title and archival statement and ending bit, this was 200 words exactly. I wanted to do something a bit bigger group-wise and more pvp-adjacent while hitting 200 words exactly. This will be my last entry for me this month, so let me know if you play either of mine because I want feedback on them.

Tumblr 200-Word RPGs 2023

Last November, we did an informal game jam for folks who wanted to write something for Writing Month, but would prefer to write fewer than fifty thousand words of it. You can find the complete list of participants for that event in this post here. There's also an off-Tumblr archive of entries whose authors gave permission for them to be preserved here, if any of those links turn out to be broken.

Last year's collaboration went over well enough that I thought we might dust it off again this year. To be clear, this is just for fun – it's not a curated jam, and nobody's judging winners or handing out prizes..

If you'd like to throw your hat in, just follow these steps:

Step 1: If you're unfamiliar with 200-word RPGs, read a bunch of last year's entries (linked above) or browse the 200 Word RPG Challege archives at https://200wordrpg.github.io/ to get your brain-meats properly configured.

Step 2: Write your own 200-word RPG. If you're not sure whether you have 200 words or not (and with RPGs it can genuinely be difficult to tell!), you can use the word counter at https://200wordrpg.github.io/wordcount to check.

Step 3: Reblog this post and append your 200-word RPG.

Step 4 (optional): Please indicate in your post whether you're okay with having your 200-word RPG archived off-site for posterity – if you don't say anything one way or the other, I'll assume the answer is "no".

(As before, as a courtesy to anyone who's creeping the notes, please restrict non-200-word-RPG commentary to replies and tags until November 2023 is over – let's make the actual games easy to find!)

[cavetalesz]

I know the @200-word-rpgs challenge has already been over for a while now, but I just came up with a new TTRPG that happens to fit in 200 words!

Mistrial

A game for 3 players One of you is the Suspect, one is the Officer, and the other is the Judge. The Suspect is accused of:

1d6

Eating

Stealing

Defrauding

Soliciting

Plundering

Shooting

1d6

a hamburger

the Eiffel Tower

an octopus

a fairy

a treasury

a billionaire

In advance of the trial

The Officer may make up any evidence they report to have found at the Suspect's home, and write it down on a piece of paper.

The Suspect may, in secret, roll a dice, flip a coin, or choose whether they are guilty of the crime.

The Judge may browse social media.

The trial

The Officer argues the Suspect is Guilty, and can refer to the evidence, the Suspect argues they are Innocent.

When the Judge is bored, they may end the trial and pronounce the Suspect Guilty or Innocent. If the Suspect is found Guilty, they go to jail for life. If they are pronounced Innocent, they walk free.

There are no consequences for the Officer.

[sunmaea]

I had a wonderful (albeit slightly stressful!) time participating in the Notebook November event designed by @astorythatwritesitself. The aim of the challenge was to fill up a notebook over the course of November.

I opted to use one of the many, many notebooks I had in my stationery crate. My notebook was A6 in size and had about 80 pages (I think). Thankfully, those pages were fairly wide-ruled!

I actually began scribbling in my notebook on the 11th of November. It quickly became clear that I wouldn't be able to complete the book if I fastidiously stuck to only using it for plotting stories – which had been my original plan – so I tried to be flexible. That turned out to be much more fun and, interestingly enough, much more productive.

I completed the notebook on the 30th of November. Here are some of the pages (be awed by my dodgy handwriting):

A bit more about the photos:

The notebook itself. I think it came as part of a pack of three. I remember it being fairly cheap

A word search puzzle featuring a few fruits. Solve the word search and look at the remaining letters to find a secret message...!

A bit of poetry. I had fun using different colours. I've typed up the two poems to make them easier to read

Some strips of metallic washi tape. I also used a paper puncher to create some teeny hearts from the washi tape

A snippet of my initial plans for Four Choices, my 200-word RPG. It was so good to write this out by hand as I edited slightly more than usual

A snippet of my word count tracker for The 3-Day Novel, a challenge where I wrote 50,000 words in less than 72 hours. It's definitely one of the most ambitious writing challenges I've undertaken to date!

I hope to take part in Notebook November again next year!

[strixludica]

Developing a 200 word RPG - log 1: concept

Something that's always fascinated me is the world of competitive fighting games, especially those very open to the development of "tech" like Smash. I've decided to try and make a 1v1 ttrpg that simulates those thrills.

At a fundamental level, I intend to simulate fight thus: each player character has a number of moves to choose from, and a state which determines which moves can be taken. This state represents things like stance, positioning, and other such factors.

Each turn, both players choose a move and reveal it at the same time, rock-paper-scissors style, and the state of their character (as well as their remaining hit points) changes depending on both the move they chose and the one they received, with some outright countering others.

Something that I already know is that, although most moves will be completely deterministic, I want a few to be able to succeed or fail based on a dice roll: these will represent the extremely high-skill techs, the frame-perfect inputs, the desperate gambits that can turn the tables of a fight and make the crowd go wild, IF you can pull them off.

The hardest challenge with this idea, as I see it, is to come up with a system for creating characters that is balanced, decently varied, but still simple enough that an opponent has a fair chance at figuring out your character mid-fight.

[strixcattus]

NaNo Update Day 30

And the sun sets on the last year I'm doing this challenge...

Overall total words: 53899 % over 50k: 7.8% Daily word count: 1779 Average daily word count: 1796

Fics worked on (overall): The Hare (The Magnus Archives) (most if not all new words will be scrapped and moved to cold storage), On the Outside, Looking In (In Stars and Time), From Beyond (short original work) (temporary title) (probably going to be stuffed in cold storage as well), Cabins and Corvids AU (Slay the Princess), various 200-word RPGs, various other offsite writing projects Fics worked on (today): On the Outside, Looking In First line (OtOLI): You simply nod through it all, exchanging glances with the rest of your party. Last line (OtOLI): The Craft exhaustion will no doubt catch up to them sooner or later, but you’ll all be staying in the House for a few days so they can recover and so Boniface can send a letter to their sister once communication starts back up post-Curse, so you’ll be well-equipped if anything happens.

Chapter titles: Act VI

Best day: Nov. 15 (2876 words) Worst day: Nov. 6 (1667 words)

[piratesexmachine420]

The really, really hard part about the 200 word RPG challenge is that two hundred words just isn't enough to play it straight.

[spewagepipe]

Plumbing the Depths: Ben Milton's subscribers' hot takes, Part 2

See Part 1 for context. Today's hot take is:

5e is not a "simple" system. It's only less complex than other recent editions of D&D and clones of those editions like Pathfinder.

This was submitted to Ben Milton by, of all people, Bob World Builder. I mostly know of Bob from videos where he suggests new sub-systems for D&D that make it significantly more complex, so I was pretty surprised to see that coming from him.

Regardless of the source, I think we can safely say that this take is essentially correct.

To briefly give 5E what it is owed: despite its own layers of pointless cruft, 5E is still appreciably simpler than any of the previous generation of mainstream clone RPGs – including 3E D&D, 4E D&D, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Vampire, and even more unique systems like GURPS. I'll probably take some flack for this, but I would even argue it's simpler than 1E and 2E AD&D – though that depends a bit on how one defines "complexity". The only version of D&D that I think is incontrovertibly simpler than 5E is Basic.

And the thing is, this is more of a problem than is maybe immediately apparent. 5E D&D is the entry point to the hobby for countless people, and so there is a popular tendency to regard it as a kind of baseline or norm from which other games can be measured. This seems, in fact, to be one of the major reasons why new players are reluctant to try out new systems: These games require whole textbooks of rules, don't you know?

But, in reality, they don't. There are countless RPGs with rules that fit neatly into the pages of a pocket dime novel. Some of my favourites fit onto a single page, and let's please all remember that the 200 word RPG challenge was a thing (with many shockingly great entries, no less). Once you adjust to the idea that you can potentially acclimate to a new system in as little as a couple of hours, it becomes far less daunting to start exploring the RPG landscape. If you've been sticking with 5E D&D because it happens to be the system you already know, then I implore you to take that first step! Feel free to send me an Ask or a message if you want system suggestions.

[200-word-rpgs]

Tumblr 200 Word RPGs

This is a sideblog for the informal 200-word RPG jams organised by @prokopetz each November.

Next Event

2025's event will run from from 2025-11-01 through 2025-11-30; a link to the submission thread will be placed here while the event is active.

Past Events

2024 – Tumblr thread | Offsite archive (forthcoming) 2023 – Tumblr thread | Offsite archive 2022 – Tumblr thread | Offsite archive

Submission Guidelines

Each entry should be a complete, playable roleplaying game in two hundred words or fewer. Coming in lower is fine, though you're welcome to try to hit 200 words exactly if you want an extra challenge.

This is an informal game jam; entries are not curated or judged, no eligibility rules are enforced, no winners are chosen, and the organising parties explicitly refuse to define the terms "word" or "RPG". If you wish to participate, you can follow these steps:

Step 1: If you're unfamiliar with 200-word RPGs, read a bunch of previous years' entries (linked above), or browse the 200 Word RPG Challenge archives at https://200wordrpg.github.io/ to get in the proper headspace. (Note: this blog is not affiliated with the 200 Word RPG Challenge; its archives are provided for reference only.)

Step 2: Write your own 200-word RPG. If you're not sure of your word count, you can use the counter at https://200wordrpg.github.io/wordcount to check. If you disagree with how this tool defines "word", feel free to use a different counting method – adherence to the word limit is on the honour system anyway.

Step 3: Reblog the current event's main post (linked above when an event is active) and append your 200-word RPG in the reblog. Please do not submit your entry as a reblog to the post you are reading right now.

Step 4 (optional): If you wish to provide any author's notes on your entry, please place them under a "Read More" break to make it clear which part of the post is the game and which part is commentary.

Step 5 (optional): Indicate in your post whether you're okay with having your 200-word RPG archived off-site for posterity – if you don't say anything one way or the other, we'll assume the answer is "no". Please state this separately from any more general discussion of sharing or remixing permissions; don't make us guess!

Note: In previous years, we'd requested that folks refrain from discussing entries on the submission thread in order to avoid making them hard to find. Since we have a dedicated sideblog this year, that request is not being made this time around.

[prokopetz]

I decided to try to make something for the 200-word ttrpg thing, and settled on using a deck of cards, but it turns out that you can do a lot of interesting things with a deck of cards that doesn't easily fit into 200-words and I am spending way too much time and effort on this and I just wanted you to know that this is entirely your fault.

(With reference to this post here.)

That's kind of the whole point. A one-page RPG really "wants" to be 300–400 words; fitting one into 200 words and having it still be complete and playable is hard, at least if you want to do a good job. To the extent that the 200-word RPG challenge has any purpose beyond fun, it's to give you the chance to exercise your skills as an editor and technical writer, which are areas where a lot of folks in the indie RPG sphere could use the practice!

[appgrowing]

New Open World Game Topped Pre-registration, Another Masterpiece by Nuverse

Recently, many new games from leading developers have gone on an advertising spree. In addition to Moonton's Watcher Of Realms, according to AppGrowing, Nuverse's Dragonheir: Silent Gods started a massive advertising campaign, topped the Google Play Pre-registration, and became a Top 5 game among loads of games that are already released by top Chinese developers.

Source: AppGrowing

Dragonheir: Silent Gods is about to be launched  in September 2023, according to data.ai. After the release of the global version of Earth: Revival（《星球：重啟》） in February, Dragonheir: Silent Gods will be the second Nuverse game to be available worldwide this year, carrying the company's expectation of building a global brand.

01 An Open-world TRPG on 5-Year Development and $15 M

Dragonheir: Silent Gods is a D&D open-world semi-real-time strategy RPG. It is said to have taken five years to develop and cost over $15 million, making it the most "heavyweight" of the known Nuverse games.

In terms of art, Dragonheir: Silent Gods combines vintage oil painting with the widely accepted dark western fantasy style, differentiating it from the "cartoonish" games of the same genre. Delicate character and scene modeling make the game looks sophisticated.

Image Credit: Dragonheir: Silent Gods

Of course, in the case of the increasingly competitive game market, "appearance" alone is not enough to attract players. Officially, the game story text is now approaching 1 million words, and all the dialogue is in English voice-over, including the invited DND series "Critical Role" voice actor Mathew Mercer. Moreover, with the support of high-level music, Dragonheir: Silent Gods tries to revive the D&D-style fantasy world in all aspects.

Along with the vast worldview and plot, the main selling point of Dragonheir: Silent Gods is the "open world adventure" gameplay. Players can freely explore the game world, collect resources, solve challenges, and learn about the characters‘ stories.

Dragonheir: Silent Gods has little innovation in combat. The game adopts a normal turn-based model, incorporating auto chess gameplay to enhance strategy. Players select characters to arrange a team of 5 to fight, and there is a common TRPG "dice throwing" in the process.

Similar to Earth: Revival, Dragonheir: Silent Gods will be released on multiple platforms. According to the official website, the game will not only be available on the mobile platform of App Store and Google Play but also on Steam.

02 Advertising Strategy of Dragonheir: Silent Gods

According to AppGrowing, Dragonheir: Silent Gods began advertising on May 24, which coincides with the opening of the game's PC and Android beta test in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan of China.

Source: AppGrowing

In terms of media, Dragonheir: Silent Gods mainly invested in Meta Audience Network, Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook, and the share of each is relatively average. Its target markets are in Europe and America. The ad format of the game is mainly in-feed, while creatives are mostly horizontal (including square) videos.

Source: AppGrowing

The creatives of Dragonheir: Silent Gods focus on the content of the game itself and did not go too far, probably because it is still in the early pre-registration advertising stage.

Showing World View & Scenes

DND theme is appealing enough for European and American players. Dragonheir: Silent Gods focuses on the abundant and detailed surroundings in the video, labeling the game as "high quality" and attracting players interested in the genre.

Some creatives also combine the exploration gameplay. For example, the following video shows the beautiful scenes of several maps through "team exploration".

Showing Characters

Characters have always been one of the promotional methods for RPG games. Dragonheir: Silent Gods stated that the number of heroes and NPCs in the game has exceeded 200, and the content is also used in ad creatives.

For example, this video shows the character's exquisite modeling at the beginning, and then turns to its combat skills, maximizing the audience's understanding of the character.

In addition to the direct display of characters, Dragonheir: Silent Gods also released many "character customization" ads. Besides the presets, the game supports a variety of detailed numerical adjustments, with a quality beyond the normal brutal character customization. It even shows the common "property points" of TRPG, highlighting the game's unique features.

From the advertising point of view, such character customization videos are mostly used for MMO games, which can capture a wide range of players. It may drive Dragonheir: Silent Gods to broaden its target audience.

Showing Strategy Gameplay

Dragonheir: Silent Gods has created ads showing the strategic gameplay. For example, this creative shows the animation effect of characters coming on the battlefield and discharging their skills in turn. Elements such as kill clears and blast damage figures highlight the excitement of the fight and attract users interested in this kind of gameplay.

Generally speaking, the current creatives of Dragonheir: Silent Gods revolve around the three major directions of game art, characters and gameplay to do simple display, and the entire idea is rather restrained, more to advertise as an auxiliary means of brand exposure. But considering the various ads of Earth: Revival after its launch, perhaps we will see more interesting ad creatives when Dragonheir: Silent Gods is officially released.

03 Will it be "the Year of Game" for Nuverse?

Entering 2023, Nuverse has announced three games, the globally released Earth: Revival, Dragonheir: Silent Gods in pre-registration, and CoA（《晶核》）, which is aimed at Mainland China and will be released on July 14. These three are different in art style and gameplay, but all present a high quality. Earth: Revival performed well in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan of China, having taken the Top 2 in Taiwan iOS Top Grossing games. It was launched in Japan in April and once entered the Top 30 of the iOS Top Grossing games. The anime-style ARPG CoA have exceeded 9 million pre-registrations, according to the official website.

From the establishment of the Game Department in 2018, ByteDance has been exploring the game development for the past 5 years. Although there have been news of studio dissolution and project cancellation, Nuverse has done a lot of work, especially in mid core & hard core games, and some of them performed excellently. For example, the female-oriented game Flower Ariel (《花亦山心之月》)  and the Earth: Revival that confronted with Tencent and NetEase in the theme of doomsday survival.

The exposure of 3 new games in 2023 H1 reveals a clear increase in Nuverse's game productivity and self-development strength. Whether ByteDance's mid core & hard core games can gain more achievement this year is up to the performance of Dragonheir: Silent Gods and CoA.

*The content and media in this article are protected by copyright laws. Some information is cited from public sources for illustrative purposes only, with ownership retained by the original authors. This article provides general information only and is not meant as opinion or advice for specific situations.

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