Beta Testing/Dangerous Game

"The past is forever buried in the yellow sand."This article details something that has been **cut from the game**, with no official plans for it to be released. As a consequence, information and material may be partially incomplete and currently under research.
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## Dangerous Game

### Date

July 2016

**Dangerous Game** is a conceptual game not released to the public which represents the earliest available development phase of what would go on to become *Identity V*. Developed by a small team belonging to the NetEase Game Academy, it was mainly experimental in nature and its purpose was mainly to train individuals such as programmers, designers, and voice actors to become accustomed to the game's style and mechanics.

The concept would prove successful. Once development on the project was concluded, between late 2016 and early 2017 work on what would become the early Beta period of *Identity V* begun, reworking the mechanics and concepts experimented in Dangerous Game.

## Developer Team

**Planning Team:**

* Jiang Huichong 蒋慧冲
* Wei Rongqiang 魏荣强

**Programming Team:**

* Chen Xian 陈贤
* Shu Long 舒龙
* Liu Huading 刘华艇

**Design Team:**

* Lou Yanli 娄艳莉

**Quality Assurance Team**

* Sun Fujian 孙福健
* Zhou Fusong 周福送

**GUI Designer:**

* Muo Xiaoyan 莫小燕

## Development

"Dangerous Game" was a mini project meant to train the new employees of NetEase. Development of this game took merely 1.5 months.

According to the two new game planners associated with the game, the idea for a asymmetrical game spawned from their experiences with MOBA games like Dota 2. The market for MOBA games was already too saturated with little space for innovation, so they decided to create a game in a smaller subgenre of competitive games: an asymmetrical competitive game. The purpose of the project was to simply to bring players enjoyment, so there were no expectations for how such a game, especially one that was more hardcore than casual, would perform.

The initial art style of game game tended towards horror, but the more hardcore nature of the game and its horror elements also meant a smaller audience. Following internal discussion with the project team, art team, and producer Shota (then-teacher), they tried to allow a greater audience to enjoy the game, so the art style of Identity V was determined to be uniquely Tim Burton-esque. However, the game retained elements from this early format, such as a creepy abandoned hospital, dim lighting and so on, a departure from typical NetEase games. The audio, including the cello sounds and drumming heartbeats, also allowed players to become immersed and excited.

Due to their inexperience, the game planners couldn't assess problems from the perspective of planning. Since they were more pre-occupied with the gameplay, which was closer to a battle royale at the time, the worldview was lacking during the first mini project review.This was remedied and the game, after becoming Identity V, came to have a solid setting much like a mystery novel.

Since the mini project team had only the two game planners, the development of the project meant experiencing many roles such as systems, copywriting, statistics. While this is impossible to do in an official project such as Identity V given the larger team, it taught planners the ropes and instilled more perspectives.

## Mechanics and Gameplay

A Trailer for Dangerous Game was posted by NetEase Academy. It shows the hunter/survivor mechanics of the game, as well as the available interactions at that stage. Trailer's Music from Dead by Daylight.

Game logo and mottoDangerous Game - TrailerA side-by-side comparison of Dangerous Game and the Beta Testing stage of Identity V
The basic mechanics of the game are identical to Identity V; one Hunter chases and hunts down four Survivors, and eliminates them before 5 machines are fully prepared by placing them on slowly-descending spiked pistons. Survivors can change movement states from walking to crouching to running, and have the ability to vault obstacles and are also able to heal and rescue teammates. Hunters can down a survivor in two basic attacks and pick them up after they are incapacitated, in order to eliminate them.

The bed of nails used to capture survivors, with the hunter next to itA survivor rescuing a teammate from a nail bedOne of the machines, which need to be repaired to escape
However, in Dangerous Game, Hunters had the ability to conceal their appearance from survivors - a scrapped secondary trait that was considered to be implemented into Identity V - and survivors did not have a racing heartbeat when the hunters were near.

The concealing ability seen in Dangerous GameThe machines are outlined to the hunter through obstacles
From the video, only one unique hunter model and one survivor model is shown. The survivors all look the same, and appear to be a small man with black hair, dark-colored clothing, and a pair of glasses. The hunter somewhat resembles Hell Ember, and is presented as a hulking man in brown overalls with an ominous smiling mask, decorated by sharp teeth, wielding an axe as a weapon. The default survivor and hunter, Lucky Guy and Hell Ember, were most likely inspired by these two prototypes.

The survivors in Dangerous Game, the appearance of whom might have inspired Lucky GuyThe hunter in the game, which might have been used as a basis for Hell Ember. The hunter also bears a striking resemblance to The Trapper from Dead by Daylight, who was used also as the basis for Leo's design and gameplay.
Survivors in the trailer are shown with placeholder names. Among them are: "Inn in the Wilderness", "Land of No Return", "Plains of Grieving Shadows", "Spirit Possessing an Abandoned Home", "Cold Tearless Eyes", "Mermaid Bones", "Public Transport of Death", "Suffocated Spirit", and another username that cannot be read properly. Curiously, the name "Graveyard Girl" is also seen on the list.

## Q & A with Developers

* https://www.nowcoder.com/discuss/593056

## Rorschach Test

The Rorschach Test was a training period for the voice actors, starting on December 22, 2017, and a crucial period; the end of the game's alpha testing stage, and the beginning of its beta testing. During the test duration, servers were opened once again to the public.

### Rorschach: The Meaning Behind the Name

"Many of our detectives may be wondering why the testing period on the 22nd is called the "Rorschach Test". The inspiration behind this name stems from Hermann Rorschach, who was able to find interesting thoughts within the subconscious of his patients by showing them images. This is a quite fitting theme for this version of the game; players deducing storylines from one stage to the next, eventually uncovering the truth as a whole.

Simultaneously, the basis of Identity V's costume design revolves around the phrase, "there are a thousand hamlets in a thousand people's eyes": in each different player's eyes, each character is interpreted differently. This coincidentally resonates with the Rorschach test's nature of "personality projection". And "ink stain" also reflects the developer team's little "confession to make" - although our update speed is slow, but this time we updated a large portion of content."

## References

1. ↑ https://game.academy.163.com/fresh/2016/11/03/24871\_650159.html
2. ↑ https://id5.163.com/news/official/20171220/26476\_730702.html