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The Rise of Casual and Mobile Gaming
HardcoreGamer writes "The New York Times has a lengthy article about the simple pleasures and growth of casual mobile gaming. Trends show that 'more and more people are playing simpler, quieter types of electronic games on the Web, cellphones and hand-helds.' The growth in lighter, less time- and resource-intensive games (like those by GameLoft, Jamdat, and WildTangent) is spurred by the ability to play anytime, anywhere, as much as the rising development costs and production times for a traditional game. A wireless game can cost $40,000 and take a few months to develop, while full-fledged PC and console games can cost $5 million to $10 million and take years to deliver."
Lunch time comes around and you can hear the happy tones of popcap games in the hallowed halls of the business world.
Long live work-place recreation.
I just can't be bothered.
You know the secret to space invaders?
:-)
I was shown this by a guy that had a real life coin op machine. (you probably know this already, but its not often one gets to talk about classic game strategy)
--Spoiler warning--
Shoot them from the left to right in columns rather than rows. They have to move farther and farther across the screen and advance downwards slower.
Smaller scale games also provide a better platform for innovative games because they can be the product of a single person or a very close knit team. On huge budget games for PC's or Consoles, it's not uncommon for graphic artists and programmers to meet each other for the first time at the release party. On small budget games, a single person can closely watch over the game as it develops (or just do everything themselves) to make sure it turns out exactly like they wanted and not "Like Diablo, but in space!"
This is similar to the innovation that occured back in the first few years of gaming (Atari, Nintendo, etc...), where the systems were simple enough that one or two people could make a game with a fairly limited budget and still have it be really good.
some of the funniest and most fun stuff I've played recently have been hacks of old SNES ROMS or flash ditties that take modern gaming sensibilities and apply them to arcade classics.
This BREAKOUT clone is pretty funny. It's got a shot clock so if the game goes too slowly, weird things start happening.
I know a guy working on something he calls "Grand Theft Wagon: Oregon Trail" complete with squirrel killing side missions.
I think for many it's less a question of time and more one of inclination.
For example, I'm 31 years old and cut my gaming teeth on the Atari 2600. Most of the games on that machine were simple, like the ones on cell phones. Over time, as systems advanced and I aged with them, games became more and more complex in gameplay [if not themes]. For adults who never got into videogaming while it was still for kids and "gamers," it's a lot harder to jump in and try out the hottest new games for the current consoles. There are not only more buttons (remember when we just had one?) but the designs of many modern games make assumptions about fundamental gaming skills that only a well-designed tutorial mode can overcome. These assumptions are either true in the case of long-time gamers or undaunting to a young person who still assumes that s/he can learn and be good at anything, including any video game.
A perfect example of this is Neverwinter Nights. I can't imagine someone unfamiliar with RPGs trying to sit down and play that game without reading the manual at least a couple times and probably referring to it constantly while trying to play. On the other hand, people with RPG experience can [just about always] play it right out of the box and really only need to refer to the manual for specific character attributes/skills. While someone might indeed be interested in sitting down and playing NWN for an hour or two a couple times a week, the learning curve is such that busy non-gamers would probably quit rather quickly because their first 10 or more sessions would be spent just trying to get a handle on how to play the game.
Pac-Man, on the other hand, is understood easily within the first five minutes of play.
My mother, too, is a puzzle fan. I bought her a Gameboy way back in the day so that she could try Tetris. She loved it and I've been replacing/upgrading her Nintendo handheld ever since. She likes Dr. Mario, Columns Crown and the like but even Chu Chu Rocket is presenting her with some difficulty because it takes a little more time to learn and gain skill. On the Atari 2600, my grandmother liked to play...but only Casino because, again, the learning curve was small since she already knew about card games.
I'm rambling now, so on to what I think might be my point: As the population that has been playing videogames for years continues to age, there will actually be a decline in the popularity of the more simple games. I think they're experiencing a surge now due simply to the fact that such a large percentage of the population has access to PCs and cell phones where playing videogames for most is a by-product of having equipment that is by and large being used for other purposes. In 20 years, I can envision nearly everyone waiting in an airport terminal playing the future equivalent of a Gameboy and playing all kinds of complex videogames due simply to the fact that those people will be more likely to have grown up with videogames...whether or not that's a good thing is another issue entirely. :)
http://www.c64.com/detail.php?gameid=100207
5 1
Wizard, by S.A. Moore and Steven Luedders, and release (eventually) by EA in the mid 1980's is one of the best climbing games ever. It runs like a dream on my 300Mhz Axim with Pocket 64 from clickgamer.com. It's 171K in D64 format and the developers would probably -LOVE- getting a single dollar from this "property". In general C64 games run very well on modern mobile devices and fit the screen dimensions nicely too.
To be honest, I'd rather play a well crafted C64 game (like Wizard's Crown or the abovementioned Wizard, or any text adventure) on my Axim than even think about a modern game that'd use a great deal more memory and resources to battle nicely rendered gorillas...
It's just amazing, really, how much the C64 programmers got out of the hardware, and how effectively the emulator folk have translated that to the mobile market.
Druid:
http://www.c64.com/detail.php?gameid=10
Is a fantastic game.
Trust me, if you can find a C64 emulator for your platform then by all means explore some of the forgotten gems of the past.
-dameron
Here in Japan, games on cell phones have been around since before the first Java enabled phones came out two years ago, but they've really exploded since then. It used to be that before, when you saw a high school kid on the train mashing the buttons on their phone, they were entering a mail with their super fast thumb-typing . Now, it's more likely that their playing a game of Tetris. It never occurred to me that it would catch on in North America though, cos the average Tokyoite spends 2 hours a day on the train, sleeping or staring off into space, but Americans mostly commute by car, which requires both eyes and at least one hand to do safely. I think it'd be interesting to see how usage patterns differ between North Americans, Japanese, and Europeans.