"The Sword in the Song": Using ancient music and ink to tell a story of reconciliation with fate

Recently, an ink martial arts audio game from Tencent's Tianmei Studio has been tested on TapTap and has received wide acclaim among various player communities.

As a work of a game production competition and only a beta version, "The Sword in the Song" is extremely simple in terms of installation package capacity and game content, but it shows a high degree of completeness in terms of level design and plot presentation.

The novelty and fun of the fusion of music rhythm and combat are what this game brings to most players, and the ink-and-wash martial arts, historical stories and ancient music knowledge that run through it add a unique cultural charm to this game.

Martial Arts and History Splashed with Ink Before entering the game, the style of the login interface has already shown the ink style and fantasy color of the game: red leaves on the river bank, birds flying on the river, and a knight wearing a bamboo hat using a sword as a boat and standing in the wind.

In the game, the player plays the role of a swordsman who strays into a trance. Under the guidance of a mysterious senior, he gets to know historical celebrities, performs ancient songs, polishes rusty swords, and looks for a way to break through the trance by fighting.

Excluding the intro and epilogue, the current version of *** has four challenge levels, which are themed respectively with four ancient songs: "Drunken Madness", "Eighteen Beats of Hujia", "Three Plum Blossom Alleys" and "Ambush from Flying Daggers", which correspond to Ruan Ji's drunken feigning madness.

, Cai Yan's return to the Han Dynasty, the intersection of Huan Yi and Wang Hui, and the historical stories of Xiang Yu's battle at Gaixia.

Although the theme of the game is ancient music, the game does not completely use the original music, but makes appropriate adaptations. According to the planning statement, it "retains the core musical characteristics and artistic conception of the original music while adding rhythm and rhythm."

This is also explained in detail in the "Information" column in the game.

Among them, the changes to "Eighteen Beats of Hujia" are the most significant: the music is reinterpreted in the form of Chinese folk songs, and the original words are extracted and compiled into lyrics.

In the levels, plaintive tunes and words, accompanied by dance steps and ringtones, narrate Cai Wenji's wandering and miserable life.

The screen uses Chinese-style scenes such as bamboo forests, plum snow pictures, river banks and swamps, and is adapted to the background of the story. As the characters move, the scenes also change.

In "Drunken Madness", the protagonist and Ruan Ji fight in the bamboo forest. As the music of the piano changes, the two walk through the forest, and then jump onto the branches, rising and falling with the bamboo body.

This scene of walking through the forest leaves and flying over the top of the bamboo sea is reminiscent of the classic bamboo forest battle in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

When the final blow is struck, the moment of confrontation, the black and white silhouettes freeze on the screen, bringing the battle to an end.

In addition, in "Three Lanes of Plum Blossoms", Huan Yi jumps to a plum tree, and the tree is filled with flowers in an instant, which also achieves an eye-catching effect.

The warm red color in the plain white river and snow seems to express the joy of people in the scene after meeting a close friend.

As the scene that appears the most, the combination of water and reeds presents completely different effects in each level.

When I first met Xiang Yu, I still didn't know his identity. The scene at this time also showed clear and light colors of water and reeds, which was quite reminiscent of the green sky and white dew turning into frost.

When we met again, the clouds covered the sun, and broken flags, chariots and other military facilities appeared among the lusher reeds.

In the "House of Flying Daggers" level, the scene changes to a battlefield where the sunset is like blood and the sky is burning with beacon fire. Amidst the rapid sound of strings and the roaring river wind, the uniformed general becomes the overlord by the Wujiang River.

In addition, during the exciting battle, the weapons and moves also show the characteristics of different characters.

It is also a combination of musical instruments and long swords. Ruan Ji plays the piano and wields the sword in an extremely free and unrestrained manner, while Huan Yi prefers neatness and lightness.

Cai Wenji's dancing posture is elegant and soothing, while Xiang Yu's action of slashing the long sword shows a sense of strength.

However, there seems to be something puzzling in the picture. For example, in "Eighteen Pats of Hujia", the desolate mountains disappear into the yellow sand. After the yellow sand disperses, the green mountains and rivers are revealed, which symbolizes her transition from entering the Hujia to the Hujia.

The wandering road back to the Han Dynasty.

The background of the second half should be a reference to "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" by Wang Ximeng of the Northern Song Dynasty, or it may make people connect it with it. However, the Jiangnan landscape depicted in this ancient painting is closely related to the phrase "Cai Yan Returns to the Han".

The background of the allusion is the northerly Central Plains, which is inconsistent.

But when I think of the protagonist’s self-report that he was “sealed off to a corner of the southwest,” this place is Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, which corresponds to the Poyang Lake area in Lushan Mountain, where “A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains” was filmed. Perhaps it is the reflection of the mountain and river scenery in the protagonist’s mind in the environment.

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A wonderful combination of music games and action. As a rhythm music game, "The Sword in the Song" also highlights new ideas in level design.

"First Entering the Land" serves as a guide for novices. In addition to explaining the beginning of the story, it also shows players the rules and operation demonstrations.

The battle is divided into two phases: blocking and attacking. In the defensive phase, players need to judge the timing of blocking based on rhythm and sonic prompts.