casual games « Arcade Berg

22Jan/100

THE Game

Posted by Arcade

I lose!

Congratulations. You are now playing the game (if you weren't already).

The Game is very simple.

You are always playing the game.

Every time you think about The Game, you lose.

Loss of The Game must be announced.

And now for some copy/paste from Wikipedia so I don't have to type in the same thing:

The Game is an ongoing game, the objective of which is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. Thinking about The Game constitutes a loss, which, according to the rules of The Game, must be announced each time it occurs. How to win The Game is not defined in the rules; players can only attempt to avoid losing for as long as possible. The Game has been described alternately as pointless and infuriating, or as a challenging game that is fun to play.

[...]

Some players allow a grace period of 30 seconds to half an hour after someone has lost, during which a player cannot lose The Game again, or is not obliged to announce a loss[1] This is done in order to prevent a perpetual loss of the game.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game) (22/1/2010)

I honestly, as a game designer, think that The Game is brilliant. I've been "playing" it for years and losses can take anything from a few hours to several months to occur. The clever thing is that really, once invited you can't not play, except that you can refuse to announce your loss. But this is just like the Polar Bear trick:

- Don't think about Polar Bears.

Now you're thinking about Polar Bears!

Even the people who refuse to partake in the game and hence don't announce their loss, when they actually DO think about the game, they also think "I lose".

One could argue that the whole thing is stupid, and maybe it is, but there's actually some things to study and learn from here. There are three easy rules, it spreads like the plague, never ends and you're constantly playing.

Sorry, but you're playing.

Tagged as: casual games, game design, Game specific, good design, meta games, the game No Comments

5Jul/090

Video Games and the Female Audience

Posted by Arcade

Daniel Floyd, character animator from Animation Mentor (http://www.animationmentor.com/) has a serie on YouTube about Video Games.

The latest episode "Video Games and the Female Audience" is a must see, as I think it's really clever and does bring up some really valid points as how to handle the current situation.

Episode six in my series of video "lectures," with special guest star: Gamasutra's Leigh Alexander! I can be reached at floydo_animation at yahoo dot com. You can reach Leigh at leighalexander1 at gmail dot com.

- kirithem on YouTube

Direct link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ZVZRsy8N8
User profile: http://www.youtube.com/user/kirithem

All URL's from 30/6/2009.

The female gamers are here and I agree with Daniel and Leigh; Let's try our best and not scare 'em off.

Tagged as: casual games, female gamers, video No Comments

23Jun/091

Casual Games != Easier Games

Posted by Arcade

Sometimes I call myself a casual gamer. When I say that I mean that I don’t spend as many hours playing as I used to. However, I don’t think it’s right for me to call myself that. A casual gamer is someone who plays games within the “genre” of casual games.

I guess I’m a Hardcore Player Light.

Many people seem to make the mistake that a casual game is a game, any game but with an easy difficulty. I don’t agree with this. Now, I might be making a fool out of myself because some well respected source out there defines it just like that. But hopefully not…

Anyhow!

A casual game is a game which is easier to play (not to be confused with difficulty level) and understand. Fewer rules, simple controls and a straight forward objective. Tetris and Bejeweled are outstanding examples of this. Some call them games for girls, I call them brilliant.

Casual gamers still wants to be challenged, but not by not understanding how to play.

For me, what really defines a superb and accomplished casual game is for a casual gamer to have just as big a chance of being great at it as a hardcore gamer. Some developers don’t get this. If I can easily win against a casual gamer in a so called casual game per default thanks to my previous gaming experience, it’s a big failure.

Ever since I got together with my girlfriend several years ago, who basically has no interest in gaming what so ever; I’ve been ramming games down her throat for her to realize what a marvelous world we gamers live in.

She still hasn’t quite got it and mostly says: I don’t like it! I don’t wanna play anymore!

What’re you gonna do, right? So she stops playing and after a few days, when she least expects it I make her try something new again. Over the years, I’ve manage to score some real jackpots with her getting so stuck with a game that she can play for more than 5 hours straight!

Zoo Keeper, Zuma, Hexic, Peggle, Dapple, Piyotama and Flight Control for example. They’re all casual games! And guess what? I, the experienced gamer, have no chance what so ever to beat her highscores!

Okay, now, this girl doesn’t own any gaming system of her own except for a PC. She never plays with her friends. She simply doesn’t like hardcore games but back when she was playing Piyotama, she was ranked 21st in the world. 21st place in the friggin’ world! Do you think I can possibly beat her in the VS-mode? No!

Right now, she’s into stealing my iPhone and playing Flight Control. And guess what, top 1% on the online highscore-table! That’s insane, coming from a none-gamer!

But that’s the thing! That’s the beauty of a great casual game! Everyone has the same chance to perform greatly!