To be honest, there are always people in the forums lamenting that mobile games are becoming more and more boring recently. There are a lot of skin-changing cards, krypton gold gift packs, and you still have to watch advertisements to play single-player games. As an old player who has been playing since the Symbian era, I actually feel that it is not that the industry has gotten worse, but that many manufacturers have forgotten the most essential thing about games-fun. I just downloaded a game called "Crazy Racing" today. Was it made by a foreigner? No, I saw that the developer was from Shenzhen, made in China, and it was free with no in-app purchases. After playing for two hours, I suddenly wanted to talk about the changes and trends in the needs of mobile game players.
Let's talk about the game itself first. It's an arcade racing game where you build, drive, and crash around the planet. There is no complicated plot, no main level that forces you to recharge, it just gives you a bunch of parts, you can put them together as you like, and then run the map, challenge, and play against others. There are three modes: planetary mode, where you drive to explore different planets and collect items; challenge mode, which has various tasks, such as time-limited line crossing, jumping, etc.; and a championship, which allows for online matching. To be honest, I had seen similar gameplay on Symbian ten years ago, but now, it makes me feel particularly comfortable.
Why? Because many mobile games now have a bunch of red dots, daily routines, and physical strength points, forcing you to sign in and clock in every day. Playing is more tiring than working. But "Crazy Crazy Racing" does not have these, it just gives you the fun of creation and driving. You can play as long as you want, and it doesn't matter if you don't want to play. I'm not going to brag about it, but this kind of “light on social interaction, heavy on creation” design is actually what many mature players have been longing for. A 30-year-old man, how can he have time to have liver disease every day? I am very satisfied if I can use my spare time to build a car and run it for two laps.
Speaking of industry trends, I have observed that in the past two years, especially in the post-epidemic era, more and more small and medium-sized teams have begun to return to the "small size, high playability" route. Games like "Crazy Racing" don't have gorgeous graphics (but the pixel style is very cute), and they don't have celebrity endorsements. They rely entirely on word-of-mouth from the community. And it cleverly added a "multiplayer mode", which is not the kind of social interaction that forces team formation, but allows players to build their own weird cars to compete with players around the world. This kind of light competition satisfies the mentality of showing off creativity without being too serious. To be honest, this is much smarter than those games that force "guild battles" and "cross-server battles".
Of course, I have also seen some old players complaining about why mobile games have returned to the level of Java games back then. In fact, it's not a regression, it's that the players have been screened out. We played "Crazy Racing" and "Bouncing Ball" on Saipan back then, and we enjoyed it all because the core mechanics of the game were interesting. Nowadays, technology has advanced, but many manufacturers only stack materials and values, but lose the core "play". Games like "Crazy Racing" remind developers: Players are not stupid, we just want a work that can relax, create, and occasionally show off.
Not to brag, this game also has shortcomings, such as the hand feeling is hard and the steering sometimes does not follow the hand; the variety of parts is not enough at the moment, and it may be repeated later. But considering it's completely free and has very few ads, I think it's acceptable. Moreover, the developer "Yixin Network" seems to have made several unpopular but well-received small games before, and it seems that it has also put its heart into it this time.
In short, if you are tired of playing those "beautiful-looking" mobile games, you might as well give this one a try. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it will at least remind you of what the game was originally like. 😌 These days, there are really not many teams that can calm down and make something "fun".