Goal: Create a working prototype of a casual game. We are borrowing some development ideas from Game Jams, but we're giving you more time to create your game prototype than they typically do.
In teams of two you are building a working prototype of a casual game - the theme is “chain reaction” - this will be reflected in the gameplay or theme.
We've given you "Base Code" to build off of, and you've finished by adding a "end game" state and the ability to start a new game. If you have other code you’re going to use instead, you need to run it by me first. Re-using just your core mechanic code from a previous game you created is definitely OK.
Orson Wells once said, "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations". Limitations are your friend:
When you build a final version - which will be the week after this prototype - concentrate on the following:
Please post your own handy links to the discussion area in mycourses.
They were really good - I was very happy with what most of the teams accomplished in 3 weeks - here are a few of my observations.
The onboarding experience for new players was overall very good - for most of the games it was very obvious to a new user how to play the game. This is something that improved dramatically as we saw successive iterations of each game.
The difficulty curves were reasonable for casual players - the games did not get very hard, very fast. New game elements were introduced over time, which was also very user friendly.
But keep in mind that instruction screens and the like can still be very useful. Interactive tutorials in no way obviate written instructions - it's OK to have both.
Most of the games needed a little work here. Controls were often a little too complicated, or didn't give the player fluid enough control. ex-1. using WASD controls, and not enabling the keyboard arrows too. ex-2. Having keyboard shortcuts for what look like buttons, but not letting the user click an apparent button. ex-3. Using complicated keyboard controls when a mouse-click would have sufficed.
It wasn't always obvious to the player what the game "state" was. Many games needed more text and visual cues, more audio feedback, and an avatar that really stood out from the rest of the game. Control of the avatar was often sluggish.
I believe that the overwhelming majority of casual (approachable) games are all about gameplay, not the story. No one plays Angry Birds or Candy Crush for the story. I pretty much agree with John Carmack's quote on this (at least with casual games): "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."
However... a few of your games that were abstract would have benefited from a theme - a theme helps the user understand what they need to do to play the game, and helps them create a "magic circle" that may make your game more compelling. It can also help you brainstorm new elements for your game. Example: The arcade classic Missile Command is basically a chain reaction game like Boomshine, but the "save the cities from annihilation" theme made it a much more compelling and popular game.
As we've discussed in class, cartoonish and bright graphics are popular in casual games. Many of your abstract style games would have benefited from a theme and nice art. (I get it, most of you are not artists, but there is free game art available online.)
Most of your games were challenges - you as the developer set up a framework for a series of interesting challenges/activities with rules and goals, and you let the player figure out how to overcome it. You as the designer do not have a exact solution to the challenges, the player's solution to the challenge is emergent. The players were given a variety of tools to overcome the challenge, and they could do so in various ways.
Logic Puzzles, on the other hand, have at least one solution that is always right. (ex. sliding block games, Minesweeper, Sudoku, Rush Hour, jigsaw puzzles ...) This means that once a player has figured out a solution to the puzzle, they can always solve it, and your lose replay value for that particular puzzle.
Disadvantages of logic puzzles:
Solution: add action and challenge elements to your logic puzzle game to make it fun! Most of the so-called computer puzzle games in existence do this. Thought experiment - imagine Tetris as a "pure" logic puzzle game:
The above would be a very deep planning game (from the plan-practice-improvise taxonomy) that took a long time to play - and would be boring to most people.
The real Tetris might be categorized as a Puzzle Game, but it's actually not a pure Logic Puzzle. The real Tetris took this hypothetical tetromino-based puzzle and added challenge elements like random blocks, and a gradually decreasing time limit to play blocks, and went from a pure "planning" logic puzzle, to an exciting game that gives the player a lot of choices. Tetris is a great game that has both practice and improvising elements to it.
Another "puzzle-like" game that's not a "pure" puzzle is Bejeweled. It has random jewels, power-up rewards matches of 4 and 5, a timed mode, and so on.
Approachable games have to be fun in order to appeal to a wide audience. End of story. Here's what Sid Meir said about fun games. And a lot of people talk about flow now. (wikipedia.orgFlow_(psychology)
It's easy to fall into the trap of wanting to create a game based on an original idea entirely thought up by you - but remember: