Last week, the Timberman game was released in the world’s free tops. The Western press immediately raised a fuss around the project, calling the development of Pawel Jedrysiak the new Flappy Bird. Was it worth it?
In fact, personally, I’m already a little tired of it. It is worth any simple project with original mechanics to show a good level of downloads – immediately a cry is heard: a new hit, a new milestone, a new trend.
The fact that today mechanics, following the content, burn out very quickly is no secret to anyone. Mobile games allow you to play everywhere and always, the service format turns games into endless gum. And at a certain stage, users just get tired of constantly sitting in one thing, they want a new experience. This does not mean that they want a deeper dive, long sessions and complex rules. No, they want new, simple projects.
But large companies are rarely able to offer original mechanics, but independent developers are a completely different matter. They come up with new approaches, unexpected solutions, thereby, sometimes, charming the masses.
Is this a new trend?
No, rather, it is evidence that the mobile games market is only continuing to form. It seems to me that at a certain stage of its development, this will lead to the final formation of the infrastructure that brings such projects to the top. The segment of such games will not turn into a large market, but it will become an excellent source of mechanics and new ideas for large companies that will begin to hang traditional monetization tools on popular new mechanics (as, for example, GungHo did by hanging hardcore monetization on three-in-a-row mechanics).
As for Timberman, the success of this project, which was released back in May, is due, it seems to me, primarily to the worldwide feature from Apple. Before that, he was not very popular.
In no way do I detract from the merits of the developer who created an exciting, bright, visually fashionable project with interesting mechanics, but his appearance in the top is quite understandable.