Today’s post is about one of my favorite subjects: casual game design. Undoubtedly, the contemporary multiplatform environment, with so many connections between different devices, becomes a privileged ambient for games, especially casual games.
Casual games are everywhere: in the console, in the smartphone/tablet, inside Facebook and even in analogical card/board games.
To discuss some essential points about casual game design, we bring Jesper Juul into the discussion. In his awesome book Casual Revolution (2010), Juul points out (2013, p.50) that casual game design has five components:
1.Fiction: “The player is introduced to the game by way of a screenshot, a logo on a web page, or the physical game box”.
2.Usability: “The player tries to play the game, and may or may not have trouble understanding how to play”.
3.Interruptibility: “A game demands a certain time commitment from the player. It is not that casual games can only be played for short periods of time (…)”
4. Difficulty and punishment: “A game challenges and punishes the player for failing. Casual games often become very difficult during the playing of a game, but they do not force the player to replay large parts of the game.”
5. Juiciness: “Though this was not predicted by the description of casual players, casual game design commonly features excessive positive feedback for every successful action the player performs.”
All these topics help us think how to develop better games and – in some way – how to reinvent video games for a broader audience.
Reference:
JUUL, Jesper. A casual revolution. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2010.
Casual games are everywhere: in the console, in the smartphone/tablet, inside Facebook and even in analogical card/board games.
To discuss some essential points about casual game design, we bring Jesper Juul into the discussion. In his awesome book Casual Revolution (2010), Juul points out (2013, p.50) that casual game design has five components:
1.Fiction: “The player is introduced to the game by way of a screenshot, a logo on a web page, or the physical game box”.
2.Usability: “The player tries to play the game, and may or may not have trouble understanding how to play”.
3.Interruptibility: “A game demands a certain time commitment from the player. It is not that casual games can only be played for short periods of time (…)”
4. Difficulty and punishment: “A game challenges and punishes the player for failing. Casual games often become very difficult during the playing of a game, but they do not force the player to replay large parts of the game.”
5. Juiciness: “Though this was not predicted by the description of casual players, casual game design commonly features excessive positive feedback for every successful action the player performs.”
All these topics help us think how to develop better games and – in some way – how to reinvent video games for a broader audience.
Reference:
JUUL, Jesper. A casual revolution. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2010.
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