Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Recently, a Mini Game called "A Sheep is a Sheep" has been a hot search on Weibo.

To put it simply, this is a stackable elimination game based on mahjong elimination. There are 7 vacant seats at the bottom, which can be eliminated after taking 3 squares with the same pattern from the top. After taking all the squares, you will win, while the 7 vacant seats will fail if they are filled.

In various WeChat groups, you can also see a lot of links sent for props, followed by a series of discussions: can you win? Is it easy to win? How do you win?

From the perspective of game design, I think these issues can be looked at like this:

"A sheep is a sheep". Is it "difficult"? If the clearance rate is used as an indicator to define "difficulty", the game is undoubtedly very difficult. After all, nearly 94% of the people in the Sina game did not go through customs. This is also a biased sample dominated by gamers, and if people who are inexperienced in the game are allowed to vote, the clearance rate will only be lower.

I also tried several games, anyway, it is very difficult to pass without watching the advertisement, but calm down and think about it carefully, where is the difficult point of it?

Is the problem too complex, do you need to burn your brain? It seems that it is not, as long as you play a few more games, it is easy to sum up "open more stacked cards, because the stacking area is completely unknown", "plan the flipping area according to the visible hidden cards below," and "you can't take the cards just to eliminate the cards." you also need to take cards for 'open vision', "try to get the cards that cover the most areas" and other rules to improve the winning rate.

Yes, these strategies are just against the underlying design of the game, "We don't know where all the cards are placed." To borrow the concept of game theory, this is an incomplete information (incomplete information) game.

Readers who remember the empty solitaire can compare that in the empty solitaire, all the cards are clear at the beginning, so in theory, as long as you think about all the steps in your mind, you can go through customs in one breath. But what about "a sheep is a sheep"? Players do not know what cards are hidden below before opening a card, or even whether there are cards below. Because the information is incomplete, there is no way to formulate a winning strategy.

Increasing randomness and unknowns can make the game more interesting. When playing traditional riddle-solving games such as Huarong Road and Nine Lianlian, players can get all the problem-solving information at the beginning, so it is easy to get tired of it, but the games of fighting landlords and mahjong have a lot more randomness and unknowness. even if you master a strong strategy, you can not "win" steadily, and you will naturally be more able to prosper.

The problem with the second level of "A Sheep is a Sheep" is that there is too much information we don't know and too little fault tolerance: it's only seven squares without looking at the ads.

Is it designed to be unsolvable? There is also a saying on the Internet that this game will secretly determine what the card exposed after flipping is, deliberately so that you can not pass. So, does this game have to be solvable or unsolvable in design?

In fact, it is much easier to design a game with a solution than to design a game with no solution.

First of all, if you don't consider the slot, you need to find three of the same cards from the stack and cancel them. To build such a checkpoint, just prepare a stack of three sets of cards, then find an empty table, and place one set of cards on a grid that can be placed at will.

In this way, if it is eliminated in groups of three in the opposite order, it will certainly be cleared. If the puzzle is constructed in this way, the complexity of the algorithm will be very low.

What if it is a situation with a slot such as "a sheep has lost a sheep"? There will be more unsolvable surfaces.

Three of the initial seven slots actually need to be reserved for the "to be eliminated now" group, corresponding to the group we hold each time. The remaining four are free slots. Still use the above method, but in addition to putting the hand directly on the table, you can also choose to "put the hand in the free slot" or "take a card from the free slot and put it on the table". Put the operation of cards in reverse, it is a set of feasible card solution.

On the other hand, it is more complicated to design a fixed and unsolvable game. To prove that a card game must be unsolvable requires traversing all possible moves, and it is even more difficult to construct one from scratch. Moreover, with the blessing of props, this inexplicable situation is likely to become solvable because of props.

What about dynamically constructing an unsolvable situation? That is, the cards below are not generated at the very beginning, but the types of cards left on the table are analyzed, so that the cards turned out are not quite up.

It is not impossible, the introduction of more complex dynamic analysis of card game logic will increase the cost of game development, may also introduce the original BUG, or from the point of view of algorithm complexity, it is really not necessary.

Of course, from my personal observation, I think this game really does not consider any algorithm, that is, it is purely random. If you scatter the cards on the table, you can't get through. Anyway, you have to see the advertisement _ (: cards) ∠) at the end.

After all, the lack of information has made the game "difficult" enough, and occasionally some people are lucky enough to pass the customs and further increase the topic.

The developer of this game is also quite interesting, as a large number of netizens can see, "Sheep A Sheep" copied a fresh mobile game called 3 Tiles on the mechanism. Of course, there are many differences in revenue models between the two games.

This is level 250 of 3 Tiles.

This is the second level of "A Sheep is a Sheep"

3 Tiles is a free game, relying on props fees and part of the advertising revenue, a large number of levels of difficulty. Through the initial low-difficulty level to attract users, or to cultivate user viscosity, and then rely on the level to gradually increase the difficulty to attract users to use free props. In the later stage, when the checkpoint becomes difficult, and users become used to using props, they can't help but start buying props under the drive of winning or losing heart.

"A sheep is a sheep" is the only hurdle that does not seem difficult but is impassable, causing a viral spread. Of course, watching advertising is its main source of revenue, but unlike other games that rely on advertising revenue, "A Sheep of a Sheep" limits the number of times a user can see ads a day, and after dozens of failures, they can only get the relevant props by sending links. This undoubtedly further promotes viral transmission.

And the company behind "A Sheep is a Sheep" is also very interesting. if we look at the past industry background of its production company, we will find that it has been deeply cultivated in the Mini Game category for many years, is familiar with the psychology of players, and is a very experienced company. it has a large number of games similar to the marketing logic of "A Sheep is a Sheep".

This model is based on mature play as a template, coupled with ingenious level design, mass release, bet that one of them can become popular, and make a profit.

So in fact, there is no need to ask why the "sheep is a sheep" is so popular, but it happens to be the one who is hot.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: fruit Shell (ID:Guokr42), author: antares Editor: Emeria, odette

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