I don't know when we are slowly losing interest in video games.
It could be the motivation to start the game after being overworked, the fragmented break making it difficult to beat the game in one sitting, or the fact that you're stuck in a struggle with which to play in your library or app store......
The game is bought and bought, but it is not necessarily played
Even mobile games that are naturally suitable for playing in fragmented time, many players will choose to go offline hastily after clearing their daily routines under the influence of various factors such as time, energy, or interest. As for some competitive games, they have become "social software" for occasional contact with friends.
Because of this, there is a seemingly outrageous, but quite reasonable joke among players - "a game that can be played by the mobile phone is a good mobile game". And the major manufacturers are also constantly talking about "reducing the burden", while optimizing the daily gameplay, while adding convenient functions such as automatic battles and one-click skipping, to reduce the repetitive game content as much as possible.
However, for some players, the game content outside of daily life is really powerless. What open-world exploration, event story levels and other gameplay that requires a certain amount of time and cost, can be delayed, or simply put on the.
At this time, idle games that do not need to be operated and do not require too much effort have become one of the few good choices for relaxation.
The "crisp noodles" of the gaming industry
Perhaps in the eyes of many people, idle games should be a relatively niche game genre, a category that lacks gameplay and challenge, and it is difficult to attract players, but the opposite is true.
As early as the beginning of the century, MMOs such as "Journey" have introduced idle gameplay in the game, and as batches of older "working" players who can't follow the union and kill every day take a back seat, players who are eager to free their hands and even play time but still reap the fun of traditional MMO cultivation have begun to emerge. As a result, a number of minimalist RPG page games focusing on hang-up were born, which is the predecessor of today's domestic idle works.
"Adventure and Mining", which was originally a web game to the mobile terminal, has almost become a pioneer of idle mobile games in later generations
With the advent of the mobile game era, with the need for anytime, anywhere and more simplified operations, idle games seem to have found its promised place. From "Adventure and Mining", "Hitting Polly Every Day", to "The Incredible Labyrinth", "Sword and Expedition", and now "The King of Salted Fish" and "Seeking the Dao" based on the more flat and simplified WeChat mini-program platform. The idle game, which is still a relatively new game genre, has gradually grown into a game category that occupies a certain market space.
Maybe you don't like it, but you can't be sure that you haven't heard "The King of Salted Fish"
At the end of the day, idle games are inherently labeled as casual, with a low threshold for entry and almost no requirements for the game environment, making it easier to spread in the pan-circle and widely accepted by the public.
As one game developer put it, "Placing a game is the crisp noodles of the game world, ready to eat". According to the current statement, compared to a number of turn-based mobile games that advertise low burden, idle games are actually more in line with the "electronic potted plant" statement.
On the other hand, the satisfaction of the low-investment, high-reward mechanics of idle games is enough to arouse enough interest in players. For example, idle games are often accompanied by some "windfall" in addition to the regular idle rewards. Whether it's rare gear or more generous rewards, this higher-than-expected sense of surprise is the key to keeping people hooked.
To put it bluntly, while idle games have a very wide target audience compared to other games, they have a natural disadvantage in terms of gameplay. After all, no matter how gorgeous the packaging is, its core gameplay is still essentially "hang-up", and the gameplay is difficult to compare with other categories.
Therefore, since the rise of idle games, game manufacturers have been making additions in order to take care of the player's experience, and stuff more interesting content into the framework of "placement" in the form of gameplay integration.
For example, in the early web games, the idle game was RPG, and the sense of substitution and playability of the game was improved by integrating a certain character development gameplay. For example, there are also many manufacturers that combine elements such as dungeons, homes, and even meat pigeon gameplay with placement, trying to bring players a more diverse experience.
And the boom of idle games is more like a double-edged sword. With the increase of products, the placement category has fallen into the dilemma of involution, and the trend of convergence has inevitably emerged.
Although the idle game relies on the characteristics of the low-threshold gameplay, it shows a strong expansibility, with a variety of themes and gameplay. But in fact, its experience homogeneity, rough stitching gameplay, strong value payment and other pain points have spread.
As far as the actual experience is concerned, due to the excessive numerical payment design and cumbersome development mechanism, some idle games have deviated from the original core fun of emphasizing relaxation and satisfaction. Although it is still idle + cultivation, it requires players to spend a lot of time and energy in the game to develop characters, which is completely inconsistent with the original "casual" positioning.
In this way, this pack of "crispy noodles" in the game industry is abandoning its special flavor and developing in the direction of a staple food. In such an environment, XD's "Let's Go Muffin" is like a clear stream, with a unique art style and light MMO-based gameplay design, bringing a completely different experience to the majority of players.
Place a clear stream in the category
"Let's Go, Muffin" is not XD's first idle game, before that, XD has accumulated quite mature development and operation experience with two idle products: "Ragnarok RO: Playing Polly Every Day" and "Endless Ulala".
In addition, the R&D team of "Let's Go Muffin" is the original team of "Hit Polly Every Day". Whether it's the interpretation of the core fun of idle games, or the integration of new gameplay levels, players can leave their worries behind them with peace of mind, and go into battle with ease.
The performance of the game in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan seems to confirm this, according to SensorTower's list data, the game topped the App Store best-selling list many times in the first month of launch.
Source: Diandian Data
Not only did the commercial results exceed expectations, but at the player level, "Let's Go Muffin" also received wide acclaim from players.
From the Taiwan Regional Forum - Bahamut
There are even KOLs who have turned into tap water and shown their super-anticipated experiences on various community platforms, enthusiastically Amway's "Let's Go Muffin".
Many people attribute the popularity of Let's Muffin to the "unexpected", but from a game perspective, it's a little natural that Let's Go Muffin can attract players.
First of all, on the surface level, the art style of Let's Go Muffin is very attractive to players who love casual themes. Characters and pets are all designed to favor the Q version of cute things, focusing on cute styles, especially the old players of the Q version of MMOs such as "Ragnarok RO" and "Magic Baby" can feel an incomparably familiar sense at first glance.
The game's lock screen mode is pretty cute
And in the cute art style, it's a relaxing atmosphere presented by the healing music and the everyday plot. The overall style is quite in line with the casual placement gameplay, which makes it easy to immerse people in it and has a strong sense of substitution.
Of course, the attraction of music and picture performance to players is only temporary, and the fundamental reason that can really keep them and be willing to pay for it is the innovation of the game at the gameplay level.
Compared with mini-program placement games such as "The King of Salted Fish", which pays more attention to light interaction and flat design, "Let's Go Muffin" has a kind of "ancient flavor" of early placement games in terms of gameplay design.
The most obvious thing is that this game retains certain RPG elements. For example, players can choose swordsman, ranger, scholar and other professions with completely different characteristics, and cultivate their own characters through equipment, skills and other development systems, for example, we can build our own skill sets according to the characteristics of the class, and try the strategic fun brought by collocation, and for example, the game has added a pet system called "McNugmulet", which brings a companionship experience beyond the idle machine.
This series of gameplay undoubtedly greatly enhances the role-playing elements of the game, players can clearly see the growth of their characters, and intuitively receive stronger feedback.
Take the scholar profession I experienced as an example, when you progress through the game and get richer skills, as long as you pass a certain skill matching, you can achieve the effect of amplifying the core damage increase skills, and the damage has been increased by tons compared to before.
In order to take care of the player's experience, "Let's Go Muffin" has also built a complete set of long-term cultivation veins. The rhythm of development is very comfortable, and during the author's experience, there was almost no phenomenon of getting stuck due to numerical problems. From choosing a profession to unlock pets for the first time, to changing jobs, the reasonable division of cultivation stages has made up for the cumbersome old problem of today's game development system to a certain extent.
In addition to the optimization of RPG gameplay, the most obvious feature of "Let's Go Muffin" is the addition of lighter MMO gameplay on the basis of idle games. It can be said that the addition of MMO elements has produced a very magical chemical reaction, which makes me feel a sense of difference that is completely different from other idle mobile games.
In the game, we can choose to team up with other players to adventure and farm monsters on a hang-up. At this time, you can chat with your teammates and enjoy the fun of socializing. And it's worth mentioning that even when you're offline, your teammates will help out in the squad.
In addition, the game also incorporates the common team dungeon settings of MMOs. Surprisingly, the addition of dungeon gameplay has greatly changed the gameplay mode of idle games. It not only requires players to study class combinations and skill combinations according to the characteristics of the enemy, but also pays more attention to the timing and mechanism of character output.
Take the boss slime I encountered in the early stage, for example, it requires me to interact with my teammates and disperse the position to deal with the boss's roll call mechanism, which once made me feel the joy of playing in an MMO.
As mentioned above, the overall flavor of the game's social design is relatively "light", and it does not bring any social pressure, even players who don't like social elements can completely treat their teammates as more intelligent AI teammates, or experience the normal game content with the help of the system's preset teammates, and can also enjoy the core fun of the game.
epilogue
In my opinion, the biggest significance of its MMO attempt is that the game provides players with a lightweight enough social experience on the basis of restoring the core fun of ancient idle games.
From the product level, adding social elements is also conducive to increasing players' stickiness to the game. What's more, "Let's Go Muffin" uses game content (gameplay) to retain players, rather than repeatedly increasing the sunk cost of players by paying for values, which also brings the possibility of long-term healthy and continuous operation of the product.
At present, the differentiated design of the game has been recognized by a considerable number of players in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, who have full expectations for the future content of the game.
At present, the evaluation of the game on Google Play is also mostly recommended.
At present, the game has officially opened the "whistle test" on Taptap on April 16. In terms of actual experience, with the blessing of the cute art style and its unique gameplay, "Let's Go Muffin" not only made me feel the core charm of idle games, but also brought a different experience from similar games. At the same time, it also makes me look forward to what kind of surprises the game will present during the open beta?
Pre-orders and tests of the game have been opened on Taptap
But regardless of the outcome, it's always a good thing for the majority of players that Heartbeat and Let's Go Muffin can take a step of exploration in their comfort zone.
We also want to believe that "Let's Go Muffin" can eventually become a clear stream of the placement category.