Brothers, I just saw a swamp version of the game "Little Time in Cowtown". My first reaction was not "fuck, the graphics are awesome", but "fuck, the game updates now are bigger than the entire game back then." Can you believe it? This game was originally a mobile game that simulated life in a rural town. Now, because of an earthquake, it directly opened a road to the monster town for you? There are also purple mist, the other world, the flying eagle summoner... Good guys, I am straight up good guys.
I remember when I played "Tank Battle" on the Famicom. There were only 8 levels in the game. You could play it back and forth. After you finished playing it, you could turn it over and play it again. You could still play it all night. Where was there any "open world" at that time? A map that allows you to walk up, down, left, and right is considered a big production. It's good now. A farming game will create a "swamp area", "inner world" and "monster town" for you. The map is getting bigger and bigger, and the plot is getting deeper and deeper. But let's be honest, when was the last time you were so excited that you couldn't sleep because you cleared a game?
I'm not saying that "Cow Town" is not good. This version of it does seem to be very thoughtful. It not only helps NPCs rebuild the town, but also uses the eagle summoner to fly in the sky. The gameplay is quite rich. But I can't help but wonder: When we play games, are we playing for content or "content quantity"? In the past, it was "a pack of spicy chips can buy you a month's play", but now it's "if you don't update it for a month, you feel like the manufacturer is going to run away." The games are getting bigger and bigger, like an endless shopping mall, but when you go to the end, you find that what you want to buy the most is the 50-cent pack of popping candies from your childhood.
Another feature of this game is that it runs on the 5.0 platform. The developer calls it "Horgos First Wave" and the charging mode is 0. It's a free game, I understand. Isn't that what mobile games are like now? Let you in first, and then slowly tie you up with various "benefits". But think about it, we used to play "Harvest Moon", it was really pure liver, farming, fishing, raising chickens, the store closed at 9 o'clock in the evening, you had to calculate the time to go home and sleep. Now what about these simulation games? The map is ten times bigger and there are ten times more NPCs, but why is that feeling of "little expectations every day" diminished?
I'm not an old person, I also play mobile games, and I also like to see new ideas for new games. Let's just say that this swamp version of the "Flying Eagle Summoner" allows players to fly to every corner of the town. This design is very cool, and it is much faster than the earth spirit beads I used in "Legend of Sword and Fairy". But then again, when you can fly, are you still willing to take one step at a time? Back then, when we walked from the pasture to the seaside, we would pick up a wild flower on the road, and that flower could be given away when we confessed our love. Now you can swoop across the entire map, and that flower, who cares?
So, when I looked at the swamp area of "Little Time in Cowtown", I thought, "Hey, this is kind of interesting", and at the same time, I thought, "Hey, this game is big again." Games are getting bigger and richer, but the fun of us old guys seems to be stuck in the era when we could only walk but not fly. At that time, there was no achievement system, no task guidance, and no automatic path finding. There was only a small TV, a pirated cassette, and a group of friends squatting on the sofa waiting to take turns playing.
What now? There are more than a dozen games installed on the phone, each one is like a miniature universe, but when you really want to open one and play it, you often quit at the loading interface. It's not that I'm impatient, but I suddenly feel that the universe is too big and I'm a little tired.
Forget it, let's not talk about it anymore, I'll go find out how to download the swamp version. After all... the monster town is still a bit curious. Just like when I was a child, I heard that there was a mysterious abandoned factory in the next village. Even though I knew there might be nothing inside, I still couldn't help but want to take a tour.
The game has become bigger and the fun is less, but the curiosity is still there. That's enough. 😄