Text/Echo
Before the official writing, I was quite confident that I wanted to find more information about Lima Sky in the domestic search engine, but only found that except for one so-called official website that I had never successfully opened, so I could not determine its authenticity, all the information about this game group can really be described as a rarity: the official account is difficult to distinguish between true and false, the historical information is blank, and occasionally several game portals are willing to write down the name Lima Sky for time, but they can only helplessly. Awkwardly labeling it with a single-digit number of fans on an empty vendor profile.
So even though the editors prominently and thoughtfully labeled me the doodle jump under every web interface, I still can't help but wonder: the so-called Lima Sky is part of the "urban legend" of the Internet - otherwise, how could such an obscure game group become the party that stood out in the early Android mobile game war?
Just with a 4399-level "Graffiti Jump"?
To some extent this is also true.
Specifically, in the vitality of the mobile game market more than a decade ago, with its own characteristics and brave trial and error, it was perfectly normal for any group to rely on a "Graffiti Jump" that was favored by the market.
"Graffiti Jump", according to its specific gameplay, can also be called "a four-legged slender-mouthed alien creature on the 100th floor", is the debut of the American indie game group Lima Sky, a masterpiece, and the only work in most players' cognition - yes, according to the cruel and dark Matthew effect of the game circle, it seems that such groups should disappear satisfactorily after a dismal end or a small profit, and only in very special circumstances can the game production group take advantage of the east wind of the work to become famous. Or engage in friendly and unequal employment cooperation with more powerful game makers.
Fortunately, from any point of view, the popularity of "Doodle Jump" is too worthy of the word "special":
Its birthplace won the App Store sales championship for four consecutive months, during which the cumulative sales reached a staggering 25,000 copies; a year later, it almost deservedly took over the olive branch thrown by Google and Nokia, swaggered to the Android and Symbian platforms, landed on Windows Phone two years later, and joined the Xbox 360 and Nintendo 3DS family four years later, and by the end of 2011, its total sales of each platform had reached a staggering 15 million copies Including TouchGen, Pocket Gamer and Metacritic, they also praised the game, calling it "very fun", "fun to play", "full of love", "unique sound effects and cartoon images" of the sketch masterpiece...
Of course, sales are real numbers, and "sound effects and cartoon images are full of game charm" is not difficult to understand, but it is not so easy to understand and try to describe what is "happy, interesting, and full of love" simply through text and images. So adhering to the principle of "never knowing this matter must be done", I tried to re-download "Doodle Jump" and had a good experience - I have to say that this game from the hand to the richness of the picture has been very different from the rough original version in my memory, but considering that its core experience has not changed significantly, I think I can still start from the perspective completely, and summarize the game experience of "Doodle Jump" that once conquered the mobile game market into the following characteristics, the most important of which is the most important one. I think it should be that for the player, the requirements of this game for operation and awareness are simple enough.
Compared with the same period of mobile game manufacturers like Gameloft and EA Mobel, which are deliberately trying to squeeze out the performance limits of Android and IOS, and gradually move closer to traditional terminal games in all aspects, "Doodle Jump" is simply an excellent example of "playing with your hands": in addition to suspending such kinetic buttons and forcing out of a class of mobile phones instead of game functions, the entire game interface has no active interaction. All players can do is tilt the game to let gravity sense determine the direction in which the little alien jumps upwards, and fine-tune at any time to ensure that the little alien can land safely on the sturdy platform every time (BlackBerry and some Nokia phones also support physical arrow key control).
Of course, to some extent, this extremely simple core gameplay is just the gentle appearance of "Graffiti Jump" and the friendly basic tutorial, almost when the player can skillfully determine the landing point of most of the little alien jumps - that is to say, when the player has safely passed the novice period and can easily get a good score, "Graffiti Jump" will begin to show more and more arrogant and vicious:
The originally solid and stable platform will move more and more frequently and quickly from side to side, and the proportion of various strange special platforms that cannot support the weight of small aliens is gradually increasing, and in the 2010 version, the production team has also added various monsters and traps to the game with bad taste, requiring players or showing divine dodging techniques to dodge attacks, or preemptively using the "mouth cannon" system that is also added to the game in this version to crush some monsters into powder.
Fortunately, "seeking wealth and danger" seems to be the guiding ideology of Lima Sky's development of the game, so the more difficult the late game, in other words, the player who has also achieved a considerable score, the easier it is to pick up powerful and instantly effective auxiliary props during the jumping process, and experience the opening and hanging of the skyrocketing:
The most common springs and spring beds will catapult the little alien upwards a short distance, the effect is indeed average but always much stronger than the protagonist himself jumping up; the personal favorite flight cap can make the little alien fly slowly like The Bamboo Dragonfly of Doraemon for a while, during which the player can also observe the dangers that have nothing to do with them on the road, and then there is still plenty of time to find a most suitable landing point for the small aliens; the function of the spring shoes is much the same as the spring function, But between this spring appearing on the sole of the protagonist's shoe instead of the ground, the whole process also has some meaning of "stepping and accumulating thousands of miles"; the rocket and the big rocket are naturally similar to the above props, but in comparison, they fly fast and far, more refreshing...
It is worth mentioning that most of the props mentioned above did not exist in the original game in 2009, and the game props are more exaggerated, burning money, and more popular iterations for players, we can also clearly see that "Graffiti Jump" surpassed another important innovation of the single-player buyout mobile game works at that time - to some extent, this game is the first to continue to operate mobile games.
Even though I've added "somehow" to be rigorous, it's still not quite accurate to classify Doodle Jump as a continuously running game. Until at least 2013, The obvious iterations of Doodle Jump were mostly reflected in the game's different performances on different platforms, either actively or passively.
For example, compared to the original game on the IOS platform in 2009, the game version that landed on the Android and Symbian platforms in 2010, and the version of the game that landed on Windows Phone in 2011 all have a stutter that is obvious enough to affect the game experience - making this "iteration" is indeed a bit sarcastic, but on the other hand, it is probably this annoying Caton that urged the production team Lima Sky or possible civil groups to make Christmas, jungle, Halloween and other different scenes for the Android version of the game, introducing monsters The new mechanics of traps and mouth cannon shooting have successfully mitigated the impact of stuttering on the game, and the new item mode spawned by this has naturally been extended to 2012, and the more stable subsequent version of the game on the mobile platform has become a strong guarantee for the game's longevity.
By 2013, this iteration was relatively normal and much more pronounced:
"Doodle Jump", which logged on to the Xbox360 and 3DS, changed from an infinite trial in the original game to a more suitable for living room fun, composed of independent levels in different scenes, when the progress bar disguised as a flagpole on the right side of the screen reached the end, the real flagpole on the huge trampoline also pushed the game's carnival attribute to the climax; and after years of subtle seams and additions and subtractions, "Doodle Jump: Galaxy" was born in 2019. It is directly iterated into a 3D modeling, third-person platform jumping game, the painting style is exquisite, the scene is rich a lot, and the operation feel is unusually precise and smooth, but well... This kind of platform jumping game, which is known for its card perspective, high difficulty, and gradually declined at that time, can not tolerate the joy of "Graffiti Jump" that is easy to learn and difficult to master, and it seems that Lima Sky has faded out with its own generation of mobile game classics.
It may be due to the fact that Lima Sky's other sales in addition to "Graffiti Jump" are too dismal, and the helpless and unsuccessful innovation of "Doodle Jump: Galaxy" also shows that this IP has gradually come to an end in the core gameplay; it may be that the game group still retains its own "game workshop" mindset, unwilling or unable to thoroughly tap the commercial value of the IP in hand; or because the protagonist image design in "Doodle Jump" is indeed inextricably linked to illustrator Elise Ge, Therefore, on the legal level, Lima Sky is doomed to have a hard time appropriating the profits brought by the little aliens...
All in all, we still know very little about why Lima Sky ended up in this mobile game war, and can only be quite subjectively judged to be a regrettable (mainly player) tragedy, a traditional gamemaker's confusion in the business age - but who knows? Maybe this series of "Graffiti Jump" has given Lima Sky the capital to travel far away, and you can stay away from mobile games from now on.
However, whether Lima Sky is a tragic pioneer who sacrifices his life for righteousness or an artist who does not like things, for the later mobile game group, this awe-inspiring predecessor explored another feasible path for the development of mobile games before quietly leaving, and also left too many lessons for the past, which reminded those latecomers who are also good at strength, such as Rovio, who directly drove "Graffiti Jump" off the weekly sales list, insisting on adhering to simple core gameplay. Innovation to maintain the quality and freshness of the game outside the game IP hand, thus opening a new business model of mobile games outside the game.
Of course, this is the story we will tell in the next issue.
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Pay attention to the "Broken Thought Workshop", spread the game culture, and make the game more than just a game.