This article was translated and published with permission from Ohayoo, a Chinese mobile game publisher.
Original article
Casual Game Tutorial — Simplification of Casual Games from 5 Aspects
Casual games started becoming popular in China rather late, and there hasn’t been much experience accumulated. Therefore, there are many concerns for development teams who are just entering the casual game field, or those who are tired of hardcore games and are considering switching to casual games. Therefore, I would like to share information about making casual games lighter.
I would like to talk about weight reduction from three angles: “look,” “play,” and “feel.” It can also be divided into five aspects: “lighter UI interface,” “lighter play style,” “lighter game objectives,” “lighter game strategy,” and “lighter art style.” Masu.
“Appearance” refers to the UI and art, “play” refers to how to play and purpose, and “feel” refers to strategy.
Next, let’s explain these five aspects one by one.
Lighter UI interface
The concept of “stereotype” also exists in the gaming industry. If icons are lined up in the upper right corner of the game screen, and weekly bonuses, passes, and events are the main focus, the game UI will definitely become heavy.
Amount of information retrieved per unit time
The less data the player has to pay attention to in a unit of time, the more casual the game will be.
The UI itself is for system functionality. There is no content that cannot fit into the UI, it depends on the design. Hardcore game systems are large and complex, so if the UI is responsible for displaying that much content and information, the load will be heavy. For example, if you have 20 parameters tied to one piece of equipment, all 20 parameters must be written in, and if even one is missing, the paying player will feel cheated. .
Casual games have few peripheral systems, no lengthy tutorials that overwhelm users with stats, and are often easy to play. Since the majority of regular players do not care about increasing their stats, the load on the UI will naturally be reduced.
In addition, in standalone-oriented casual gameplay, there is no competition between players, and there is no direct comparison or quantification to determine who is strong or weak. Therefore, players do not care whether this weapon’s attack power is 100 or 134.
Therefore, as long as the UI has some important parameters, it will be able to meet player expectations. Such a UI will naturally be simpler. That is what we call weight reduction.
So what are “critical parameters”? Roughly speaking, important parameters are used by players to intuitively judge strengths and weaknesses, good and bad, superiority and inferiority. For example, there are legendary equipment that increases attack power, 999 strength, etc.
Lighter play style
Simple and pure gameplay, without the need to use techniques or methods, is the focus of modern casual games.
Occam’s Razor: Don’t establish too much without necessity
Hardcore games consume large amounts of player time and earn higher pay rates due to retention and immersion. Therefore, today’s hardcore games include countless core gameplay elements within the game. Some action games also feature tons of mini-games or idle gameplay. You can play anything in this game if you want to.
Various systems are intricately intertwined and interact with each other, making it complex and difficult to cover all routes.
Casual games don’t need that much complexity, and in fact, they shouldn’t be that complicated.
By the way, regarding player expectations, casual game players download games because they want to play them easily, and the majority of players don’t expect to be able to play the game all day long, much less for months. It’s meant to be played for a short period of time. (Our goal is to turn these player expectations into long-term immersion).
Other than essential game features and core routes, casual games don’t need a huge amount of volume to keep players engaged. Adding the right amount of gameplay will slow down the game, but adding too much gameplay will only increase development costs.
High participation rates can only be achieved by making each game play relate to the main story, but this is extremely difficult.
However, if you skimp on lowering the gameplay participation rate, it won’t be worth the development costs and you’ll end up losing money.
Therefore,It can be said that the gameplay model for casual games is best drawn as a single line.。
As shown in the diagram above, it is also paramount in games that the core gameplay is central to the fun. Control the output with core resources to create advertising positions, set the goal of leveling up your military career, and finally test your abilities by giving feedback to the gameplay.
If you want to create something a little more complex, just inflate on the existing lines and don’t add more content out of the cycle if you don’t need it. Otherwise, it may become a burden to the player.
Fun usually comes at a cost, but if it makes the game better for a little bit, it’s worth it.
Lighter game objectives
Players want to play the game and don’t care about much else. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the weight of the game objectives.
simple and easy to understand
Reducing the weight of game objectives is the most common way to reduce the weight of current casual games. The most lightweight way to describe a game is to keep the player’s goal simple and straightforward, with one thing and one outcome.
Let’s list some designs that lack weight reduction. Many games have players replay stages they’ve already completed for replayability, but simply replaying them over and over again isn’t fun. Therefore, it is possible to add stage challenges, 3-star system, no damage, time limits, various limiting conditions, etc. While these formats have some appeal for hardcore gamers, the inability to aim at multiple targets in a single stage takes away from the fun of the game for some casual gamers.
Some developers may feel the need to create game objectives for players who tend to play games. In that case, by setting appropriate post-conditions and hurdles for system unlocking, you can avoid changing the initial goal of being simple and easy to understand for casual gamers.
When it comes to content, simple and clear purpose refers to dimensional simplicity, not brevity of content. For example, in RPG gameplay, players can pursue equipment, and whatever the attributes of the equipment, it all fits the criteria of being single-dimensional, simple and easy to understand. If you build on equipment as a base and add ability points, skill books, and pets, the dimensionality will increase significantly.
What’s interesting doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best.
Lighter game strategy
It’s difficult to retain players with a game that isn’t challenging, but if it’s too challenging, it can’t be called a casual game. If you want to retain a large number of players, you will need to layer different strategies accordingly.
You can play even if you don’t understand it, but it’s more fun if you understand it.
Even though casual games have low development costs, that doesn’t mean you can’t mess around. Especially on the strategic side, a simple strategy is required to ensure a good experience for new players. However, without any strategy, the gaming experience becomes redundant in the long run.We need to consider both the experience of the majority of casual gamers and the experience of our long-term core players.
That’s why strategy is essential to the game. The lightweight strategy is mainly“You can play even if you don’t understand it, but it’s more fun if you understand it.”It can be expressed as
“You can play without understanding”: Elaborate designs require some effort to understand, but not all players will accept this effort. When designing guides and difficulty levels for beginners, we believe that if players can progress through the game through a basic tutorial and experience the fun of gameplay, they will be able to enjoy the core gameplay without having to play the peripheral systems. (If you get stuck on a stage, watch the ads and solve it).
“It’s more fun if you understand it”: The reason why the overall strategy is simple at the beginning is to cater to a wide range of user segments, and the reason why the strategy is increased from mid to late stages is to appeal to established players who want a sense of accomplishment in the game. It’s to meet your needs. If you get stuck, you can usually solve it by watching ads, but as the game moves from mid-to-late, try to strategically help the player progress through the route faster. Players who are immersed in the game have a desire to get involved and want to complete the content, which creates more advertising space.
Lighter art style
A good art style is one that better explains the theme and is self-explanatory.
Avoid the pitfalls and choose a style that suits your height
Art style is important to pay attention to, but art is about a theme, and for most products, an established worldview basically dictates the general direction of the art. In the domestic casual game market, we aim to avoid similarities with some hardcore games and Western styles with distinct regional characteristics, and aim to reduce the aesthetic demands of players by using an art style that is as down-to-earth as possible. We are trying to reduce the amount of effort players have to understand. Common casual styles such as low-poly, pixel, and rubber humans are “friendly” enough, but they lack relative expressiveness and limit expressive detail. Since it follows the casual template, it cannot gain an advantage in the competition of casual games. However, due to its low cost, its use may be possible depending on the circumstances.
Summary
These are the answers we give to all developers, “What is light weighting for casual games?” We look forward to active communication with all the developers. We sincerely hope that by providing regular getting started guides for developers, more developers will be inspired to get involved. To know the latest information about Ohayoo, please visit the official websiteTwitterandMediumPlease follow my account.contact@ohayoogames.comWe also look forward to your email.
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