To be honest, I feel a bit contrary to posting games in this "selfie dating" section. But think about it, when we were playing mobile games on Saipan, who didn't take screenshots to show off their high scores while making friends? More than ten years have passed, and now the mobile game market has changed too much. Today I want to talk about this trend, and by the way, I am interested in a game that recently made me feel a little emotional - "Arrogant Commander 2021".
Let's talk about the game itself first. It's not bragging, it's just a typical mixture of “magic management” + “war strategy”. You act as an island commander, build troops and turrets, resist enemies, and steal other people's resources. Does it sound a lot like Red Alert in the PC era or Clash of Clans in the early days of mobile games? But to be honest, its biggest highlight is that it's “free”. The developer Shenzhen Kesheng Network Technology directly marked the 0-charge model, which is really rare these days. You must know that most mobile games now either have a set of 648 cards, or in-app purchases of props that can be very expensive. A model like this that relies purely on advertising or conscientious physical rewards is a bit back to the purity of the Saipan era.
From the perspective of industry development, I think this is a good sign. Mobile games have become more and more "heavy" in recent years, and the graphics are better, but many players miss the ease of "opening and playing, then closing after playing". This kind of free strategy game is actually the old way of "word-of-mouth communication". There is no purchase war, and it relies on fun to retain people. After playing it for a few days, I found that although the graphics are not exquisite, the strategic depth is there. Resource allocation, troop restraint, and time management can all make you use your brain. And there is no compulsory payment, which is very comfortable for veteran players.
Of course it's not without its shortcomings. The game running platform is only 5.0, which shows that it is mainly for low-end models and may not be useful for novice interface guidance. But thinking about it on the other hand, this is also a kind of "removing complexity and simplifying it", without stacking complicated UI, allowing you to focus on the core gameplay.
One last word: As a veteran player, I have seen too many short-lived mobile games, but small works like this that insist on being free and relying on gameplay should really be supported more. If you are also tired of those assembly-line masterpieces with "automatic path finding" and "one-click sweep", you might as well try this and find the feeling of secretly playing with your mobile phone in the back row of the classroom😌.