Since star products such as "The Great Immortal Cultivation Simulator" and "Eight Desolations of the Ghost Valley" have become popular one after another, the market has also re-realized the huge potential of the theme of cultivating immortals, and similar competing products have begun to appear in an endless stream, setting off a fierce "arms race" for a while.

The gamer side also gave enough face, and successively supported some new products to the top of the iOS best-selling list. For example, "The Strongest Ancestor", which has exploded in recent months, has been soaring after the open beta, climbing to the top 12 best-selling iOS players. Some third-party data estimates that its first-month turnover may have exceeded 150 million.

To a large extent, compared with Western fantasy, or Japanese and Korean aesthetics, the culture of cultivating immortals rooted in the genes of Chinese history is easier to awaken people's sense of identity, so "The Strongest Ancestor", which seems to be "mediocre in appearance", also got a score of 6.8 on Haoyou Kuaibang with its subject matter.

However, in the context of the "blowout" of the track and the serious homogenization, aesthetic fatigue is inevitable, so there are still only a handful of works that can roll up the fame. It can be seen that the strong market performance of "The Strongest Ancestor" is not easy.

What's even more rare is that this work is not from the hands of a well-known manufacturer in the industry, but from a low-key game manufacturer in Guangzhou-Xingjia Games. It makes me think, if you don't rely on high-cost large-scale productions and don't fight for advanced technical resources, what kind of medicine is sold in the gourd of "The Strongest Ancestor"?

As a "connoisseur" who likes to try turn-based gameplay, I have a good understanding of some alternative, or niche turn-based gameplay. This traditional way of playing has come to this day, constantly extending its diverse characteristics and increasingly reflecting its own "inclusiveness".

Whether it's "Slay the Spire" with the asymmetrical card "Meat Pigeon" or "Baldur's Gate 3" with DND mode, we see many other famous masterpieces making a big fuss about turn-based and bringing in more audiences for flavor types.

Looking back on the past, like the core user group, I often favored mainstream products that were well-established, such as "Fantasy Journey to the West". Later, I found out that even if the "small role" is hidden in the wild and not famous, there is still a group of fans with a good scale. They are not innovative characteristics that follow traditional routines, but undoubtedly show their courage to the market to please the taste buds of players in the new era.

There are really a lot of good reviews

"The Strongest Ancestor", which is on the best-selling list, relies on the coherent connection of "war chess" elements and "turn-based" to create its own style of gameplay, which has won the love of many immortal cultivation lovers.

And what I feel the most is that this game takes "walking grid" as a prelude and "turn-based" cuts into new combat scenes, which obviously has a deep intention:

The treacherous fog, the blocking thorns, the small pool of gains, the space-time vortex of space transfer, and the spontaneously moving monsters, when all kinds of existing "restrictive conditions" are put on the table, without exception, players will have a hearty "game game" before officially entering the battle round. This makes the already full of playability and strategic depth of "walking grid", and there is some new imagination space in the presentation of "The Strongest Ancestor".

For example, under the rules of powder keg AOE damage, higher requirements are put forward for the player's operation, and taking a wrong step can easily lead to a losing game.

Because the logic of the level is to collect enough materials as the goal of clearing the level, the monster carrying the powder keg sets the tracking mechanism for the number of moving steps, and the damage value is calculated according to the distance between the protagonist and the monster, and at the same time, the JRPG-style dark mine encounter design adds a little unpredictable risk and difficulty. Therefore, avoiding the looming monsters to save your life is no easy task for many friends.

Although this self-explored escape mode has a certain threshold in terms of one-time clearance standards, it has more benefits in that it leaves me a lot of room for thought and a certain degree of freedom, and inadvertently gives players a good experience in strategy. After many repeated attempts, I was able to slowly discover the pattern and finally find the perfect way to avoid.

In my opinion, the creative design of a basket really plays a variety of tricks with "walking the grid", which is completely different from the popular models of the same theme such as "A Thought of Leisure" and "Seeking the Way".

When I grasped it as a whole, the ingenuity of the various adaptations to the situation, interspersed with the sense of difference between the "uncharted" levels, seemed to play a constantly changing, freely arranged chord for the player before the climax of the battle.

And the real battle completely returns to the original intention of freeing the player's hands.

The stake-mounted machine has little operational value. Especially in the PVE battle against the monster boss, simply put together the values. Even the PVP of the fighting table is like a cannon to reduce the chance of manual operation. A lightweight combat framework shows the "Buddha system" pursued by the team, which is very suitable for mobile game users to play in mobile scenarios.

There is no shortage of surprises in the whole framework, with ultra-highly recognizable rubbing moves and skill effects, dodging and defense skills triggered by cultivation, and unique text explanations, which are indeed eye-catching from the visual experience, revealing a sense of amusement from Q Meng villain.

But there's no denying that many gamers are also easily dissuaded by the negative stereotypes inherent in a game's label: "turn-based", for example, must be "boring and outdated".

Admittedly, when I first experienced it, I also felt that compared to the "appetizer" that I put a lot of effort into serving at the beginning, the light gameplay that came up was inevitably a bit top-heavy. This imbalance stayed with me for a long time, until I suddenly realized an obvious fact that I had been ignoring all along:

The focus of "The Strongest Ancestor" is always on the word "Xiu" in cultivating immortals, and building a sect is the core of the game. If "war chess" and "turn-based" are combined like other games and used in the same scene, it is indeed expected to highlight the depth of the battle, but such a heavy approach is not what "The Strongest Ancestor" wants.

Therefore, using the method of fragmentation to travel lightly is actually another self-consistent solution it has found.

In addition, the game's inadvertent world exploration is also built on a pure level, with a dozen map missions progressed by a thoughtful guidance service, and some events with a plot are cleaned up to complete the exploration of an area. It's obvious from the amount of text in the content, the breadth of the map, and the pace of the process, and the production team doesn't want you to spend more time here.

The simplicity of the world map is presumably also a balancing act adopted by the team, which is intended to allow players to focus more on obtaining materials to build a sect, and to dilute the boring and boring color of running maps. As they say, let's really make a little "fishing".

The differentiation of the sect's cultivation of immortals gives the choice of "pension" and "overtime" to the player

Completely different from the combat system, the lying flat atmosphere is lost in the dimension of business construction, and even I was almost shocked by the rich and a little "scary" content at first glance, and I felt like I was going to turn on the "overtime mode".

When these elements are unveiled one by one, they are bound to be dazzled, making people feel that they are struggling to move and return to the luxuriant scene of "Hundred Scenes of the South of the Yangtze River".

Not to mention some utensils and landscapes that produce cultivation resources, it also involves the progress of character training, which are interlocking, forming a huge system of sect construction - character growth. The character system isn't just about drawing cards and forming a battle squad. The sect that "The Strongest Patriarch" strives for is obviously on a "realistic" scale - when I was only at the low level 15, I was able to recruit 60 junior disciples.

As a single character progresses, players also need to level up among the many ranks, attributes, equipment, skills, ancient treasures, and the Destiny Spirit Root. At the same time, weapons collection and equipment should also make reasonable trade-offs and distributions to get an "optimal solution" that strengthens the combat power value of the character.

Because there are so many roles, we should also pay attention to the orderly use of cultivation resources, but in fact, the talent of the role, the quality, in fact, is already complex enough, the disciples of the same rank and quality, in fact, there are also high and low strengths, and it is still a little tiring to want to explore thoroughly in one breath, otherwise there will not be so many long-winded strategies on the Internet, I hope that friends who have not been exposed to similar products will not be bluffed.

Although at first glance, the degree of completion of the large amount of pipe is indeed a bit confusing. However, if you understand it patiently, it is very appetizing for the immortal cultivation party.

First of all, there are several "basic operations" of planting and mining, and the resource output progresses layer by layer with the upgrading of the scene, and interacts with each other to form an economic sequence. In the end, through the output of the alchemy room, the character cultivation was grafted and the disciple rank was improved. The idyllic life of cultivating immortals not only caters to the corresponding core groups, but also facilitates the "entry gameplay" of hanging up and waiting for the harvest, but also facilitates a wave of casual players, effectively achieving the effect of breaking the circle.

Immediately afterwards, stores with different characteristics were opened one after another, accommodating the fun in the market and further enriching the level of simulated operation. For players, on the one hand, its utility is to continuously provide the sect with consumed tokens "spirit stones", and on the other hand, to trade new goods with disciples, and to achieve positive feedback to promote the growth of characters.

What is intriguing is that the lively scenes created by the disciples stepping into the door of the store and issuing "cyber quotations", the transaction records that pop up from time to time, and even the small whispers and mortals seeking immortals outside the door all add to the humor and joy of the cultivation journey, making the sect's territory from a bird's-eye view more human touch and flesh and blood.

Moreover, disciples can complete the progress bar of cultivation in some areas such as houses and caves, and I once thought that these programs that are hundreds of megabytes in size and even act as mini-games have added cutting-edge NPC AI functions.

Such a vivid sect construction will really move people's hearts. Even if you don't mention the closely related character values, just with enough quality and sufficient amount of simulation management, you can definitely achieve a self-contained system and satisfy a group of players who like this, which is reflected in the publicity side. Through the immersive interpretation of the life of cultivating immortals, even if it does not cut into the core gameplay of the game from the material, it seems a bit wrong, but it also achieves the same strategic results as the previous "Endless Winter", and successfully plays an eye-catching effect.

However, the character system of "The Strongest Ancestor" is more worth playing.

I believe that many players will complain that the dual advanced mode of cultivation and body refining, the frequent evolution of the three items of equipment attribute skills, and the "Mandate of Heaven" that must be strengthened by a certain amount of soul materials, as well as the shaping of the "Spirit Root", are all magnifying the liver, which can be called the most blunt time-delaying design.

But when you give up the pursuit of cultivation and slowly immerse yourself in the collective trials of dozens of sect disciples, you will spontaneously have a sense of substitution for the master leading the disciples to "start a business". Compared with the individual immortal cultivation of the general public, the sect cultivating immortals with a high ancestor, building a founding team by himself, and leading a group of younger brothers to ascend to the sect cultivation of immortals must be regarded as a more superior impact.

Of course, cultivation will involve long-term numerical planning, and it is difficult to say that everyone can have the same experience in place. And the time-killing, patience-testing management and construction is quite draining, so if you expect to find something refreshing in this game, you must be thinking too much. The tone of "The Strongest Ancestor" all promotes and embodies "slow life", and for players with obsessive-compulsive disorder, they don't know how many back and forth it has taken to place this part of the building, and they must have deeply felt the sense of freedom in it.

After observing step by step, I admit that "The Strongest Ancestor" understands what players want, so it has made a lot of trade-offs in the design, focusing on firepower to bring out its own unique charm.

From the perspective of commercialization, it is difficult to ignore the mature experience of Guangzhou manufacturers in paid design.

Speaking of which, using the game to force players to krypton gold is already a trick repeated in the industry. Players who are biased towards the strength party, I think they will more or less eat this set. In particular, the difference in experience caused by turn-based and simulated management is indeed not alarmist. On the premise of ensuring the quality of immersive immortal cultivation content, the "chronic" created by "The Strongest Ancestor" definitely leaves room for a group of players who pursue a strong sense of achievement.

According to this analysis, the player's initial goal is mainly to look at "what growth items to give", rather than the exaggerated character attraction in the second game. In the face of diverse needs, correspondingly, the combination of products with multiple prices in the game clearly gives the choice to players, which not only meets their demands in different system directions, but also mainly takes care of the freedom of the micro-payment circle to control the growth progress and the achievement experience obtained in it. It is worth mentioning that the "cost performance" of the monthly card should be the easiest to arouse the impulse of small and medium-sized R groups to want to charge once.

The existence of the "Xianmeng" list is undoubtedly to further boost everyone's momentum. For Big R, the supreme favor given by the "big brother on the list" is undoubtedly the most attractive. What's more, this kind of self-respecting high posture is not only reflected in the dazzling numbers on the list, but also deeply rooted in the follow-up "Xianmeng" confrontation gameplay, feeding the player's emotions through the game content.

Cleverly, there are some hidden tricks in the operating system. For example, as soon as it goes online, the pop-up window of the 68 gift package will be displayed, the small rewards on the paid event page will be reminded by a small red dot every day, and the big number on the discount, many operational tricks will unsurprisingly let you touch these operational activities every day, and try to attract you to complete the process of order conversion with tempting information again and again.

However, according to my personal subjective opinion, I think that the UI page information put together will make me a little visual polluted to a certain extent.

For manufacturers, the means of operation are also an important proposition with many hidden doorways. The game prop system is so cumbersome, so does the content update rhythm pay attention to allowing players to achieve what they need at the corresponding stage? Can the arrangement of the size cycle and the setting of related benefits continue to form positive feedback and pull up the product data? The activity of interacting with the player community and the efficiency of customer service in handling problems are the core lifeblood of product reputation. It can be said that compared with the iteration of the main gameplay, the intentions and sincerity of "The Strongest Ancestor" in the operation work will not have a small impact on the performance of the product.

epilogue

In recent years, the gaming industry has been undergoing "micro-changes".

In terms of the overall situation, on the one hand, there are products that are piled up on the line, even if the quality is fine, but there are very few that can really stand out from the market. Obviously, players have higher requirements for high-quality content and are eager to experience more "new and exotic" gameplay, so the industry is once again facing the problem of what users want; On the other hand, under the multiple influences of saturated user growth, steady performance of head products, brand reputation and well-known IP endorsement, the new product starts at a hellish level of difficulty, and "breakthrough" has become a gamble with no chance of winning.

In the face of the current situation of the industry's high degree of involution and particularly picky tastes of players, there are also more discussions on the direction of breaking the game. Category integration, light gameplay, cross-terminal matrixing, and even the promotion of new ideas, we have seen that each company has begun to move out of various strange tricks one by one.

In "The Strongest Ancestor", we can also dig out an effective path:

Don't take the lead, avoid head competition, and choose to act as a side game, which rolls up the user's time in other mobile scenarios, such as the subway, waiting for the elevator, watching TV, and so on. Whether it is a mini-game or a mobile game packaged as an APP, it can make it easy for people to open and swipe in these scenes and find fun.

Of course, in today's overcrowded situation of cultivating immortals, the strong performance of "The Strongest Ancestor" also verifies its own quality: following the mainstream to greatly reduce the thickness of the running map, the world exploration, the implementation of the fighting mentality of light operation and easy returns, and the hard work to build the life of cultivating immortals, which shows that "The Strongest Ancestor" has made certain progress and results in system integration, theme presentation, and gameplay framework.

If you talk about the best choice for game entertainment in the mobile scene, "The Strongest Ancestor" is definitely not the first place, after all, in terms of subject matter, gameplay and social aesthetics, it has strong audience limitations, and it is difficult to move towards the number of big DAUs.

But from the perspective of the content business, in the new trend of mini games rushing to the mobile game market, it certainly gives its own answer.

This article is from Xinzhi self-media and does not represent the views and positions of Business Xinzhi.If there is any suspicion of infringement, please contact the administrator of the Business News Platform.Contact: system@shangyexinzhi.com