To be honest, when I saw the game "Dawn of Kings", my first reaction was actually a bit emotional. I am an old guy who came from the Saipan era. At that time, my mobile phone had "Urban Racing", "Cang Shen Lu" and "Island Elegy" installed on my phone. I could play hundreds of K Java games over and over again for several months. Looking at the mobile game market now, the graphics are more refined and the systems are more complex, but I always feel that the pure joy of those years is missing. 😅
Let's digress a little further and let's talk about “Dawn of Kings”. To be honest, this game is not new in terms of themes - dark fantasy, kingdom battle, hero rise, typical COK-like SLG routine. But after playing it carefully, it does have something worth talking about. The first is the graphics. Although it is not top-notch today, it runs smoothly on the 5.0 platform, and the UI layout is also very clear. There is no "wallet warning" forced guidance. The charging model is marked with 0, which is actually free download and in-app purchase. This model is too common now. From "Clash of Clans" to "Awakening of Kingdoms", everyone has long been accustomed to the rhythm of "you can play without spending money, but it takes time".
I think the biggest trend in the development of mobile games now is "differentiation". On one side are large-scale, high-investment quality games such as "Genshin Impact" and "Glory of Kings", and on the other side are a large number of homogeneous SLG and card reskin products. "Dawn of Kings" is caught in the middle. Its gameplay is actually closer to the early "Clash of Kings" - farming, building troops, alliance battles, and boss fights. The core loop is very mature, but there is no breakthrough innovation. I'm not bragging, but if you are an old SLG player, you will know what to do next after playing for ten minutes. 😌
But what I want to say is that this "steady and steady" approach is exactly how many small and medium-sized manufacturers survive today. From the perspective of industry trends, from 2023 to 2024, the growth of the mobile game market will peak, and the purchase cost will become higher and higher. Large manufacturers are fighting for IP and industrialization capabilities, while small manufacturers are beginning to favor products that "lower the threshold and lengthen the life cycle." Fuzhou Longteng Jianhe, the developer of "Dawn of Kings", has previously worked on Middle Eastern-themed SLGs such as "Revenge of the Sudan" and is very experienced in market segments. The Western fantasy setting this time may also be aimed at the sinking market in Europe and the United States.
From a player perspective, I think the current trend is a bit worrying. Too many games regard "liver" and "krypton" as the core, and even make PVP a numerical crushing of "whoever charges more wins." After experiencing "Dawn of Kings" so far, at least the novice stage is friendly, and there is no malicious design that will cause the game to get stuck without recharging. Developing settlements and expanding territory also give farming players some breathing space. However, in the middle and late stages, the intensity of alliance battles will inevitably widen the payment gap. This is a structural problem of SLG games that has no solution for the time being.
Finally, I would like to say that from the Saipan era to now, the graphics of mobile games have become better and the gameplay has become more complex, but there are fewer and fewer games that I can play for more than a month. Occasionally, when I see a work like "Dawn of Kings" that has a serious system and does not have too many fancy gimmicks, I still miss the simple feeling of "this game is really fun" when I played Java games on Nokia. I hope the industry can be less censorious and have more respect for gameplay. 🤔