I have had a favorite since I was a kid (Anita Yuen in the 1998 Taiwanese TV series).I am addicted to ancient Chinese TV series such as , and . I consider myself quite familiar with Chinese historical figures, especially figures from the Asian entertainment industry of the 90s and 2000s.So when I found out that a British studio made a game called “VR” pirate queen Based on a forgotten female leader who was so prolific in the South China Sea, I was shocked. Why haven’t I heard of her? Why has the Asian film and television industry never reported on her?
I played some of the game this week, which was released on the Meta Quest store on March 7th. The eponymous character Cheng Shi is voiced by actor Lucy Liu, who also serves as executive producer of this version of the game along with Eloise Singer, CEO and founder of UK-based Singer Studios.Liu and Singer join me for an interview and discussion pirate queenCheng Shih, The Advantages of VR and the Importance of Cultural and Historical Accuracy in Games and Movies.
Zhengshi, translated as “Ms. Zheng” or “Mrs. Zheng”, was originally named Shi Yang. After marrying the pirate Cheng Yi (usually Zheng Yi in pinyin), she was called Cheng Yi’s wife, which means “Cheng Yi’s wife”. Together they led the Guangdong Pirate Federation in the 1800s. After her husband’s death in 1807, she took over the reins and became South China Morning Post “The greatest pirate in history.”
How did Singer Studios get to know Shi Zheng and decide to build a game (and upcoming series including a movie, podcast, and graphic novel) around her? According to Singer, this spread through word of mouth. “A friend of mine first told me this story,” Singer said. “She said, ‘Did you know that the most famous pirate in history was a woman?'”
Prior to this, Cheng Shi had been loosely referred to as the character Mrs. Cheng in the 2007 film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End With Jinglang here Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.As Singer points out, Jung-sil also appeared in a recent episode doctor who.
Singer said her team began developing the project as a film in late 2018. But the pandemic disrupted their plans, leading Singer to adapt it into a game.a short version pirate queen It later debuted at the Raindance Film Festival, and soon after, Meta came on board to provide funding to complete the game’s development. When the full version was ready and about to debut at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, Liu got the call.
“The rest is history,” Liu said, “but history is not forgotten.” Zheng Shi was never really considered the most powerful pirate, she said. “It seems so crazy that in the 19th century, this woman who was a prostitute came to power and then had this pirate fleet that she commanded,” Liu added. She went on to talk about how Zheng Shi was ahead of her time and also represented “an underdog story.” For the full 15-minute interview, you can watch the film in this article or listen to this week’s Engadget podcast to learn more about Liu and Singer’s thoughts on VR and technology over the past 20 years.
For Liu and Singer, capturing the historical and cultural details of Zheng’s life was crucial. They said the team had to create the woman’s hands from scratch to be represented from the player’s perspective in VR, and hired a dialect coach to help Liu determine the pronunciation of Cantonese words spoken by Zheng Shi in the game. While I’m not entirely sure whether Zheng Shi spoke Mandarin or Cantonese, the latter seems to be the more accurate choice since it’s the common language in the Guangdong region.
All of this adds to the immersion pirate queen, players find themselves in an atmospheric ocean environment. The Meta Quest 3’s controllers served as my hands in the game, and I could row a boat, climb rope ladders, and pick up items with relative ease. Some of the mechanics, especially the idea of ”teleporting” as movement, are a little clunky, but after about five minutes I got used to how things work. When you select a location, you have to point the left controller and push the joystick, and the scene around you changes. This may minimize the potential for nausea since you’re not standing still while watching your surroundings move. This is also very typical, so those with playing experience may be familiar with this action.
Of course, you can still move around and explore. I scoured the corners of the room, examined the insides of cabinets, etc. while searching for the key that would open the box containing the clue. Many of them are pretty standard for puzzle or escape room games, which were the ones I played the most as a teenager. But I particularly enjoyed scenes like rowing across the ocean and climbing up a rope ladder, both of which made me break into a slight sweat. In Zheng’s hut, I lit a stick of incense and placed it in the incense burner—a gesture I repeated every week when I was growing up at my grandfather’s altar. It felt so real that I tried waving the scented candle to put out the flames and could almost smell the smoke.
It’s these types of activities that make VR games great tools for education and empathy. “We don’t want to have these combat elements that traditional VR games have,” Singer said, adding that this is one of the challenges of creating VR games. pirate queen.
“It’s nice to see and learn and be a part of it rather than ‘let’s turn to page 48,'” Liu said. “It’s not as exciting as doing something and being an active participant in something.” When you play as a historical character in a game, and it’s a game as immersive as a VR game, “You’re experiencing that person life or that moment,” Liu added.
although pirate queen Currently only available on Quest devices, Singer said there are plans to bring it to “as many headsets as possible.”The Singer Studio also stated that it is “extending the pirate queen A franchise that transcended VR into graphic novels, movies, and TV series. “
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