Three hours of minimalist games to create magic

Nowadays, the competition in mobile gaming is becoming more and more fierce, in such an environment, the unexpected way to the contrary may be to reap some gratifying results.

Foreign Rymdkapsel is this type of masterpiece. The game is surprisingly simple, the player can play it in only three hours. But it is such a simple game, but several media unanimously rated this month the most recommended game. Today we will introduce this game, and its clever place.

Most iOS and Android games, such as graffiti jumping, Angry Birds and Candy elimination legends, are designed to be addictive and to maximize user stickiness.

But Rymdkapsel (Chinese name "capsule space Station") in the opposite direction, but has become the iOS, Android and PlayStation Vita most attractive game of minimalist strategy. So far, the game has entered the top 10 of the App Store pay strategy game.

Simple design and Play

The $3.99 Rymdkapsel design is concise: A starting page has 3 settings embedded, and an action page covers the whole game. In addition to such two pages, no level, no checkpoints.

The game is as simple as this: it's marked by the impact of Tetris, Tetris-style mosaic as a basis, players need to constantly from the top of the screen to drag "Tetris" to the center of the screen, to start the square as the origin, the construction of a self-contained space station, and then with different functions, Randomly appearing in the Tetris stacking stitching, in space open Xinjiang. A preview box is set in the upper left corner of the game screen, where the user can learn what kind of Tetris is next.

The game is like a new version of Tetris. But although "Tetris" is known for its infinitely repeatable game, Rymdkapsel only wants players to achieve three goals. Each goal involves winning the battle against increasingly deadly alien invaders and collecting data from four towers on the map. Players don't have to do these three goals at the same time, but if they're really good at the game, it's not impossible.

"Force" players to quit

Accomplishing these three goals means that the player "beats" the game, and it may be time to quit the game. In order to "catch" the user out, the game will even throw out a "the end" screen. What if "the end" appears in the game? What should the user do next, read a book?

Rymdkapsel's founder, Martin Jonasson, wrote in an email to Wired magazine, "This is the size of the game and I used to be depressed because the game was too small, but it brought a couple of hours of fun playtime, so I think it's still promising." ”

This is unusual for an instant strategy game, which usually means a long variety of game activities and bottomless multiple patterns. Even a moderately priced strategy game in the mobile market continues this strategy. The game wants users to spend hours figuring out their system and then throwing the game aside and doing something else. This is refreshing.

The traditional profit model of strategy game: Application purchase

Many mobile game developers have been targeting players as long as possible, compared to Rymdkapsel, a one-time-paid strategy game. At a recent event in San Francisco, DeNA West's chief executive, Clive Downie, boasted that his company had found a way to get people to spend an average of 70 minutes a day playing a free card game.

The motivation for doing so is of course economic interest. The designers of the game know that the more time users spend on the game, the more likely they are to spend money on gaming equipment. According to statistics, a long time to play a game of free players to pay the probability of the new acquisition of 3 times times the user.

Earlier, Business Insider, a writer who was fascinated by the legend of Candy Smash, unveiled a way for players to gain unlimited lives without spending a penny. This is bad news for King.com, the game's developer, because the company's entire profit strategy is based on making sweets hard to crush, so that players will have to spend a lot of time trying to get through the game, and buying props in games can be more motivating.

This is why the mobile version of the "Ghost of the Evolutionary Revolution," the developers of the game to recreate the reason: to avoid the game to buy unlock the unlimited life of the loopholes, replaced by the need to spend as much as 20 dollars in real gold and silver applications to buy. When game developers make a profit by attracting players for as long as possible, cheating codes and games that are completed within a reasonable time frame are extremely bad for the business.

The great wisdom of small games

When evaluating the value of a game, people often rely on the game to attract their own length of time. "Addiction" thus became synonymous with "good games", and those that were not addictive were labeled "disposable".

But Rymdkapsel is by no means a "one-off" thing. When players build their own space station and think about how best to lay out the supply chain, they think strategically about how to optimize time and space use, and players can learn how to manage resources.

Similarly, when the alien Army begins to dive against the base, the player must decide whether to retreat back to the base, or take the risk, and try to squeeze in some extra supplies. The game punishes greedy behavior and rewards caution. Players who are careful enough will find that there is actually a golden mean between the two: optimal efficiency.

The game is too short to be called "addictive", but it is worthwhile to spend 3.99 of dollars and 3 hours experiencing rymdkapsel. Experience, love, and then leave and use your time to do other meaningful things.