To be honest, I rarely talk about games in the music section, but in the past few days, I played "Paper Wedding Dress 8 Thousand Sons Tree". As soon as the background music started playing, I took out my old headphones from ten years ago and sat in front of the computer for a long time. Not to brag, but the atmosphere created by this game reminds me of the feeling of playing the ported version of "Silent Hill" in bed during the Saipan era - that kind of lonely experience of being scared to death by a sound effect is really rare now.
Let's talk about the game itself first. My godmother is ten thousand years old, I have separated children for a hundred years, I don't recognize my relatives in vain, I will worship you every year - these words are looped with a melody similar to a sacrificial nursery rhyme in the game, which is a bit scary to listen to. The plot is about a god who encounters a disaster, who should he worship? The tree is mourning, and players have to travel back and forth among five versions of the Thousand Sons Tree world to solve puzzles. To be honest, the difficulty of solving the puzzles is not incredible, but the advantage is that the puzzle design and narrative are well combined, making every step you take feels like you are tearing apart a veil. Moreover, the art style is very "paper wedding dress" with the consistent Oriental paper style, coupled with the BGM made with erhu and guzheng, it is weird and a bit poignant.
But what I actually want to lament today is that a game like this, ten years ago, might have been a niche product; but now, it makes me feel that it has a bit of an "old-school" feeling. When I played the "Rusty Lake" series before, it was the same style - a puzzle trapped you for half an hour, there were no gorgeous special effects, and it relied on pictures and music to pull you into that weird world. There is also "Machina Machina". The protagonist moves around in the scrap metal pile, and the BGM is only a few loops. It just relies on the atmosphere to make you feel that there is a story in every corner. The current game graphics have been upgraded, but some of the "immersion" has been lost - maybe because we are so accustomed to being guided by novices and pushed by task arrows, that we have forgotten to "feel" a world purely by relying on scenes and sound effects.
"Paper Wedding Dress 8 Thousand Sons Tree" brought me back a little bit of that feeling. Especially its "zero payment" model. To be honest, in today's game circle where in-app purchases and 648 are frequently used, Chengdu Jingfan Technology does have a bit of the "old scalper spirit" to be able to calm down and polish a stand-alone puzzle game. I'm not bragging, I've been following this company's paper wedding dress series. The quality has fluctuated over the past seven generations, but at least the direction has not been skewed - it insists on making local folklore horror, not the kind of cheap scares that startle you at first sight, but makes you scared through cultural details and a sense of circular oppression.
As a 30-year-old veteran gamer, I sometimes wonder whether the "classic games" we miss are missing the game itself, or are we missing ourselves who could immerse ourselves in a game for three hours? Maybe both. But at least now, when I sit in front of the computer, and the sound of the wind in the Thousand Sons Tree and that weird nursery rhyme comes from the headphones, I will still slow down my breathing involuntarily, adjust the brightness of the phone to the lowest, and then say to myself: Just play for a little while longer, just like I did ten years ago.
If you have also experienced the Saipan era, or have played the early puzzle games "Rust Lake" and "Tower of Puzzle Paintings", you might as well try this "Paper Wedding Dress 8 Thousand Sons Tree". Remember to put on your headphones, turn off the lights, and—don't look back. 😌