I remember the time when I used Nokia N95 to play Symbian emulator more than ten years ago. There was no mobile game trend at that time. There were only a few games that could be installed on mobile phones. Who would have thought that today's mobile game market has become like this, with open worlds, Unreal Engine, and two-dimensional gacha at every turn, all of which are more hard-core than PC games.
To be honest, I am no longer interested in most new mobile games. People in their thirties really don't have the energy to learn those complicated numerical systems and development frameworks. Working every day is tiring enough, isn't playing games just to relax?
But this "Hero Development Plan" really made my eyes shine.
First of all, it is something from Flounder Studio, a historical development work released by 4399. To be honest, 4399 has always been the memory symbol of the browser game era in my mind. I didn't expect to see such an old studio making this type of product now. This in itself is an interesting signal, indicating that the domestic mobile game track is indeed diverging.
When it comes to discussing the development trends of mobile games, the most obvious trend in the past two years is actually to return to the "gameplay itself." In the past few years, everyone was staring at the piles of materials from those big factories, eager to stuff all the gameplay into them. What is the result? Many people become bored after playing for three months. 😮💨
"Hero Growth Plan" is the opposite. It is more like a stand-alone development game of that era. It gives you the protagonist's script and allows you to live in different dynasties. You can be an emperor and manage the government, you can travel around the world and be a knight, and you can also be a famous minister and talk to the Confucian scholars. This kind of pure character substitution and plot experience is something that is increasingly scarce in mobile games nowadays.
To be honest, my favorite is this kind of "historical" game. It's not an empty shell that calls you ancient style just because you wear ancient clothes. It can really make you feel the identity and choices in the context of that era. Today's casual players may not understand this feeling, but our generation has played all the way from Legend of Heroes of the Three Kingdoms and Legend of Jin Yong, and we naturally have a good impression of this kind of development work that uses history as its bones and gameplay as its meat.
From a platform perspective, the operating platform is 5.0 and the charging model is 0. This is very conscientious, it is free to play, and there are no overwhelming pop-ups. To be honest, the current mobile game market is a mixed bag. Many small companies just reskin their products and run away after making money. I think it is worthy of praise that an old team like Flounder can still maintain its composure to produce a work with deep content and historical background.
In addition, I also want to say that the mobile game industry is now increasingly fragmented and lightweight. People would rather spend time watching short videos than concentrate on playing a game. But there are always a group of players, such as me, who still hope to keep a game on their mobile phone that they can play slowly and savor carefully. "Hero Growth Plan" just meets this need. When you think of it, you can go up and run the government affairs, go to the rivers and lakes, no need to rush for activities, no need to sit on the ranking list, a complete development experience.
Maybe this is a breath of fresh air in the current era of rapid iteration of mobile games. Sooner or later, the trend of the entire industry will shift from stacking numerical values to comparing picture quality to telling a good story and creating a world. The "Hero Growth Plan" is an outstanding experimenter in this trend.
Let me finally say a few words from my heart. I have been playing since the Saipan era, and have experienced the entire process of mobile games from scratch, from simplicity to complexity. Looking at these "masterpieces" that are often several gigabytes in size, sometimes when I think back to the Java games that were tens of KB each, I miss the pure joy even more. I really hope that there will be more and more works like "Hero Growth Plan", so that old players like us can still find the same feeling when we first played a good game on our mobile phones. 🎮
Okay, that's all. I recommend everyone to give it a try. It's really awesome. Brothers who have played it are also welcome to chat about the script you chose.