To be honest, when I saw this "Huarong Dao Classic Breakthrough", a 30-year-old veteran player like me felt a little emotional. I remember more than ten years ago, when I was still using Nokia N73, the pixel grid on the screen was our entire world. At that time, there were no krypton gold cards, no daily tasks, just this kind of pure puzzle game. A piece of Huarong Dao can be played on the subway for half an hour.
Not to brag, this game really captures the essence of Huarong Dao. Starting from the simplest 3×3 grid, and slowly transitioning to the standard 4×4, the difficulty increases very reasonably. When the red cube is blocked in the corner, the feeling of racking your brains to find a path is exactly the same as playing physical chess and cards back in the day. And it thoughtfully changes the operation into a sliding mode, which is much more reliable than the previous physical buttons.
What surprises me the most is that it also includes a derivative mini-game called "Ball Bounce". To be honest, I am tired of playing the so-called "hang-up" automatic battles nowadays, and it feels refreshing to come back and play this kind of old-school design that requires thinking. There are no ad pop-ups that force you to watch for 30 seconds. There is no limit on your physical strength and you can only play a few games a day. It's free for 0 yuan and it's clean and tidy. This kind of sincerity is really a rare species in the mobile game market of 2024.
Some young players may think the picture is too simple, but for us old players, this simplicity is a kind of sentiment. Just like the "Dancing Line" and "Bounce" games that I played back then, looking at these classic gameplays now, I can still play the same feeling as back then.
Recommended to those who are looking for some "real puzzle" games, or those who want to keep their children away from money-making games. Lying on the sofa, slowly sliding the screen to let the red square escape from the encirclement, this is what I understand the game to be like. 😌