This article comes from: Folius Ventures, original author: Aiko,

Compiled by: Odaily Planet Daily Azuma

On March 28, Nintendo officially released a 10-minute live demo video of the popular masterpiece "The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom Tears", and introduced the four new skills that the protagonist Link will have in this new work:

1. Recall, which is used to reverse the trajectory of an object’s motion (literally translated as “turning the world upside down” in Japanese);

2. Fuse (literally translated as "leftover construction" in Japanese) for equipment fusion;

3. Ultrahand for vehicle fusion (literally translated as "ultimate hand" in Japanese);

4. Ascend (literally translated as "sky-reaching technique" in Japanese) is used to traverse the upper map.

Odaily Planet Daily Note: Portal for actual machine demonstration video.

On March 30, Aiko, who focuses on investment and research in the Web3 game track at Folius Ventures, published a long tweet, sorting out some of the composable gameplay shown in The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom of Tears, and exploring the reference significance of related designs for Web3 games. The specific tweet content is as follows, compiled by Odaily Planet Daily (with some deletions and modifications):

In Folius 2023, I referenced many Nintendo games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Splatoon. After watching Eiji Aonuma's gameplay demo of The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom of Tears, I will analyze the two new skills Fuse and Ultrahand and highlight the core logic behind them - the logic that Folius Ventures mentioned in a research report on February 24.

Odaily Planet Daily Note: Portal to the research report "Beyond the Liquidity Sunset of Tax-Based Web3 Games: Using a New Navigation Chart for the Design of Gameplay, Resources, and Economic Relationships".

The first conceptual explanation that needs to be made is that Fuse represents the composability of equipment (such as swords, bows, shields, etc.), while Ultrahand represents the composability of vehicles (such as cars and boats).

Fuse is an excellent example of "functional design" (as opposed to "numerical design") in games.

In The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom Tears, players can combine "stick" + "stone" to get a "sledgehammer" (with a special effect of attack damage bonus), and combine "stick" + "pitchfork" to get a "spear" (with a special effect of attack range bonus). Combining different props to create weapons with different special effects replaces the traditional "numerical design" mode of only improving absolute power through strengthening (for example, xxx obtained a "+15 legendary frost enchanted sword" through strengthening).

The benefit of Fuse as a "functional design" is that, from an experience perspective, by providing diverse experiences, it can stimulate players' desire for exploration and creativity, allowing them to pursue new experiences rather than numerical growth; from an economic perspective, low-cost, highly combinable, functionally diverse, and stacking basic components can also help enhance the economic activity and depth of the game.

In addition, as mentioned in the research report, the composability of equipment achieved through the Fuse function can also reduce players' anxiety about item wear and tear. Unlike extremely rare durable goods, consumable items with a wide variety and large circulation tend to have less anxiety about the wear and tear of such items and less friction in purchasing behavior. Specifically, it is difficult for players to accept that a "+15 Legendary Frost Enchanted Sword" is destroyed by wear and tear, but they are happy to try to use the Fuse function to make a "disposable frozen arrow" with "wooden arrows" + "white hill jelly".

Before explaining Ultrahand, a little explanation of the Legend of Zelda series is in order.

The biggest feature of the Legend of Zelda series is its extremely free open world, which is achieved based on its highly realistic underlying physics + chemistry engine. Players can interact with any environment in the game, causing chemical/physical reactions and producing corresponding results, which brings unparalleled freedom to The Legend of Zelda. Therefore, innovation in environmental interaction is of great significance (Recall and Ascend actually belong to this category).

In open world games such as "Elden Ring" (although Hidetaka Miyazaki is my favorite producer, I still can't help it), because there is no underlying physics + chemistry engine, players can only go to designated maps , and in open world games like "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom", the vehicle composability achieved through the Ultrahand function will significantly improve the user experience.

In the actual machine demonstration, Eiji Aonuma made an impressive demonstration using the Ultrahand function - by placing the "fan" in different positions of the vehicle (including the "boat" fused with "wood"), the vehicle can be driven on water, land, and air, covering almost all scenarios. The design embodies a simple aesthetic.

Since each "fan" has limited energy and can be consumed, this indirectly turns the vehicle from a durable good into a consumable good (need to find a new "fan"). Since players can try almost infinite combinations through Ultrahand, this makes the "fan" expected to become one of the most important basic resources in the game, which in turn indirectly affects the player's effective resource management.

The significance of this design is that by trying to cleverly design durable goods as consumables and strengthening the stratification of durable goods, the long-term demand for durable goods at different levels can be maintained. If it is further extended, its liquidity can be unlocked, further expanding the trading space while increasing the fun of the game.

In short, "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" significantly improves the playability and freedom of the game, providing valuable experience for the entire gaming industry.

In the above, I analyzed how Nintendo does "functional design" and consumables, and explained how this logic is consistent with Folius Ventures' research (it is recommended to read the original article).

More importantly, I think there is a commonality between the basic logic of "creating interesting games" and "economic model design". Many of my economic design concepts are inspired by Nintendo, and I encourage more teams to explore and experiment with this concept in their work.