To be honest, I finished "The Old House in the Village 2: Abandoned Hospital" at midnight last night, and I felt a bit mixed. 😔
Let's talk about the game itself first. As an old player who has been playing in the Saipan era, I really have feelings for this kind of traditional puzzle single-player game. The plot of this game continues the weird atmosphere of the first game, and the decryption process is very solidly designed. There is no awkward solution for the sake of difficulty, and the logic is basically self-consistent. Although the picture is not as good as those 3A games from major manufacturers, it is better because of the well-created atmosphere. The details of the flickering lights in the hospital corridor, coupled with the sound effects, are really a bit hairy to play in the middle of the night. 🌃
What impresses me the most is its charging model: 0 yuan, no in-app purchases, purely stand-alone. Not bragging, this model is simply a living fossil in the current market. 😓
So we have to talk about the development trend of mobile games in recent years. I remember that more than ten years ago, mobile games in the Saipan era were still on a buy-out basis. You could buy a full version for a few yuan or a dozen yuan to play. At that time, "Deep Sea Fishing" and "Proud Eagle" were both classics. Later, smartphones became more popular, and people started to offer free downloads + in-app purchases. It was okay at first, and it was just a skin or level gift pack at most. Later, I don't know when, mobile games became a world of "drawing cards to raise values". Just open a ranking of the top 50, and 90% of them are krypton gold pig farms. 😤
The appearance of "Old House in the Village 2" is an unexpected signal. The developer Kesheng Network dares to do this kind of horror puzzle that is purely stand-alone and has no in-app purchases. In today's environment where "every mobile game must design a monthly card and a weekly card", it is really refreshing. To be honest, this reminds me of the indie gaming wave in the early years of console platforms. The mobile game market is actually following this old path: when the krypton gold routine is worn out and players start to get tired of the aesthetics, what is scarce are those works that return to the essence of the game - good plots, good levels, good atmosphere, which do not require you to check in online every day, do not need to consider the combat power ranking, and play quietly for a few hours, and the ending should be over. This is actually what the game originally looked like. 😌
There is an interesting trend in the industry. Last year, the user retention rate of a major manufacturer declined for three consecutive quarters in its financial report, while some small and medium-sized teams' buy-out single-player mobile games have become extremely popular. For example, the "Paper Wedding Dress" series, the "Labyrinth" series, including this "Mountain Village Old House", all illustrate a trend: mobile game players are dividing. Some people continue to wallow in the quagmire of money and liver, but other people are beginning to return to "content consumption" itself - I am willing to spend 30 yuan to buy a complete good story, but I am not willing to spend 3,000 yuan to open a card pool with no guarantee. 🎮
To be honest, this trend is a good thing for veteran players. In the past, we could only play GBA or PC porting on emulators, but now there is finally a domestic team willing to delve into this direction. Although "The Old House in the Village 2" still has some flaws, such as the process being too short and some puzzle prompts not being obvious enough, seeing that it is free and has no in-app purchases, an old guy like me is willing to give it a good review. 🙏
Finally, some nostalgic words: When I played the Java version of "Resident Evil 4" on Nokia 6300 more than ten years ago, I never thought that one day mobile phones would become what they are now, with more and more powerful functions and more and more utilitarian gameplay. I sincerely hope that there will be more works like "The Old House 2", so that mobile games can become "games" instead of "commercial systems" again. 😊
(The above is purely personal opinion, please don't criticize if you don't like it)