A one-man development team makes a game to what extent can players sleep and forget to eat?
On TapTap, there's a mobile game called Placed Civilization that currently has nearly 130,000 followers, more than a thousand comments, and a rating of 9.2. From the comments of players, it can be seen that there are people who have played for hundreds of hours, and feedback such as "the liver can't stop", "it should not be uninstalled", "very brain-burning, brain melon buzzing" and other feedback abounds. This makes people wonder: looking at the name is obviously a placement game, how can people happily liver up and not finish, and even feel that it is a test of INTELLIGENCE?
When I went to work, I touched the fish and played "Placement Civilization", and the boss thought that I was making reports on my mobile phone
Playing games is like falling in love, the other person may not be perfect, but there must always be some characteristics that can impress you. Some people like gorgeous picture special effects, then give him a weak network mobile game with no social network and minimal combat, he can enjoy himself for a few months; some people like to chat and make friends and fight side by side, then as long as the two armies hedge the blood, even if it is the quality of the page game, he can accept it. The characteristics of placement games are that the gameplay is almost no difficulty, so developers who design such games often find ways to give players a unique feeling on the screen and text, so that they are willing to look at the game twice in addition to enjoying the fun of regular harvesting, for example, like "The Strongest Snail", "Gangnam Hundred Views" in the various stems, "Traveling Frog", "A Thought of Escape" and so on.
But Placed Civilization seems to have given up on therapy, and all players who are new to this mobile game will first confirm that what they downloaded is really a game, not an Excel office form.
(Pictured: Feel the main interface style of "Placing Civilization")
In this regard, the developer of the game said that his art skills are too crotch-pulling, plus the inspiration originally came from the stand-alone game "Industry Idle", so the screen was designed to look like this. However, on the basis of the original "placement industry", "Placement Civilization" added a large number of elements of simulated management, and eventually became a unique work of "resource acquisition by hanging up, management and enterprising by hard work".
(Pictured: "IndustryIdle" on steam is also a well-received work, free and comes with Chinese)
In "Placement Civilization", players should choose one of the five civilizations of Northern Europe, Rome, Greece, Huaxia and Fuso to develop, and players who have a certain degree of involvement in world history must remember that these civilizations have their own unique and distinctive characteristics, like Northern Europe is to rely on the sea to be belligerent, and Huaxia is to cultivate and read heirlooms. Embodied in the game, it has become the characteristics of the resource wealth of the Chinese civilization and the low construction cost of the Greek civilization.
The beginning is a wild, the player has to do is to engage in construction to promote production, from the agricultural era to the Stone Age, bronze age, Iron Age gradually step into, the "Excel form" is filled more and more full and expanded, to achieve the goal of the simulation business game to finally win.
So it seems that in addition to the strange style of painting, "Placement Civilization" does not seem to have a particularly unique charm, why can it get one-sided praise from players?
You think of Buddhism, he played the game as an Olympiad competition
Remember a "brain-burning" in the keywords of player reviews?
"Placement Civilization" as a kernel is a simulated business mobile game, the beginner's guide is relatively simple, after choosing the desired civilization, players will follow the instructions to master some of the basic knowledge of "building a logging yard near the woodland, building a quarry near the mountain, and the adjacent similar buildings have a continuous bonus", but then, in the face of the dense "Excel table", most novice players will fall into confusion: what should be done?
In addition to resources such as wood, stone, livestock, etc., there are barracks buildings that can determine the direction of the war, and they will also be divided into different types such as catapults and spearmen, which one to build first and then build which one, how to layout on the map, where to focus, how to grasp the progress of upgrades, what to do if the output can't keep up, what to do if there is not enough money... These problems will be piled up in front of the player in a few hours, just a halfway out of the "control" attribute is enough to make the pursuit of fast novices stretched, so the pure newcomer start is unfavorable or even a full collapse is normal, many players said that they reopened three or four times to find a little doorway.
(Pictured: As long as you have the patience to gnaw on the bones, you can slowly experience the charm of "Placement Civilization")
And wait until the novice period, the logic of the game will be obvious, players can get control by building barracks authoritative buildings to regulate productivity, use prestige to buy characters, use power values to upgrade official positions to put characters, there is no kryptonite system in the game, watch ads to get support points to exchange for high-level buildings and prestige. The left hand is production and construction, the right hand is enterprising development, under the balance of "more water and more surface, more face and water", the initial small tent will gradually develop into an empire with a solid and mature production chain and a large map of 2500 square meters.
(Pictured: Veteran players patiently made a comprehensive strategy)
Most importantly, although civilization is chosen by themselves, the game does not force players to develop according to history, some people like to stay in the agricultural era to be a landlord, some people want to conquer the ocean to create the era of great navigation, some people choose the Buddhist pension, harvest resources every three to five years to develop slowly, and some people choose to learn hegemonic games, actuarially calculate the mode of operation that maximizes the return... Under the absolutely fair gameplay and minimalist game system, "Placement Civilization" brings players who like to simulate the operation of mobile games a pure fun, and thus has been praised by players.
Is it a crooked or a treasure revelation? Is the success of Placed Civilization suitable for replication?
Although "Placement Civilization" is currently only available on the App Store, and there is no paid design except for advertising, its success still makes many developers think about it: no art, no hardware configuration, almost no cost investment except numerical calculations, if such a product can be widely loved by players, then can I also catch up with the outlet?
Like when "A Thought of Escape" became popular before, many development teams took a fancy to its distinctive characteristics of "ink painting style, minimalist picture, ball and ball battle", and launched a large number of placed Xiuxian mobile games with the trend; after the explosion of "Jiangnan Hundred Scenic Spots", the placement and operation of mobile games of "Back to Ancient Times as a Boss" was also very popular. But after a few rounds, we saw that there was no second phenomenon-level explosion in these new products.
(Photo: Before "Jiangnan Hundred Views", manufacturers were unsure whether the pure embroidered national style picture could be popular)
The reason for this is not so much that developers have failed to imitate the core essence of a good product, but rather because the market has been preempted by the first comers. The advantage of chasing hot spots in the mobile game era is that the research and development cycle of the imitation object is short, and you can try to chase the outlet in minutes, and the disadvantage is that the short research and development cycle means that the depth is insufficient, the player is originally because of the freshness and influx, after the fun is tasted, how can you use the same interest to turn to another similar product?
"Placement Civilization" stepped on the shoulders of "Industry Idle" in depth, bringing players a long and brain-burning entrepreneurial journey, players who can experience several crashes to find out the direction will be its heavy players, and players who do not have the patience to challenge and fiddle with values will not be its target users. In this case, it is difficult to get a piece of the game group that is already vertical to the limit. But if developers can choose to break through the shortcomings of Placed Civilization and add more player-favorite elements to the core fun, then there may be more optimistic results. As one fan claimed in his advice to Place Civilization: it is relatively monotonous at the moment, if you can add this, add that, replace this, upgrade that, it will be more fun, but this is equivalent to changing the whole game again...
(Pictured: Players' expectations, maybe it is the real outlet)
Placed Civilization, which has only one person on the development team, probably has more than enough of this suggestion, but it is not an inspiration for developers who aspire to explore a broader direction along the way.
brief summary:
In today's mobile game market, we can see that more and more players have begun to criticize the comprehensive style design ideas of "what system must be added a little, what kind of gameplay must be mixed" in the end game era, and use stitching monsters to describe it, but it is widely popular in the niche mobile game of the vertical track in the subdivision field, and the market prospect of the next stage is also showing signs in this demand. If brain burning is the core fun of Placed Civilization, then even if we can't fully replicate its success, we can see other more ingenious Place XX.