Kairosoft Nintendo Switch demos can be quite extensive samples
Kairosoft games are on the Nintendo Switch now! It makes a lot of sense. These are strategy games that were designed to be played on a small screen on the go. Making the leap from a mobile device to a console would provide more exposure and help point out that these are more than brief novelties. Each game does have quite a bit of depth to it. But, there is something even more important to note about these titles. Each one has a substantial demo that is basically giving you a rich experience on a smaller scale.
First, it is important to know what is available to you. There are four Kairosoft games immediately available on the Nintendo Switch right now. Of those four, three have demo available in every region. So if someone were to visit the eShop in any region, they could grab a sample of Dungeon Village, Game Dev Story and Hot Springs Story. Venture Towns does not have one yet, but it could eventually end up getting a demo for people to enjoy. After all, the other titles did not have demos immediately available when they launched.
In each case, you are basically getting the full game experience in a Kairosoft demo. The full games are, in each case, practically endless. Sure, they might "end" after about 10 or 16 years, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop playing. You can keep running your business or managing your town until some catastrophic failure(s) prevent you from proceeding. In the case of the demos, more strict limitations are put in place. Game Dev Story right away tells you that you can only play through four in-game years. However, you can do this as many times as you would like and there are no timers in place. The other two games, Dungeon Village and Hot Springs Story, have spans equivalent to the mobile "Lite" versions. That means you can go through two in-game years in Dungeon Village and one year in Hot Springs Story.
But the thing to know about these titles is that even if it says only one or four in-game years, that can be a lot of real-world time. Four years in Game Dev Story could easily be enjoyed over an actual week. It could even last longer, depending on how often you play. Hot Springs Story is the most "unforgiving," but even that could keep you covered for about five hours. And, given the nature of these games, a demo could give you time to refine strategies over the course of weeks or months as you find what would work for a bigger and fuller adventure.
It is especially handy, given the price of Switch adaptations of mobile games. Each one is $12. To compare, Game Dev Story is $2.49 on mobile devices, while games like Dungeon Village, Hot Springs Story and Venture Towns are $4.99 each. These tend to go on sale rather frequently, cutting the price even further. Since someone might be hesitant to invest so much more in the console port, knowing the demos are so extensive gives them an opportunity to thoroughly vet the games. If you enjoy one of them enough, you might eventually decide that yes, it would be worth $12 to you to go past the grace period. If not, then you still have a demo you can go through and repeat, happily due to the nature of these simulations, whenever you feel like restarting. After all, they can have multiple save files, like Dungeon Village, so you can even have multiple towns going.
People might be tempted to only have game demos for titles they know they might buy on their system. They might also consider removing these samples once a test is done. With the Kairosoft Nintendo Switch demos, it is a better idea to grab every possible trial. The games are small, as each demo is between 178-179MB. They are unlimited. Most important, they are substantial chunks with a lot of replay value. People can get a lot out of giving them a try.
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