Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds, Graffiti Jump, Temple Run... In the era when iOS and Android were just born, there were too many classic mobile games that made us feel the charm of mobile games. Years later, although most of those "first-generation Internet celebrity mobile games" faded out of our sight, they are irreplaceable and valuable memories for countless players. Let's take a ride on the time machine together, go back to the ancient times of mobile games, and review the rise and fall of those classic mobile games.
In the first issue of the memoirs of the original Internet celebrity mobile game, let's talk about the simplest but most addictive classic mobile game - Doodle Jump.
In 2009, when I was still a sophomore, due to my family's poverty, the mobile phone I used was still a classic of a generation - Nokia 5310. But my roommates in the dorm room already used high-end equipment like iTouch that I couldn't afford at the time, so my biggest pleasure before going to bed every night was grabbing my roommate's iTouch to play "Doodle Jump".
The gameplay of "Graffiti Jump" and "It's a Man On the Next Hundred Floors" have the same magic, the difference is that one is to jump down and the other is to jump up. But the most important reason why Doodle Jump conquered players all over the world was actually the way it was operated. Controlling the movement of villains left and right through gravity induction is such a simple operation, and in the era when smart phones were just beginning to spread, it was definitely the same as black technology.
At the beginning of each level, there are many fixed platforms, and no matter how you operate, you will not make mistakes, but as the score gets higher and higher, the difficulty gradually becomes higher. There are fewer and fewer fixed platforms, more and more mobile platforms and platforms that can only be stepped on once, and various traps and monsters also make the difficulty of the game skyrocket. Whenever I approached my last high score, I was extremely nervous and began to be cautious in order to refresh my record. But the more careful you are, the easier it is to make mistakes, and it is obviously a very simple jump, and the hand will pass by the side as soon as it slips. There is no complicated gameplay, no rich levels, only the joy of constantly refreshing the highest score in repeated challenges again and again. But it was this simple joy that accompanied me through almost the entire college year.
In my impression, almost everyone who used an iPhone around me at that time had "Doodle Jump" installed in their mobile phones, which was definitely a national mobile game at that time.
In 2013, five years after the App Store, Apple released its overall ranking of paid app sales for the first time, and on this list, "Graffiti Jump" ranked 3rd, behind Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja.
Not only that, but at that time, you could play Doodle Jump on almost all major platforms, including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, JAVA, WP, 3DS, XBOX, and even browser plugins, and the number of platforms supported was simply ridiculous.
But it is such a popular mobile game all over the world, and nowadays you can rarely find relevant information on the Internet. On Wikipedia, the company that made the game and the team behind it have only one name, not even a dedicated wikipedia page.
So, after a full day of checking the information, I finally pieced together the story behind "Graffiti Jump", which may be the most detailed behind-the-scenes story you can see about "Graffiti Jump" in China.
Two people made a hit
The company that made Doodle Jump is called Lima Sky, and founder Igor Pusenjak and his brother Marko are the only two employees of the company. At that time, the App Store had just been launched, and the two brothers, who were keenly aware of business opportunities, began to develop games for iOS. Since the company only has two people and not much development experience, the two brothers can only do some small games such as "pressing bubble film" and "tic-tac-toe chess". But when they first started making these games, there were only 500 apps in the entire App Store, and you could even spend ten minutes to watch all the iOS apps. So at that time, the simple small games made by the two brothers sold well, which gave them a lot of confidence, and they made dozens of small games in succession.
Igor Pusenjak
But soon a large number of developers noticed the huge business opportunities brought by Apple's mobile phones, and the App Store began to roll in, and beautifully produced 3D mobile game masterpieces were launched. The two brothers soon realized that they had no way to compete with the huge developers, so they decided to stick to the small and beautiful route, and the success of the Nintendo Wii gave them a lot of inspiration, even if the graphics are not top-notch, as long as the gameplay is excellent, it can be a big seller.
Igor Pusenjak then thought of a mini-game he had made before, which was played by using gravity sensing to control the rabbit to eat the carrot that fell from the sky. Originally, Igor just wanted to make a sequel, but he realized that the small games they had made before were too childlike, and the market for games for children was limited, and he hoped to make a game suitable for all ages. In this way, on the basis of retaining the gravity sensing gameplay, the two brothers redesigned the game's graphics, chose a pure hand-drawn style, and carefully polished the details of the game, and finally completed "Graffiti Jump".
In March 2009, "Doodle Jump" was launched, and the two brothers were looking forward to the game becoming a hit, but reality gave them a blow. On the first day of launch, the game only sold 21 copies, which was even less than the humble mini-games they had made before. So the reluctant Igor Pusenjak began his own propaganda campaign - writing amway to bloggers one by one.
This original routine of vigorous miracles actually worked, and gradually began to have bloggers recommend "Doodle Jump", and Apple officials also noticed this interesting game, but sales did not explode as the two brothers expected.
Operational strategies that are ahead of their time
What really made The doodle jump sales soar was Igor's operational strategy , a new version of the weekly high-intensity updates. This strategy is now the foundation of mobile game operations, but in the era when mobile games were just beginning to rise, most developers were still accustomed to releasing a version that they thought was perfect like console games, and then using it as a DLC or sequel, and then updating it for a long time.
The weekly update of Doodle Jump not only optimizes the game experience, but also makes players who have already bought the game look forward to the next update. More importantly, at that time, the App Store had a "loophole", that is, the new game launch and the game update were placed in the same timeline, so that every time the game was updated, it would appear on the list of "new games" and get valuable exposure opportunities.
"Doodle Jump" relies on such an updated strategy and its own magic and upward gameplay, which stands out in a group of casual games and occupies the top position of the paid APP for a long time. And this update strategy has also continued, "Doodle Jump" has since launched a variety of holiday themes, the number of which can be put together into a piece of newspaper name, Christmas version, Easter version, football version, space version and so on.
In 2013, the host manufacturer also came to the door to talk about cooperation, "Graffiti Jump" in this year not only landed on Nintendo's 3DS, but also cooperated with Microsoft to launch a somatosensory version of "Doodle Jump" for xbox.
After the popularity of the game soared, various top IPs also began to talk about cooperation, and "Doodle Jump" also launched popular products such as SpongeBob Version and DC SuperHero Version in 2014.
But just when "Doodle Jump" reached its peak, the environment of the mobile game industry is also changing rapidly, and it is difficult for small-scale ultra-casual games to continue to retain players in the face of well-made mobile game masterpieces. During this period, many of the manufacturers behind the early success of the "mini games" began to fall into confusion, and Lima Sky was no exception.
In 2014, Lima Sky, who wanted to ask for a single gameplay constraint, made a "Doodle Jump Race" that imitated flappy birds, but the response was very general. In the years since, Lima Sky has barely launched any new products, as if it has disappeared in the mobile game field.
But also in this year, Lima Sky, who was confused in game development, made a big job.
$1 billion acquisition?
On April 1, 2014, it was reported that Imangi Studios, the developer of Temple Run, announced that it would acquire Lima Sky for $1 billion in cash, and the transaction was expected to be completed by April 1, 2015.
Igor Pusenjak, CEO of Lima Sky, reportedly said of the deal: "We were struck by the idea that Imangi told us they wanted to combine endless parkour and endless jumps to create the ultimate game masterpiece. Our collaborative work "Graffiti Temple JumpIng Escape" will be released this year"
I believe you should have noticed that the date of April 1, the exaggerated figure of $1 billion, coupled with the PPAP-style name of "Graffiti Temple Jump Escape", all indicate that this is just an April Fool's Joke. However, this wave of operations still successfully deceived a Japanese media, the media seriously reprinted the news, but also the amount of the acquisition was wrong, originally 1 billion US dollars (1 Billion), the Japanese media said that it was 1 million US dollars (1 Million), it seems that the Japanese People's English is not good is a real hammer.
The fate of "Graffiti Jump" and "Temple Run"
Jokes are jokes, in fact, the developers of "Graffiti Jump" and "Temple Run" really have a lot of similarities, the orthodox sequel is also only out of the 2nd generation, and the same is to make a hit after it has not been able to create a new successful IP. Of course, what's even more interesting is that Lima Sky actually made a game like "Graffiti Temple JumpIng Escape" later...
In 2019, Lima Sky, which had been silent for several years, suddenly launched a game called "Graffiti Jump Adventure", 3D jump + parkour, which was really a combination of "Graffiti Jump" and "Temple Run", it seems that the April Fool's Day joke of the year, Lima Sky is really going to the heart.
Unfortunately, this "two-sword" game has not become the "ultimate game masterpiece" mentioned in the original April Fool's Day joke, it is neither like "Graffiti Jump" nor like "Temple Run", this freak work has been downloaded less than 100,000 times on the Google Store so far.
Probably realizing that such "innovation" does not work, in 2020, Lima Sky returned to the original point, after 11 years released the series of orthodox sequels "Graffiti Jump 2", how to play the feeling, can only be described as "original". It is not so much the 2nd generation as the 1st generation of the power enhancement version, new levels, new items, new enemies, sincerity is enough, but the gameplay and the 1st generation are completely no different. And the charging model has also changed from a generation of buyout system to a free download plus advertising model, and players who originally had nostalgia are mostly dissuaded by various face-jumping ads. "Graffiti Jump 2" is much more downloaded than the four-different "Graffiti Jump Adventure", more than 500,000, but compared with the original 50 million downloads, even a fraction.
Should Lima Sky not forget its original intentions, or not think of making progress?
In fact, most of the original generation of Internet celebrity mobile games were lucky to stand at the cusp of the era of the rise of iOS and Android, and achieved far more than expected achievements, but when the competition in the field of mobile games became more and more fierce, it was difficult to replicate their success only by relying on temporary inspiration to make explosive models. The first version of Doodle Jump took only three months to develop, but when Lima Sky had enough capital to hire more people, spend more money, and take longer to build a new game, they didn't know what to do.
In an interview, the founder of Lima Sky said the most "details", and the polishing of details is the concept he has always adhered to, and it is this concept that makes "Graffiti Jump" one of the most successful mobile games in history. Concepts like "Graffiti Jump" and Lima Sky have not changed, and we can all feel their careful polishing of the game's details, but the times have changed, and staying in the past "Graffiti Jump" is destined to remain in our memories.