I still remember that at that time, I saved up a month's worth of breakfast money just to buy a pirated cassette in a game console store. There was no cover or instructions. The boss handed over a plastic bag with a yellow cassette inside, and the name of the game was written crookedly on the label. But it was these cassettes that kept me going through my entire adolescence.
Today I saw someone recommending "Boom Island Account Binding Tool" on the forum. To be honest, I was stunned for a moment 😂 What the hell is this? After clicking in, I discovered that it turned out to be the account protection gadget for "Boom Island". Although everyone is playing genuine games these days, when I saw the word "binding", the thing that I was most afraid of when playing pirated cartridges suddenly flashed in my mind - losing the save file!
At that time, pirated cassettes relied entirely on battery memory. Once the battery ran out of power, dozens of hours of hard work would be wiped out. I remember playing "Pocket Monsters" once and finally caught a Shiny Pokémon. The next day when the boot interface popped up "Save has been deleted", my whole body burst into pieces😭 Later, I learned to make sure the battery is sufficient before shutting down the phone. I even learned to solder batteries to change buttons, just to preserve that poor memory.
This Boom Beach account binding tool, to put it bluntly, is to insure the archive. But if you say it is a game, it is not, it is just an auxiliary tool. But for old players like us, account binding is like the button battery in the cassette. It looks inconspicuous, but it can really save lives at critical moments.
Going back to "Boom Island" itself, I installed this game on my mobile phone for a while, and it reminded me of the feeling of carefully planning the route when playing "Ace Combat" on the PSP. Before attacking, reconnaissance first, and then arrange the troops. Every step must be thought out clearly, otherwise landing on the beach will result in a loss of lives. However, the mobile game version is much more user-friendly than the pirated cartridge games we played back then. At least there won't be ghost bugs that cause the game to suddenly freeze in the middle of playing.
In terms of comparison, the original "Boom Island" was made by Supercell, and the painting style is exquisite and smooth. This account binding tool is produced by Beijing Kunlun Lexiang. Although it is only a small program, it is free and convenient. It can also be regarded as a kind of protection for genuine products. Back then, we engaged in piracy because we were poor; now that we have the ability, we support the authorities and use tools to tie our accounts tightly, which makes us feel at ease.
Youth is back. Although now I pick up a mobile phone to play mobile games, the screen is larger than that of GBA, and the picture quality is better than that of PSP, but the feeling of squatting on the bedside, picking up the cassette while desperately pressing the LR button is exactly the same as the current feeling of being in bed in the middle of the night and searching for enemy bases. Think of this account binding tool as the insurance I bought for my youth. 😂