What's the next direction for simulated business? Perhaps the success of this product can be seen in the end.
If you are a deep user of TapTap, or a practitioner who has observed the industry for many years, it should not be difficult to find that everyone loves simulated business! Popular works in this genre include not only some console platform games, but also industry hits such as "Jiangnan Hundred Views" and "Moore Manor". The reason is that although there is a "farming gene of the Chinese nation" at work, we must see the other side of the truth: a large number of simulated business games can only become passers-by in the player's mobile phone. After playing for a month, it was tragically deleted, and the next game was on top of the fire - in today's rich products, it is not difficult to find a small game and continue to play.
But Gingerbread Man Kingdom is different. The game, which was launched overseas in January 2021, is still in many people's mobile phones. It is a work of "stitching" simulations of the two major systems of business and card cultivation. It was also the first to wipe the face, make a "heavy" business simulation game, and also make achievements.
Prior to this, the core of the card game was to raise cards, upgrade, and pursue the numerical goal of constantly getting stronger. The simulation of business games, on the other hand, aims to expand the production line, make money, and collect more beautiful looks. Even "Jiang Bai" or "Moore", which has been in the limelight for a while, has not yet departed from this basic framework. Taking "Jiang Bai" as an example, after drawing the best characters, they can only be crammed into the workshop to work, and various celebrities live a life in the game; while "Moore Manor" focuses on light social and life experience, and it has nothing to do with cards. As if there is a default consensus: simulated business, light games, do not have to do too "heavy", do a good job of long-term content filling.
Of course, this idea is true, but what the player is expecting, is it really just "content filling"? Ford famously said, perhaps everyone has heard it: Sometimes customers say they need a faster horse, when in fact, they want a car.
Maybe Gingerbread Man Kingdom is the car.
1
"Stitched" design: simulated management + card RPG
The system of "Gingerbread Man Kingdom" can be mainly divided into two parts, one is the kingdom construction as the core simulation management system, and the other is a complete card RPG cultivation system. In the overall loop of gameplay, a bold combination is made, providing a rich goal of cultivation and collection.
Let's start with the simulated business aspect. The simulated business system of the "Gingerbread Man" has a good rhythm. For simulated business players, the optimal strategy in the early stage is: "Repeatedly go online, collect production materials, avoid idling of the production line; at the same time, improve the production line and storage level as soon as possible, and reduce the number of repeated onlines." This is also other simulated operations, such as the pre-opening production rhythm of "Jiangnan Hundred Views", which is also similar to the "Gingerbread Man".
The actual production time can be further shortened due to various additions
At this stage, the player's body feeling will feel "special liver", but because each upgrade can reduce the burden of the liver a little, the overall goal and feedback are relatively clear. And the high-frequency line in the early stage can effectively increase user stickiness, and the probability of loss will be greatly reduced. In this process, players will see a very intuitive "prosperity" scene on their own interface, from nothing to everything - this kind of steady growth and harvest brought about by hard work is one of the charms of simulated business games.
What about after growing up steadily? In fact, most of the simulated management games will face a problem in the later stages: the growth lines that can be opened are opened, and the content still cannot catch up with the consumption rate of players. At this time, you can look at the handling of the "Gingerbread Man Kingdom": the whole system is heavy, plus a set of cards to cultivate, so that the gingerbread people cultivated by the player have more uses.
In addition to the simulated management, the combat and character development of Gingerbread Man Kingdom is a very complete card RPG system design. Main line push map, union war, PVE tower climbing, PVP battle, field exploration map, all available. Core battles do not require manual operation, and the player's pre-war strategy is more tested. The cultivation points of a single character are more conventional, but there are more percentage values that are increased and placed on some peripheral systems.
Dark Cookie Witch and Brave Cookie Squad
The whole set of daily walks is almost indistinguishable from an ordinary card cultivation game. All the things to do in a card game, not a single thing will be missing. But what connects these two seemingly separate systems is the cute and loving cookies.
Judging from the grow-out curve of a single "cookie", the initial return on grow-out investment is higher. From the middle and late stages, the consumption of cultivation materials has taken a qualitative leap, and the daily return after completing the main line task is far from catching up with the speed of consumption. At this time, if you want to get more materials, you have to go back to kingdom building and upgrading.
At the same time, in the middle of the kingdom construction, there will also be requirements for the cultivation of cookies, such as "holding 5 three-star cookies to upgrade the castle", prompting players who have previously evaded battle and cultivated to push the map. In this way, the Kingdom of the Gingerbread Man constructs a cycle of "building a kingdom - raising a card - pushing a map - upgrading the kingdom - raising a card".
2
Amway It only takes a screenshot
Having said that at the mechanics and system level, let's take a look at how well the game is selling. Gingerbread Man Kingdom is a game that can attract target users based on screenshots alone. When I was playing the game, I posted a screenshot like this in the circle of friends:
Euphemistically speaking, I still have a lot of room for improvement in this way. But some girls have been attracted by this screenshot and asked for the name of the game, saying "So cute!" Want to get into the pit". They are not particularly core gamers, so what are these relatively mild users attracted to?
First of all, the game is very clever in terms of concept design, choosing some "commonalities that cannot be rejected" by the target users. The main concepts of "Gingerbread Man Kingdom" are "Gingerbread Man", "Gourmet Dessert" and "Fairy Tale Kingdom", and a lot of packaging and design has been done around these concepts. In most gingerbread people, the player can see the shadows of other desserts and snacks, and the enemies the player faces are mostly cute and funny characters such as "Cake Dog" and "Red Velvet Demon Dragon".
The main body of the building that simulates the operation is also full of details. Most of the buildings in the Gingerbread Man Kingdom use snacks and foods that already exist in reality, such as the Swiss Roll Carpenter's Hut, the Sugar Cube Quarry, and the Marshmallow Sheep Ranch, which makes players who see it smile.
In addition to the unique design, the color matching style of the entire product is also a highlight. The coloring is clean and the saturation is high, which is in line with the overall fairytale fantasy temperament of the project.
In the early stages, cute and practical buildings are one of the main paying motivations for players. It can meet the player's needs for appearance and provide very strong functional support, but in the middle and late stages, it is not worth spending money on the building. As a card game, you still have to go back to the honest route of drawing cards and raising cards. The rich commercialization method is probably also one of the secrets of the long-term operation of "Gingerbread Man Kingdom".
Krypton gold building with increased critical hit damage percentage for all hits
3
Small details, big charm
"Gingerbread Man Kingdom" is the second work of Korean developer Devsisters, and their first work, "Gingerbread Man Cool Run", was launched in 2013.
If you've ever played this game, you'll probably see a lot of familiar faces in Gingerbread Man Kingdom, familiar ways of fighting—
You can even see some plot play terriers - "Huh? Aren't you very good at running? ”
Devsisters probably really wanted to tell the story of gingerbread man. As a "card RPG", the game has spent a lot of effort on the plot and copywriting packaging, and the cake is constantly talking. Under the cute appearance, you can see that they have a heart that wants to seriously shape the character, tell the story, and be the "gingerbread man" IP.
There is something relatively deep about it— "What is justice for cookies?" ”
There are also some "bread-born feelings": the bread is not a sage, and there is no mistake
And this little joke about the characteristics of the cookie itself—
This kind of idle writing, which has nothing to do with income, is the content that will make the character come alive and trigger the player's secondary creation and discussion. This is also one of the ways to maintain the degree of discussion of the game in the player community: not only to discuss the game mechanics, game strategy, but also to talk more.
In short, in the past six months, I could hardly find a more fun simulation on my mobile phone, and willingly built a better home with cookies.
Let's go back to the starting point of the topic – everyone loves business simulation.
Isn't it? Whether it is ultra-casual games, industry blockbusters, new product project research; whether it is practitioners or players, almost all of them have more or less noticed the potential of "simulated operation".
From the perspective of social psychology, we need to face too much uncertainty in the current environment, and the sense of growth brought about by farming and simulated management is certain. It gives us a good expectation, looking forward to getting better and better every day, expecting that the effort will be rewarded. The simulated operation is one of the categories that meet this expectation, it can make many users have fun, and it is a work that can bring players some "small luck" every day.
From a more realistic level, the large product base and the lack of new blockbusters mean that there are a large number of potential players to absorb. Although "simulated operation" is not a "big project" in the traditional sense, the retention performance is also relatively prominent; under the premise of proper control of research and development and delivery costs, the ability to absorb gold is also obvious to all.
This is already a great tip for developers. Under the same framework, do some popular themes in the domestic market, such as "beautiful girls", "traditional culture" and "space opera", will there be new sparks? The more I think about it, the more outrageous I am, and the more I think about it, when will the product that can meet my many expectations come?