To be honest, I had nothing to do before going to bed last night, so I came across the game "Crush Love" in the app store. I originally thought it was the kind of bad elimination game reskin, but after playing a few levels, I actually got a little addicted. I'm not going to brag about it, but this game reminds me of the days when I played Bejeweled on Symbian. At that time, mobile phones still had resistive screens. I poked at the crooked icons to play through levels, and I spent half the night playing. Today's mobile games have much more refined graphics, but they always feel like they're missing a bit of flavor.
Let's talk about the highlights of the game itself. It combines elimination and immortality cultivation systems. Every time you pass a level, you can improve your cultivation level and unlock new characters. This design is quite thoughtful. To be honest, elimination games have been around for so many years. From match-3 to Lianliankan, it has been difficult to innovate the gameplay, but with the sense of growth and character collection, it can really retain people. And it's free to download with zero charge, which is really rare in today's mobile gaming environment. Many manufacturers are always thinking about how to design krypton gold points. Even a single elimination requires physical krypton gold to draw cards. This game can insist on being purely free. Regardless of the quality, at least the attitude is worthy of praise.
However, from an industry perspective, this model also reflects a trend in the development of mobile games: the verticalization of market segments. In the past, people thought that elimination games were just for aunts to kill time, but now games like "Elimination", which incorporates the style of cultivating immortals, cultivating people, and healing, are obviously trying to attract young players and two-dimensional groups. The Android 5.0 platform can run smoothly, which shows that the development team is also very concerned about adaptation. Shenyang Pengdong is a company I haven't heard much about before, but seeing that they can produce such thoughtful products shows that a small independent team is also exploring its own path.
Finally, I say with emotion, from Symbian to Android, from paid downloads to free in-app purchases, to the current advertising + pure free model, mobile games have changed too fast. Occasionally I see people on forums missing the good buy-out games of the past. In fact, I think as long as the developers put their heart into making quality games, old players will support them no matter what the charging model is. Although "Eliminate Love Elimination" is not a masterpiece, it at least showed me that there are new ideas in elimination games, and that's enough. You can give it a try when you have time, just be a small team with support and willing to make games seriously. 😊