Can you recall that one game that you enjoyed playing? The game that defined your adolescent years.
Next, think about why the game meant so much to you back then; along with the fond memories of it.
I’m sure that a certain game has popped up in your mind.
I want you now, to ask yourself this: “When was the last time you played it?”.
The natural reaction to this question would be to whip out your IPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy or Android device and immediately do a Google search on that particular game -you are naturally inclined to find out what is the latest development of your beloved game.
It is not common knowledge that games have a relatively short lifespan in this day and age – game developers constantly find themselves with the urgency to push out new sequels to their game‘s series to ensure that their player base continue to support it.
With each new game being better than its predecessor, some games that were popular back then, have now faded into obscurity.
Today‘s article will feature a game that I have played during the course of my teenage years and my special guest today is Kai Xiong, a friend of mine and an aspiring game developer.
J: Brave Frontier has been around for five years now. Many players have since quit the game, what makes you still want to play it?
KX: BF (Brave Frontier) is a mobile game that was released in July 3rd, 2013. I didn’t play it initially due to phone limitations. I picked up the game like most people; through their friends, halfway through 2014.
When I started playing it, most of my friends have already quit the game. Some cited boring gameplay, lack of content, too much luck involved in summoning good units [1] and the game being unplayable without them as a result.
BF is single player focused, something I adore – I can play it whenever I like at my own pace. With regards to gameplay content, it has a lot of content for newer players. It too has challenging content in the form of Trials, Vortex, Grand Quests, Exclusive Trials and Raids for experienced players.
Another aspect of BF that I like is the Guild feature; it allows players to form guilds and provides incentives in the form of in-game currency [2] when a guild participates in Guild Raids together.
Throughout my years of playing the game, Gumi [3], the developer of BF has collaborated with different games and media outlets to introduce more unique content to the game.
J: You’ve been one of the more loyal followers of this game; having played Brave Frontier for a good four years without quitting. Can you give my readers a little throwback on what Brave Frontier is about and what has changed since then?
KX: BF (Brave Frontier) is a game where players take on a role of a summoner who helps an in-game God named Lucius to liberate Grand Gaia; the fictional game world, from The Four Fallen Gods; who serve as the game‘s primary antagonist.
You then build a squad consisting of five units to save Grand Gaia! You can too add friends in the game and use their units to aid you in your mission.
I’m sure most of the people who have played the game (Brave Frontier) will remember swiping for your Brave Bursts; especially saving them for your boss stages and summoning units like Douglas, Felneus, Kikuri and Rachael.
Unfortunately, the above units that I have mentioned are no longer viable. There are even 6*, 7* and even 8* units now! One of the good things is that several of the older units are able to evolve into these 8* units.
For the main storyline, the quest mode has three arcs now. Arc 1 consists of the Grand Gaia arc, in which most of the older players would know. Arc 2 and Arc 3 are relatively new. One interesting thing about Arc 3 is that we can now play as ourselves and not with our units.
J: I see you own two phones and you are simultaneously playing two games at once. What makes Brave Frontier different from every other mobile game you‘ve ever played?
KX: Hands down, the art style of the game. BF to me has a unique art style during its glory days. Sure, one unit looks a little different when they increase a star but they still look cool, nonetheless.
Content is something that every game needs, no content and it’ll be a boring game. In my opinion, mobile games are for people to waste time, and if your mobile game doesn’t have anything worthwhile to waste your time on, then I guess it’s bad.
Like most games, the community more or less makes or breaks the game – your community is the soul of your game. You can make great friends, meet people, share tips, datamine and a whole lot more.
I browse the subreddit for Brave Frontier everyday to check out on the latest information and news. They often share the latest events that will be coming up so that I can be prepared for it.
J: Brave Frontier was at its peak back in 2014; with every Facebook post generating thousands of likes and comments. I’ve recently visited the Brave Frontier Facebook Page and saw the traffic for their post is almost a tenth of what it used to be. I feel the game has become a shadow of its past self. From a player’s perspective, what went wrong?
KX: This will definitely spark some controversy among the players, and it’s largely debatable. I’m won’t be sugarcoating this so, here we go boys.
This latest issue is fairly recent and something that the reddit community has been going on and on for awhile now – the summoning rates of a newly release units. This game is gatcha-based and we are at the mercy of RNGesus [4]. F2P (Free to Play) [5] players tend to save their gems, makes sense?
Gumi decided to drop a bomb when they released “Limited Edition” units which will not be re-released again, unless they decide to release it again at their own fancy. So how do companies make players, especially F2P players, use their hard earned gems to summon them? They make these “Limited Edition” units crazily overpowered.
Basically, powercreep [6]. If I can remember correctly, they once had three “Limited Edition” unit releases in a week. How can these F2P players amass that much gems in such a short time without spending money? Without these units, the game will be unplayable, and this had led to the majority of the player base leaving.
Some other reasons players cite for quitting the game includes the likes of connection errors, unfulfilled promises by Gumi, people getting tired of these “Limited Edition” units, the game not loading properly after each update and bugs. BUGS are everywhere in the game!
J: As an aspiring game developer yourself, what do you think you can learn from this game you can apply into your future game projects?
KX: Always listen to your players. Players are your customers and your best game testers. Feedback from your players serve as improvements to your game as a whole and you can learn from it to make it better.
I’ve also learned the differences between free, freemium [7] and paid versions of games. Finding the right balance between these three is what makes a game stand out compared to other games.
J: Marvelous. To end this off, do you have any shoutouts?
KX: I would like to give a shoutout to Wei Chuen, who introduced Brave Frontier to me in 2014.
A huge shoutout to the Brave Frontier reddit community which helped me a lot in regards to improving my gameplay. Like seriously, they have a guide to almost everything.
Notes
[1] Units are the monsters that Brave Frontier players use to play the game.
[2] In Game Currency is the internal economy that the game uses.
[3] Gumi Inc, a mobile game development company based in Singapore, is the worldwide distributor for Brave Frontier.
[4] RNG stands for Random Number Generator. It’s the part of a game that controls all of the random events within the game, like drops from enemies or lottery-type minigames. RNGesus combines RNG with the name of Jesus, who’s a guy that some people praise because he did some good stuff a while back. – Reddit
[5] Free to play (F2P) refers to a business model for online games in which the game designers do not charge the user or player in order to join the game. Instead, they hope to bring in revenue from advertisements or in-game sales, such as payment for upgrades, special abilities, special items, and expansion packs. – Techopedia
[6] Power creep is a process that sometimes occurs in games where new content (in this case cards) slowly outstrip the power of previous alternatives. This leads to players abandoning previous options in favour of the latest and more powerful alternatives, resulting in an inevitable increase in power throughout the game. – Hearthstone Wiki
[7] Freemium is a business model, especially on the Internet, whereby basic services are provided free of charge while more advanced features must be paid for. – Wikipedia
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