Text / Mobile Game That Little Things Jimmy
A game that hasn't been released yet,
A game that has changed hands several times,
A niche and unpopular game,
A game that chooses the most "Red Sea" gameplay,
Relying only on a pre-draw card activity, it directly broke the circle and appeared on the hot search of TapTap and even the Xianyu platform.
儘管這聽上去有點扯，但在小眾賽道一路狂奔的《龍息：神寂》在3月20日正式上線後，成績還相當不錯。不僅登頂了App Store遊戲免費榜以及TapTap雙平台的熱門、新品榜Top1，還得到了蘋果商店中國區的Today推薦。截至發稿，遊戲已經衝上了App Store遊戲暢銷榜Top10。
In fact, more than a year ago, they first broke the stereotype of "mobile games do not have Western fantasy hits" in overseas markets, and appeared on Apple's WWDC2023 press conference. Several tests conducted before the launch of the national server have also been highly affirmed by participating players, and most of the praise is given for the most unpromising game themes and gameplay parts, and these two parts are also the most obvious parts of their differentiation.
If there is no overseas results and the reputation of the test to pave the way, in general, the niche theme (Western Magic) + Red Sea gameplay (cards), this pair of debuffs is probably only a dead end.
But about half a year ago, we had an in-depth conversation with Sagi, the head of Silver Heart Studio, who is in charge of game development, when the team had just come out of the whirlpool of the shrinking game business and officially merged into Tencent. Sagi also said that the national server version of the game will have a lower experience threshold than the previous overseas version, and players will have more fun with less investment.
And now, they have also proved that even if they don't choose popular themes or gameplay tracks, they can focus on the fields they love and are good at, and use "small tracks" to leverage the "big market".
What's even more exciting is that if it can really be extended along their line of thinking and play, then this popular "pre-drawn card" hot search may be just the beginning.
實際上，破圈衝上閑魚熱搜的「自選前百抽預抽卡」不僅僅是一個玩家活動，本質更是一個讓利行為。在玩家最為敏感的付費系統上，《龍息：神寂》對單抽價格做了大幅降價，但區別於之前其他廠商或者產品嘗試過的“返利”或者“把價格打下來”，他們還把「抽卡」付費核心移交一部分到端外，而且從玩家們的反應來看，預抽卡效果拔群，至少在活動效果上遠超同品。
This is certainly due to the player's desire for "true perks", but it can also be seen as an affirmation of the quality of the game by strategy card players. In other words, if the quality of the product itself is not up to par, then the player will not even download the game because of the "gacha". This requires not only technical strength, but also courage. But it is precisely this simple and direct way that allows players and the market to see the determination and confidence of "Dragon's Breath: Divine Silence" to fight from the niche and Red Sea track of "Western Fantasy + Cards".
On the one hand, as one of the earliest categories to be developed in the mobile game market, cards are also one of the earliest tracks to begin "red sea", all products or manufacturers have been rolled into twists, whether it is gameplay, themes, or marketing methods or even the design of the payment system, they have gone through several rounds of iterations, and the value of the existing business model and gameplay model of the category has been squeezed almost completely.
On the other hand, the theme of "Western fantasy" has not appeared in the real sense of "explosive style" in the era of mobile games, and those Western fantasy products such as Japanese, Korean, and web games in the past are mostly based on the idea of "short, flat and fast", resulting in uneven quality, which does not fully take care of the needs of players, but makes the concept of the theme more complicated.
SGAI also knew for a long time that in this era of "hand-to-hand combat", it was almost impossible to find an "easy" track. The large-market market is indeed a red ocean, but being the head of the boutique in the subdivision track is also a way to survive and have potential. Although the cards are very volatile, the highly homogeneous design means that the market and players are hungry for innovation; Although the Western fantasy theme has not been a hit, it also means that there is room for exploration.
And with the mobile game market fully turning into stock competition, major manufacturers have basically picked all the "low-hanging fruits" and began to take the initiative to drive into the deep water area, in recent years, the market performance of orthodox Western fantasy theme terminal games such as "Baldur's Gate 3" and "World of Warcraft" has also proved that the Western fantasy theme still has market potential at present.
As far as the product itself is concerned, "Dragon's Breath: Divine Silence" breaks the previous "pseudo-Western fantasy" imitation, and in the audio-visual links such as world view, plot, and art soundtrack, it uses the classic heavy oil painting art style and the genuine linkage of D&D, with classic elements such as professions and dice under the same world view, to establish a sufficiently orthodox Western fantasy world.
"A world that can be seen by light is obviously not enough, "Dragon's Breath: Silence" has also built a sufficiently "interesting" sand table adventure in terms of gameplay experience, and its card gameplay also reserves a lot of room for players to play.
In the core combat link, different from the previous card category full of numerical crushing, human rights, and finally to the simple and crude "bigger than size" of the inherent stereotype, "Dragon's Breath: Divine Silence" focuses more on the card gameplay itself, which has strong player stickiness, long operation life, suitable for long-term operation and has a lot of room for deep digging.
In the part of character development, the game has updated more than 20 hero cards so far, including 0 elements, more than 0 career settings and construction genres, and even planned a "non-legendary challenge lineup" that only records blue and purple cards, breaking the "human rights card" mode that card games have always had.
After returning to the national server, they also further optimized the cultivation of cards, not to pursue the depth of cultivation, but to expand the width of cultivation - players can change the positioning and playing style of heroes through the adjustment of talents and equipment in the game.
This means that the game's card development is no longer a "one-stop upgrade and star promotion", and the degree of freedom can even break through the restrictions of character positioning. Take the author's personal experience in the second test as an example, the Merry Cannon Feltu, his positioning in the mainstream lineup is as the core output of the inspirational genre, and he only needs to stand in the back row to output with peace of mind, but after wearing him in a suit with a damage reduction entry, and then choosing a talent chain that can limit the output of the enemy, he can become a fleshy and damaging character, standing in the front row of the team.
It is worth mentioning that talents and equipment can be obtained for free in "Dragon's Breath: Divine Silence", and players have to pay more for the brainpower of the scientific computing cultivation system.
In addition, more than 10+ Boss dungeons, as well as a variety of terrain and semi-real-time battle flags, also bring enough strategic depth to the battle. You can use the terrain and battlefield elements to change the situation of the battle, and give players who are willing to try different ways of playing the conditions of "non-unique solutions", and there are even more than 0 different "strategic tool people" that can be verified one-on-one with the boss mechanism, so that each boss can have as many solutions as possible.
And unlike the previous long-term operation, which relied on the periodic addition of individual characters or seasonal rewards, "Dragon's Breath: Divine Silence" boldly uses a highly strategic "mechanism rotation" + DLC plot expansion to regularly supplement the game content.
This "rotation" idea is more inclined to make the game's core roster spawn different combinations in different seasons, and it can also limit the numerical expansion and new card strength to a certain extent, and even if you want to put a new character into the game, you don't need to rely on outrageous "small composition" skill descriptions or unbalanced explosion values, but just let it participate in the rotation. This kind of "equal rights" idea of matching new and old cards with different rarities in the lineup brings enough playable experience, which is the core foundation of the long-term operation of "Dragon's Breath: Divine Silence".
And judging from this update idea, "Dragon's Breath: Divine Silence" is obviously not following the old path of Western fantasy RPG (MMO products such as Warcraft), but by vertically mining the depth of card content and horizontally broadening the horizon of RPG gameplay. With the growth of the market and products in the long-term operation, it is not ruled out that "Dragon's Breath: Divine Silence" can undertake the market demand of PC and console players with Western fantasy themes in mobile games.
去年Sagi在採訪中就提到：在《龍息：神寂》開發的早期階段，連外包美術都需要他們自己一步步去慢慢培養，一些系統上的創新也需要從頭開始慢慢摸索，遊戲的海外版本開發成本就高達3億。
In addition to the "Renaissance" of the orthodox Western fantasy theme mentioned earlier, there is also one main reason: this phenomenon has appeared more than once in the mobile game market in recent years, and a vertical field that is not a hot field, as long as there is a product that is willing to be seriously polished and has achieved the extreme, it is completely possible to open up a whole new track.
For example, in recent years, "Legend of the Bow and Arrow" and "Shooting at Zombies" are two typical examples. Before these two products, probably no one would have thought that the track of "meat pigeon + mowing grass" could have such a great monetization potential.
From the perspective of development difficulty, unlike "Dragon's Breath: Silence", the two products "Legend of the Bow and Arrow" and "Shooting at Zombies" do not even have too high technical thresholds or barriers, and are more qualitatively different from the existing products in the market in terms of experience. These two products are not "buckets" without shortcomings, but "unique products" that break through at a single point and make a certain longboard particularly long.
To put it simply: they all vertically refine the specific needs of the player, then break them down and eat them completely, and it is not easy and rewarding to imitate them after them.
The fundamental reason for this idea is that the current competitive bottleneck in the mobile game market is no longer a simple breakthrough in the "stacking" of art, publicity and distribution, etc., and players are also growing after the baptism of these years, and they are also eager for innovation in gameplay and experience.
Moreover, the experience and gameplay innovation for vertical fields also effectively avoids the Matthew effect of the popular categories at the top of the market, which is easy to form differentiated and dislocated competition, and will also have more advantages in the difficulty of customer acquisition and monetization.
In other words, the more vertical the direction of product selection, the easier it is to make a new experience, and this deep vertical play can also quickly anchor the market positioning and form a monopoly, and even if other products join the competition, they can still maintain their first-mover advantage.
"Dragon's Breath: Silence" has undoubtedly come a long way on the road of deep cultivation of small tracks, whether it is an unprecedented large profit, whether it is the cultivation and combat of strategy cards, or the sense of art quality that has been tested, it has delivered a satisfactory answer. But whether it can leverage the entire market with this is still unknown.
Returning to the market as a whole, although the competition in the mobile game market is becoming more and more fierce, from the actual situation, many vertical fields still have potential worthy of deep exploration. Insight into the needs of players in a market segment, enter the game first, cultivate small tracks, serve core players with high-quality products, and also obtain dividends with market growth through long-term operation. This belief and vision of "deeply cultivating small tracks and cultivating big markets" may be the most worthy reference and study of "Dragon's Breath: Divine Silence".