Do you think it's "Retirement Simulator", but it's actually a domestic sitcom called "Idle Room Grandpa"

With the advancement of medical technology and the extension of human life expectancy, the age structure of the social population has gradually changed, and "delayed retirement" has become a hot social topic in China in recent years. So when the independent game "Retirement Simulator" first entered the player's field of vision, it received a lot of attention.

Of course, this also includes me. I have imagined my dream retirement life more than once: having a regular daily routine and a healthy diet; Attend interest classes on 135 fitness and 246 fitness; Nights and Sundays are all game time, playing most games on the entire platform. This kind of unrealistic thing may not be possible to experience in reality, so I am looking forward to doing it in Retirement Simulator.

After participating in ChinaJoy in 2020 and announcing a live machine demonstration in 2021, I finally got the first to experience version of this game in 2022. Although the actual presentation of this work deviated from my expectations, I also gained another experience from it.

Deconstructing Retirement Life

I am very surprised. Most emulators usually focus on the gameplay itself, while this game is more focused on narrative expression than I expected. Producer Castle uses his own understanding to portray the theme of "retirement" through a lighthearted mockery in the form of a domestic sitcom.

The protagonist of the game is named "Fang Aiju", who lives in a fictional prefecture level city in China called "Chongsi City, Shanshui Province". He was born in 1960 and started working at the fictional state-owned enterprise "Heping Steel Plant" in 1984. At the beginning of the game, he happened to be over 60 years old and applied for retirement. This work revolves around the story of a retired old man embarking on his second life, and presents the pursuits and possible experiences that retired people should have in the eyes of the producer through the development of gameplay and main storylines.

Although the game's initial attributes can be influenced by setting birthdays and answering questions at the beginning, and players can also choose different options during the gameplay, to some extent allowing them to determine some of the character's personality, the background and personality framework of the old house are fixed.

I am completely unable to immerse myself in this role that is the same age as my father. But thanks to the excellent portrayal of local themed stories in the game, I was able to immerse myself in another form - the old house could be our neighbor, our relative, or even our father.

The story of the game involves retirees pursuing life values, maintaining family and community relationships, and discussing social issues or trends of all sizes in reality.

In order to help his son buy a school district house and send his granddaughter to a good elementary school, the old house collapsed due to overwork while working, which moved and saddened his son and daughter-in-law;

Mr. Fang's wife asked his family for money and said she wanted to travel to Europe, but in fact, she was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer and lied to her family not to worry. She also wanted to save on surgery costs to help her son buy a school district house, but ended up being deceived by health product scams;

Even the retired old house has to continue to face the problem of supporting the elderly, worrying about the two younger sisters who are unwilling to participate in raising them;

I happen to have had similar practical experiences with the above three examples.

My parents always want to buy a new commercial house with a larger area in the suburbs. To get the down payment, they must sell the old house in the city that they currently live in, which is less than 40 square meters. However, considering commuting time and the pressure of building supply, I have always disagreed; After my mother diagnosed breast cancer, she hid it from me and my father for a period of time, just didn't want us to worry; My father quarreled with his three brothers and sisters several times, and completely cut off contact with the second uncle, all because of the support of his grandparents.

The main and side stories in Retirement Simulator are full of exaggerated and bizarre plots, but they are all grounded in reality and can resonate with experienced players. The game also involves more social phenomena or issues such as mother-in-law daughter-in-law relationships, domestic violence, neighborhood relationships, etc. I believe that any player living in China can find empathy in the game to a greater or lesser extent.

mother-in-law daughter-in-law relationship

Through the portrayal of these storylines, many of the characters in the game have distinct personalities and have relatively three-dimensional image shaping, not just being tools to promote the story of the old house. This also makes the narrative of the game more rich.

Retirement is busier than work

Compared to excellent local themed storytelling, Retirement Simulator is relatively less impressive in terms of gameplay. Fortunately, there are different gameplay modes integrated into it, and the diversity of the development process experience is relatively rich.

The basic gameplay of the game is turn based numerical cultivation, which allows characters to grow or achieve achievements by triggering events and numerical judgments. Players need to choose a desired route for the old house and achieve the highest achievement of the route within two years of the game.

There are currently 4 known routes. Apart from the unopened "Fuhao", players can choose to become travelers traveling across the country, become internet anchors with billions of fans, or learn divine skills and become traditional martial arts masters.

It is not easy to achieve one's wishes, as it requires not only corresponding abilities and qualifications, but also sufficient funds, as well as the planning and allocation of time and energy.

Traveling across the country requires accumulating sufficient physical strength, and before opening a school to teach students, one must first practice martial arts. However, online live streaming is more complex, and the required abilities vary depending on the content of the live broadcast. Fulfilling one's wishes requires spending money, and old houses also need to spend money to quickly improve themselves, such as enrolling in classes and participating in assessments at senior universities. If all the retirement money is spent, one can only go to work to earn money.

In addition to improving oneself, the old house also needs to balance communication with family, community residents, and friends, after all, it is unknown when the other party can be helpful. In addition to entertaining meals and inviting others to coexist, actively participating in a series of events triggered within the family or community also has the opportunity to deepen relationships with other roles.

incident

There are many events in Retirement Simulator, and as long as certain conditions are met, one can participate. In addition to experiencing the domestic sitcom style storyline, one can also receive good rewards and bring various numerical improvements to the old house.

The latest generation of Prey IV bear that my son has just bought

More importantly, these events are integrated into many small games with different gameplay styles, including strategy card battles, dance machines, and Go, making the experience more diverse and the development process less tedious.

Strategy Card Battle

Dance Machine Gameplay

In addition, the gameplay also has a certain degree of freedom and replayability.

At the beginning of the game, players can determine the initial value of the old house by setting birthdays and answering questions, as well as selecting initial features. Combining the three major wish routes and the two directions of card battles, fist and mouth guns, different combinations of choices will have different experiences in the early stages of the game.

: You can freely add points at the beginning of the game

In the early stages of the game, the character attribute values still need to be improved. With more and more events, senior college courses, and activities being unlocked, the numerical requirements for executing these projects vary, making it difficult for the old house to fully consider them.

Therefore, players may need to make choices and focus on specific directions at this stage. If you want to experience all the content of the game, you may need to play multiple games.

However, players who are good at budgeting should be able to experience the vast majority of existing content in one round of the game. For example, I successfully achieved the highest achievement in the internet celebrity route within a two-year period and advanced the martial arts transmission route to the fifth stage.

Considering that this game is still in the early stages of experience, it can be foreseen that as the content updates, the freedom and replayability of this game will continue to increase.

epilogue

If necessary, there are still many areas that need to be polished in this work, such as the numerical balance of some activities, and the community construction system that cannot be invested in in the early stage and does not need to be invested in the later stage; There are also obvious content that needs to be concluded, such as some story plots that started laying the groundwork in the early stages, and there are no related events to be concluded in the later stages of the game.

However, this is an independent game produced by a 6-person team called "Rethinking Game", perhaps we shouldn't be too strict.

From the official intelligence released in the past two years of this game, it appears that the project has undergone significant renovations. In fact, how many systems have been overturned and redone, and how many gameplay have undergone thorough changes are unknown to outsiders. Perhaps many parts of the version I have played have only undergone half a year or even less of development. I think we should give them some more time.

The screenshot of last year's official forecast for shows that the numerical items are completely different

The inspiration for the creation of "Retirement Simulator" comes from the producer Castle's opportunity to magnify his career, as he carefully observes the lives of retired parents. According to what he revealed in a media interview, it was a "regular, monotonous, and uninteresting" life.

The lifestyle of the old house in the game feels more like a retirement life that the castle hopes his parents can live, or a truly valuable retirement life in his eyes. The original intention of Castle's development of this game is said to be to "showcase the lives of middle-aged and elderly people in a vivid and interesting form, pay attention to their mental health, focus on their own mental health, pay attention to their family and emotions, and rebuild the bond between themselves and their parents.". I think the current version of the game has achieved at least 80% of its original intention.

Retirement Simulator is not the simulation of the retirement life of our 80s/90s generation that I initially imagined, but rather a joke about the retirement life of our parents. In my experience in the old house, I vaguely saw the shadow of my father. Through semi experiencing various events in the game (I couldn't enter the old house, but I did push them myself), I gained more understanding of my father, who had just retired and had a son in his thirties.

This work relies on excellent storytelling of local themes, which may resonate with most people living in this land. This is precisely why excellent domestic sitcoms such as "I Love My Family", "Idle Man Ma Da Jie", and "Foreign Wife Local Lang" are loved by people. I believe that "Retirement Simulator" can also be loved by many players.