casually-speaking posts

Your daily wrap-up of the hottest stories in PC gaming over the weekend.

	Full Spore Creature Creator delayed a day; demo leaked For a game that is not really a game, Maxis and Electronic Arts' Spore Creature Creator is generating a ton of buzz ahead of its release this coming week. Already the free demo of the game (which has a quarter of the content of the full $9.99 version) has apparently been leaked onto the Internet according to fan site Sporenormous.
	Blizzard to announce new title at Worldwide Invitational? Yet another rumor surrounding a new Blizzard Entertainment title has been unearthed this morning, pointing to a big announcement at the upcoming Blizzard Worldwide Invitational. This latest update, found on Xfire.com, states that users should follow the Invitational's opening ceremony to "discover what new game will be announced."
	Grid 1.1 demo released A GRID 1.1 demo has been released, perfect for those who are curious as to what the new Codemasters racer brings to the genre. The behemoth download includes fixes for issues such as wheels turning properly for players in Spectator mode, support for Xinput wheel and Logitech Rumblepad 2 hardware, a several compatibility tweaks.
	New trailer and screenshots show off more characters in Lego Batman This fall developer Traveller's Tales and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive will be giving us the next Lego themed game and this time it won't be based on anything made by George Lucas. Lego Batman will feature a ton of characters from the DC Comics super hero franchise and today we have some new screenshots and a high-def trailer to show you today.
	New Velvet Assassin screenshots come forth We wish World War II had spies that looked as good as the lead character in Velvet Assassin. Violette Summer is her name and stealth action is her game and the newest screenshots from the PC action title show off more of her and her actions.

Long before there were home consoles or Flash-based and downloadable games accessible via the Internet, the only place to get your gaming fix was the venerable video arcade. For those of our readers who may be too young to remember the arcade boom of the 1980s, these were spacious, sometimes dimly-lit buildings filled with games housed in large cabinets; some later games were contained in sit-down, glass-topped tables. These spaces were home to the grand, seminal casual games that have become enshrined within gamers' memories as the first great games of our time. Titles like Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac Man, Joust, Dig Dug, etc., and the gameplay they embodied, have been the basis for all games that have followed since.

However, as home console systems became available, and their game libraries grew both in size and complexity, the once-ubiquitous video arcades dwindled in number from thousands country-wide to perhaps tens per state, and even that figure might be optimistic. With the focus of electronic entertainment switching to the home, gamers also left the arcades en masse, in favor of playing at home alone, or at best, with one or two friends who didn't have a system of their own. These players might not have known it then, but soon they would subconsciously realize that they were missing something integral to the gaming experience that wouldn't return for years.

There is a tendency among the hardcore to think of casual games as the trite, twee younger sibling of more "serious" games -- your Tomb Raiders, your X-coms, your Starcrafts of the gaming universe. This perception stems from the idea that a simple game must be simple to create, and therefore reaches an equally simple audience. This, in turn, relies on hewing to old stereotypes: women and older people don't play games, therefore if that demographic is playing a game, it must be easy, right?

Without trapping ourselves by making our opponent's argument -- after all, the hallmark of the casual game is that it is easy to pick up and learn -- we can instead focus on why it is that hardcore games do not attract that market, and what it is that casual games offer instead. To sum it up in a word, it's depth. But wait, isn't depth what people usually say these games lack? To answer that, we need to revisit what "depth" in games really means.

It is now a staple of the mainstream media that videogames are addictive. There is a cycle to the regular release of studies and reports that claim to document addictive behavior among gamers in a range of ages from pre-teen to adult. If we allow the conceit that games are the electronic equivalent of drugs, is it possible to identify a gateway game, the same way that marijuana is said to be a gateway drug? That is, a game which contains a pleasurable enough experience to lead the player to want to attempt other, presumably harder, more complex games?

It's bruited about that casual games make great gateway games. Their simplicity and time-light nature make for a fairly painless experience for the non-gamer. People who play casual games still do not consider themselves gamers, even when it's pointed out to them that they are, in fact, playing games. This, of course, is actually the distinction between "hardcore" and casual players. But where is the interface between the two? What turns a casual gamer into a hardcore gamer, and is there really such a thing as a gateway game?

Orisinal: Morning Sunshine is a website devoted to the very core of the principles behind casual gaming. With 59 tiny Flash-based games, there is something to please every palate, from the light shmup action of V-Force to the puzzle play of Bauns to the coordination challenges of Floats. Additionally, every game is illustrated with style, using subtle gradations and washes of color not typically seen in Flash titles, making each experience feel more rich and elegant.

Boiled down, the underlying gameplay element of each game is wonderfully simple and thoroughly addictive. And each can be imagined as having been the result of following a random idea, a "what if" scenario. It would seem, then, that there is no such thing as a bad idea for a casual game. How, then, does one determine when to expand an idea into something more complex?

The term "casual" has been coined to define a genre of game that so-called "non-gamers" can play. These games typically have a number of elements in common:

1. Simple rules -- the object of the game should be clear, with an easily-understood control scheme
2. Minimal time investment -- levels should be short enough to be completed in one sitting, say, between 3 - 5 minutes
3. Minimal system requirements -- the game shouldn't require the latest video card or esoteric browser plug-ins

If we examine one of the reigning kings of the casual game genre, PopCap Games' Bejeweled, we find all three of these elements. It's easy to understand, progress can be made quickly (even though there is no goal other than the accrual of points), and it's Flash-based, which most web browsers already support out of the gate. So on the surface, it's fairly easy to determine, at a glance, if a game fits within the casual template. However, while games like Bejeweled still abound, the genre as a whole has begun to mutate, requiring a redefinition of the label. We'll explore how and why after the jump.