Speaking of the Stone Age, it will probably be familiar to some post-80/90 players.
This game, produced and distributed by a Japanese company, is a bit "elderly". When it entered China in 2001, Stone Age quickly became a popular work with its lovely painting style, unique turn-based design and fresh "primitive" world view.
On this map of the ancient "mainland game share" circulating on the Internet, it shows that the Stone Age could even suppress the powerful players such as legend and occupy the first place in the market as a cartoon-style game, which also shows its excellent game quality at that time.
Even if Stone Age jumped halfway and switched from free to "point card" payment on time, the number of games was still rising steadily, and easily exceeded 200,000 users in 2003.
The influence of the Stone Age is not only reflected in the player group, but also affects a large number of game developers. For example, turn-based online games such as "Westward Journey" later have many shadows of the Stone Age. From this perspective, it can also be said that it is the originator of turn-based games in China.
However, the Stone Age, which was popular for a short time, soon fell into a copyright dispute.
After the Stone Age came out, its developer, JSS Company of Japan, went out of business before the harvest. Later, Huayi Company, a domestic agent, updated the game version by itself. However, the problem followed. Huayi was quickly taken to court by the JSS subsidiary DIGIPARK because of the game agency problem, and eventually lost the case. The Stone Age game was also discontinued in China in 2008.
After that, DIGIPARK authorized Shengsi, but the latter never managed this IP well, and soon stopped operating. Subsequently, the stone age in China entered an era of rampant private servers. For ordinary players, it is often unacceptable to have no stable game environment. In this way, a game with great potential slowly became lonely.
Under the background of the times, business failures are embarrassing, but players’ eyes are discerning, and good games will be remembered by players. In bilibili related video underground, or in the player forum community, we can always see such a similar comment, "I spent 200 lucky money playing with stone tools that year, which is the most memorable time".
Yes, until now, 23 years later, this "Stone Age", which created a turn-based online game, found Tencent, a reliable agent with deep pockets, and developed a genuine sequel "The Stone Age: Awakening" based on two sides, and finally ushered in a new chapter-
But to tell the truth, Stone Age was a game more than 20 years ago after all. It is a great challenge for the development team to get it done now, and to meet the current market and give the old players a satisfactory answer sheet.
Therefore, the most important thing that Stone Age: Awakening does in the game is to restore those classic elements to the maximum extent.
Do you remember the Abu Cave in the Stone Age?
Let’s talk about the map of the game first.
In "The Stone Age: Awakening", the production team took the classic stone map as the blueprint and cooperated with the brand-new 3D modeling technology to create a higher-definition Nice continent. Whether it is the fishing village, Gaga village, Samgill village, Katan village that players are familiar with, or classic maps such as Jim Island and Bora Island, they are all presented here.
In every map, it is not difficult for us to find some details that we once remembered. Such as shell houses in fishing villages, tree houses in Gaga villages and statues in Samgill villages. ……
Samjier village
In fact, "The Stone Age: Awakening" has restored the landmark buildings and map details in every map. After entering the game, players can freely explore every corner of the map, stroll on the land of Nice and enjoy the scenery along the way.
Marinasi fishing village
But when it comes to the memory of stone tools, I think the pet in the game is what every "lime" remembers the most.
As the soul play in Stone Age games, every old player spent quite a long time with his pet. Here, pets are not only npc they meet in the game, but also friends and partners of each other. They have experienced countless adventures and growth together and established a deep emotional connection. …
Therefore, the reduction degree of pets affects the players’ expectations for The Stone Age: Awakening.
The good news is that in the Stone Age: Awakening, the version of the Stone Age 2.5 "Legend of the Elf King" was optimized to reproduce the extremely rich pet species in the game, including Tyrannosaurus, Chicken, Renlong, Lei Long and Tiger in the memory of the old players.
The appearance of the pet has also been faithfully restored according to the appearance of the classic pet, such as the red hair on Yangchilos’ head, Beruca’s sharp white teeth, and Badoran’s big mouth ….. Every detail makes the old players seem to overlap with their memories.
What’s more, the application of 3D modeling also allows players to observe every detail of pets by rotating. If you find that Machine Storm’s figure is bigger than you remember, maybe he has secretly gained weight in these twenty years.
Generally speaking, the game has created a highly restored maypan, which is undoubtedly a regret and expectation for many old players. After entering the game, they can feel the familiar atmosphere of the Stone Age again, explore the maps that once left memories, and see the familiar buildings and details. This super-high degree of reduction is undoubtedly an important emotional touch for old players, and really return to that "place where dreams began";
At the same time, for new players, this is also a brand-new world and experience. They can feel the unique customs and charm of the Stone Age by freely exploring every map, every village and even every war pet. The upgrade of the game on the basis of ensuring restoration, such as the improvement of modeling quality and the design of two-terminal intercommunication, can also attract new players to enter this fascinating world.
In the gameplay, pet cultivation is still one of the core gameplay.
The process of catching pets is very simple, that is, catching young pets through fighting and then carrying out your own training plan. Each pet acquired by the player in the game will have different element attributes, growth values and growth upper limit;
Each pet’s four-dimensional attributes will have a growth value, which forms a variety of gears for different pets from ordinary, excellent to perfect. However, we don’t have to worry about our pet growth value. Players can transform their pets through "metempsychosis" to improve their life, attack, defense and agile growth rate attributes. Pets with low values can also become potential stocks.
In terms of combat system, The Stone Age: Awakening still continues the turn-based combat gameplay in the end tour, and the combination of human, pet and riding pet becomes the core unit of game combat.
But further, The Stone Age: Awakening adopts a turn-based combat design that pays more attention to strategy.
In the battle, players need to know their roles deeply and match their equipment, pets and elves reasonably. Players need to choose different types of pets according to the fighting situation to improve the winning rate, and in team fighting, the cooperation between teammates is also very important. No matter the combination of equipment, the matching of pet skills, and when to change pets, there are different ideas to carry out the operation;
Therefore, in this combat system, factors such as character attributes, elves, pets and equipment will have an important impact on the combat results, which greatly increases the gameplay and the sense of participation of players, so that players can still try traditional gameplay today;
In fact, such a changeable fighting experience highlights the essence of turn-based games, which will be a more challenging and strategic way of fighting for those players who like turn-based games. Players need to constantly think and adjust tactics in order to win.
In addition, the game also incorporates the common daily activities and side tasks of MMORPG games, but fortunately, players are not forced to participate in these activities to get rewards. On the contrary, daily tasks play a more guiding and guiding role in familiarizing players with the gameplay.
These daily activities include various tasks and challenges, such as daily copies, daily tasks and so on. Players can choose to participate in the activities according to their own preferences and time. The rewards of these activities are not mandatory requirements in the game, but more like giving players some extra benefits or small surprises.
The main purpose of daily tasks is to help players get familiar with the gameplay and system of the game, and at the same time, they can get some rewards such as game resources, experience values or equipment by completing the tasks. This design makes players more free in the process of exploring the game world, and they can choose to participate in daily activities according to their own preferences and time, without feeling cumbersome or stressed.
Time flies, if it is counted from the beginning of the birth of the Stone Age, it has been 23 years now. As a classic online game, it has accompanied countless players through the green days and brought us real fun and precious memories. Whether it is the ignorant years of first contact with the game or the experience of groping for growth in the game, it has become an irreplaceable precious memory in every player’s heart.
After years of hard work, Stone Age can finally tell you that they are coming back again. Memories and experiences of the past have given us strength, and the new era has taken a concrete shape. Maybe we can really go back to that warm and happy era and explore, fight and grow together with other players here.