Recently, a web game called "The Top of the New Year's Battle" has become popular on the Internet. The Red Star News reporter learned that the game has been online for nearly a week, and the number of users has exceeded one million.
In this game, players pay New Year's greetings to AI relatives such as the seventh aunt, the eighth aunt, the second uncle, and the mother. Players can freely express themselves in the face of relatives discussing topics such as marriage and work, and each answer will cause a change in the mood of relatives. Only after a smooth communication with each family member can you complete the game.
The "Decisive Battle at the Top of the New Year" mini-game interface.
It is reported that the team that created this game is Hangzhou Zhiliao Siyuan Internet Technology*** Founded in April 2023, most of the team members are college students. On February 3, the main creative team told the Red Star News reporter that some players do use the game to simulate the New Year's greeting scene and adjust the way they communicate with their relatives, "The state of being 'tortured' by relatives is stressful, and sometimes there is a lack of opportunities to express themselves." And the whole theme of this game is also to hope that everyone can express it freely. ”
Player feedback: Some people vent through "scolding relatives".
Someone gets "**."
As soon as I started playing, my blood pressure couldn't go down. Seeing that someone shared the game in WeChat Moments, Ms. Chen also tried to play it, and soon "reproduced" similar feelings.
Almost the entire game, Ms. Chen described it as "angry and high blood pressure". According to Ms. Chen, in the game, the topics of relatives from all walks of life are mainly urging marriage, giving birth, and asking them to find a job that is "close to home and stable". In a conversation, Ms. Chen mentioned her real occupation to her AI relatives, but was criticized by her AI relatives for not being stable enough and having a low social evaluation, thinking that Ms. Chen was "stupid in reading". These words are so true, I was really angry, but I didn't know how to refute them, and even if I explained, the other party just insisted on his own point of view. Ms. Chen said.
Although Ms. Chen can't "effectively reply" to her AI relatives in the game, she still tries other ways to "get by": "Sometimes I just lie, saying that I am married, have two children, work in my hometown, earn millions of dollars a year, and am studying for a doctorate......AI relatives will be happier. Sometimes I really don't know what to say, so I change the subject. When an AI relative wants to introduce me to someone, I say introduce my colleague to their child. ”
The player, Mr. Shen, finds himself "currying favor" with his AI relatives. During the game, he has been trying to satisfy his AI relatives: "Getting married, having children, and finding a job are topics that cannot be avoided in many traditional families. My family is a 'half-advanced and half-traditional' collision, and I have been exposed to both new ideas and traditional ideas, and many questions can be answered satisfactorily. Many of the answers are also the real situation of Mr. Shen, and he hopes to sort out his plan and judge whether his plan is correct through the answers of his AI relatives.
But when talking to "Mom", Mr. Shen found that he didn't know how to satisfy "Mom": "'How to take responsibility for the family', this proposition feels like I have never thought of and have never been touched. Talking a lot, I didn't feel like she was satisfied. Very anxious, but still restraining anger. ”
Mr. Shen's game interface.
Mr. Shen cleared the game for the first time in embarrassment, and suddenly realized that "the opposite side is AI": "Since it is AI, why should I please it like a real person?" During the second game, Mr. Shen vented instead: "I can vent some malice to 'talkative, strangers who like to point fingers at my life', and I suddenly become a 'crazy' and angry person, and I can also expose all kinds of rebellious little hobbies." And the AI relatives were quickly defeated, leaving only a sentence or two of "You are so disappointing" and left. The game experience became "very cool", and Mr. Shen felt that he was trembling.
After the game, Mr. Shen was confused about the game itself: "It feels like this is a new way to vent, but this is not what the author intended. It's hard to imagine that if someone had a hard time distinguishing between the network and reality, would it be the same in reality? Is it necessarily right to conform to these relatives? When I come back to reality, I will also reflect, am I really planning for it? Can I really say these things with impunity? ”
On social networks, there are also people who are suddenly touched when venting their emotions to AI relatives. When a player is talking to "Mom", he changed from the original copy-and-paste Internet phrase to saying "Mom, I miss you", and the AI mother replied "You are outside, Mom is naturally relieved, but I am always worried in my heart". When a player was talking to "Dad", even if he interrupted "Dad" many times, "Dad" insisted on saying "Dad loves you", and the player said that "an al who vented by scolding strange relatives, but at the end I saw the longing illusion".
The main creative team: Relatives set up "knife mouth tofu heart".
I want everyone to express themselves freely.
Shi Hongjie is the chief planner of "The Top of the New Year's Greetings". On January 26, 2024, Hongjie Shi and his team members participated in the "2024 Global Game Jam (GGJ)", an offline game creation event in which participants were asked to create a game with the theme of "Make Me Laugh" within 48 hours.
On January 28, Shi Hongjie and others completed "The Top of the New Year's Greetings", and then some players filmed and spread it during the event, which gradually attracted attention. As of February 3, the game has more than one million users. As for the reason for the popularity of the game, Shi Hongjie guessed that it coincided with the approaching Spring Festival, and the game also positioned the user group more accurately.
Game Description. On February 2, Shi Hongjie told the Red Star News reporter that the game was inspired by the "filial piety" rating that was hotly discussed on the Internet. "Filial piety" and "laughter" are homophonic, and there is also a conflict between the two: "The state of being 'tortured' by relatives is stressful. My relatives think that your expression makes me happy, and if it is not appropriate, they will be criticized for 'why is this person like this?', but in fact, there is no opportunity to express themselves. ”
In this game, players have initial settings, including being away from home for a long time, ranging in age from 16 to 26 years old, etc.: "On the one hand, it is relatively similar to our user base. On the other hand, you will be 'tortured' by your relatives, and you must not be very familiar with your relatives. ”
In addition to the players, several of the AI relatives who appear also have general character designs. Shi Hongjie introduced that the topics of relatives do revolve around work, marriage and children, family, etc., and he selected some prototypes with a clear sense of oppression from his past works, and then refined them: "I will consider that players should at least feel uncomfortable." This needs to be some exaggeration, we magnify the positive and negative sides of our relatives, and we hope to be the role of 'knife mouth tofu heart'. In the specific role, all kinds of relatives are also distinguished, "The more partial the relatives, the greater the intensity of negation, but it begins to soften later, like the eldest aunt gets a particularly good evaluation." ”
In addition to the emotional mechanism of AI relatives, the upper limit of each round of relative conversations is 8, Shi Hongjie said that this is also a reproduction of real life: "If you talk nonsense with relatives, they will not pay attention to you, and you will not ignore them, everyone feels that it is meaningless." ”
Unlike previous game interactions, in Decisive Battle at the Top of the New Year, players don't need to click on specific options, but are almost completely free to type their answers into the dialog box. Shi Hongjie said that on the one hand, the strength of the team is AI-related; On the other hand, "our whole theme is also for people to be able to express themselves freely." According to Shi Hongjie's observation, players' reactions to AI relatives mainly include a variety of situations such as obedience, communication or questioning, and venting, and some people do use the game to simulate New Year's greeting scenarios and adjust the way they communicate with their relatives.
Shi Hongjie revealed that the ending text after customs clearance has been set in advance, for example, "In fact, everyone's group chat at home is the same, everyone doesn't have a lot of-for-tat things, and some just deal with and comfort each other day after day." If there is a real battle at the top of the New Year's greetings, maybe no one will be the winner. But no matter how much you slash your mouth, you have to go home. ”
In this regard, Shi Hongjie explained: "This is a little selfishness on my part. In fact, we really don't have much time to spend with our families, so let's get along well during this time and don't deal with it. ”
Shi Hongjie's team is Hangzhou Zhiliao Siyuan Internet Technology *** The company was established in April 2023, and most of the team members are college students, from Zhejiang University of Technology, Zhejiang University, Westlake University and other universities.
Li Wangyang, the co-founder of the company and an undergraduate student at Zhejiang University of Technology, told the Red Star News reporter that the game has not generated commercial benefits at present, and has cooperated with Zhipu AI. Li Wangyang said: "Everyone is an AI enthusiast, and when the company was founded, OpenAI opened up relevant interfaces, and we felt that we could make some interesting product applications." According to Li Wangyang, the company has launched community and tool products. Shi Hongjie also said that including "The Top of the New Year's Battle", they currently plan to launch 3 products with humanistic care, all of which are tentatively in the form of games.
New Year's anxiety sparked heated discussions.
Experts suggest that sometimes it is necessary to say "no".
At the same time as "The Top of the New Year's Greetings", "New Year's anxiety" was also discussed, and many netizens said that topics such as marriage urging and income made people anxious about going home for the New Year.
According to a report by CCTV, Liao Chunling, a doctor of applied psychology and a second-level psychological counselor, mentioned that the anxiety before the Spring Festival is mostly realistic anxiety, that is, anxiety caused by reasons that do exist in real situations (including what has happened and will happen). The reason for this realistic anxiety is mostly related to the "people-pleasing personality". These people are very concerned about what others think, and they always want to make everyone around them happy.
In the face of the expectations of his family, Liao Chunling suggested that we should first have empathy, try to look at the problem from the perspective of the family, and understand that their original intention is because of love, so they will have such expectations. At the same time, learn to self-affirm and believe in your own worth and choices even if they don't match your family's expectations. Also, be careful to set boundaries, and while family expectations are important, set flexible boundaries for yourself as well, "which means that sometimes you need to say 'no' and communicate openly with your family to understand the motivations behind their expectations, while expressing your own feelings, desires, and plans to be as understanding as possible." ”
On January 24th, the Hangzhou Municipal Health Commission WeChat *** released the "anti-urging cheats" article for single young people who went home for the New Year, mentioning that "anti-urging marriage" is a difficult action integrating emotional management, non-violent communication and correcting cognitive biases, "No matter which trick we choose to use to deal with marriage urging, it is best to think carefully and clarify your true marriage attitude and life plan, and on this basis, create an equal opportunity for dialogue between yourself and your parents, listen to and understand the situation of your parents, And be honest about your inner voice. ”