David Jung
Game: Peggle
Intro
• CGDD, emphasis on Development, not so
•
•
•
much on Design
I for one embrace our new artificially
intelligent overlords
...or I will if they ever actually get invented.
Favorite Genres: Metroidvanias, Tactics-style
RPGs, Fighters, Shoot'em Ups
What I Played
What I Expected
What I Got
Why is this so addictive?
• Like a butterfly flapping its wings in China
• The game feels the thrill of victory and the
•
agony of defeat right along with you
Mini mechanics give variation in dynamics
but don't de-emphasize the core mechanic
Mechanics
•
•
•
•
The goal of the game is to eliminate all of the
orange pegs by striking them with a ball
The ball is fired from the top center of the
screen, and drops to the bottom, bouncing
unpredictably up, down, and side to side on the
way
If you hit all orange pegs before running out of
balls, you win.
There is a moving basket at the bottom, if the
ball enters it you get another back
Opinions
• Sound design can make a game
• Strike a balance between control and chaos
•
•
•
and you can keep attention focused on the
screen
You only need one good mechanic for a good
casual game...
As long as it's really really good...
But small mechanics that don't get in its way
can keep things fresh
CGDD 4203 Presentation by
Srinidhi Naik
Casual Game Presentation for
8/27/2012 of Ichi (available on
Android, iOS, PC, and Mac)
Self-Introduction
• Srinidhi Naik is a 3rd year undergraduate student of
Computer Game Design and Development at SPSU.
Transferred from Georgia Institute of Technology where I
majored in Computer Science
• Give me a nickname if Srinidhi is too hard to remember
or pronounce. Previous nicknames: Srensren, Serenity,
etc.
• I’m particularly interested in the expansion of narrative
through interesting mechanics, design techniques, and
utilizing games beyond conventional realms to benefit
society (Example: http://fold.it/portal/)
• I’ve taken 4-5 years of Computer Science classes and have
utilized or at least tried making games with a wide variety
of languages; some are much better suited for game
design than others. All programming languages are not
made equal.
Introduction to Ichi’s
theme/history
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Developers: Jay Van Hutten (Initial prototypes and Lead designer) & Stolen Couch Games
History from: http://www.jayvanhutten.com/portfolio/ichi
Game engine utilized: Unity
A brief history:
Ichi started out as a challenge to design a one button game that would keep the player
entertained for more than five minutes. I wanted it to distinguish itself from the most common one
button games: running games. I wanted more depth, more dynamic gameplay. Quickly I found out
that a puzzle game was the way to go. Not only do I love puzzle games, they also allow you to create
a huge amount of gameplay with just a few game mechanics. After some research I came up with
three simple concepts, of which I turned one into a software prototype.
Then I arranged some playtests for the two-level prototype. It appeared to be quite an
entertaining game with a high pick-up-and play value! It had simple prototype graphics just to
convey the concept. And although I tried lots of visual styles afterwards ranging from minimalistic
to fully drawn jungle themes, the game's final art style ended up looking relatively close to the
prototype! I added some color, a hand-drawn style and some simple animations. This totally
matched the simple gameplay and one of the key game mechanics (ability to draw lines)!
I wanted this to be a true one button game, so even the menu was controlled by only one
button. You could skip through the options with single buttons presses, and to confirm you simply
had to hold the button down a bit longer. The selection would fill up and when complete, the
option was chosen. With all that in place, I released the game with 15 levels in 2011 as a freeware
game. It appeared on numerous game websites and game events, and was even nominated for the
Dutch Game Awards! I started looking into possibilities to extend the reach of the game, and got in
contact with Stolen Couch Games, with whom I developed the game further.
Ichi’s Primary Hook
• Ichi is the Japanese word for One and the number 1 is the core for the
simple design of Ichi
• Ichi is a deceptively simple game to watch, but is a brain teaser built
around intuitive controls that can be played via mobile devices and
with only one input mechanism at a time (touch-based input primarily,
although a PC/Mac version has been released recently)
• The levels grow in complexity by adding portals, traps, multiple objects
being affected by one input, and more
• With a built-in level creator, Ichi provides puzzle fans with limit-less
challenge for less than 1 Mocha Latte from Starbucks
Key Mechanics of Ichi
My opinion of Ichi
I purchased my copy of Ichi through Indie Gala Mobile 2. I spent a
day or two trying out the various games, but I only have 2 of the
games from that bundle still installed on my Android phone. Ichi is
one of them. I enjoy the visual simplicity and ease of play; the level
of challenge hasn’t been too high so far, but I’ve only played in short
bursts and beaten 2-3 levels at a time. I have been trying for the “A”
solution, which is when you use the minimum number of
interactions to complete the level; it’s pretty fun to figure out the
optimal path, even if the solutions seem to jump out fairly quickly. I
would definitely recommend the game for any puzzle fan or people
looking for a typically short time-waster. Ichi will definitely scratch
that brain teaser itch.
Jason Milam
Game of Choice:
Book Worm
Game’s Theme
• Educational:
– Word recognition and spelling
• Problem Solving:
– Think of words quickly
• Burning tiles are bad
Hook / Motivation
• Score
– Get a higher score than your friends
• Scores are recorded
– Find bigger words than your friends
• Education
– Learn new words and their meaning
• Tricky words are defined on screen in the game
Key Mechanics
• Spelling
– Use the mouse to select tiles to spell words
– Bonus tiles give you more points
– You lose of flaming tiles make it to the bottom
My Opinion?
• It is a great casual game
– Easy to play a few rounds a few minutes
– Does have an educational aspect and helps you keep
exercising your brain
– Simple game to understand and easy to pick up on
• Addicting (?)
– It can be a very addicting game
– Can depend on how you feel about spelling as to how
much you like the game
William Craven
MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction
• Trying to
survive a
missile insult
• Bears a heavy
resembles to
Missile
Command
Motivation
•
•
•
•
Staying Alive
Rising Combo
Earning Points
Gaining
resources to
upgrade your
buildings
Key Mechanics
• BLOWING
STUFF UP
• Destroying
missiles with
your own
missiles trying
to make base
use of them.
Opinion
• I like it.
• Although it is like Missile Command it does
enough new things that makes it its own
game.
Clifton Fowler
Optia (iOS)
Mobile Puzzler
Game History
• Game Release: December 29th, 2009 by Beder
Studios
• Two Visual Updates since release to utilize
iPhone’s increasing resolution
• Three new sets of levels (~12) since release
– Increasing difficulty
• Recently released level creator for usergenerated content
The Hook
• Intuitive puzzler with
surprising complexity and
multiple solutions
• Auto-saves level progress so
you can return when you
have more time
• 100+ Levels
Key Mechanics
• 4 game pieces with unique behaviors to
manipulate the path of the laser
– Reflector, Splitter, 1-Sided Reflector, 2Sided Reflector
• Game pieces can be rotated to change the
direction the laser bounces
– Pieces can only be placed on tiles
• Laser must pass through all of the laser
receptors in one shot to complete the level
• Bombs that can be destroyed by the
laser to take out walls and pieces
Opinion
• Interesting mechanics with some fairly
challenging puzzles
• Polished and easy to use controls
• Well-made game that has only improved
through a number of updates since release
• User generated content is of reasonable
quality and adds a lot of content to the game.
•Carter V Maddux
Arranging “gene” segments
Rings, Ripples, and Rungs



Rearrange segments
with the cursor.
Right-Click to
activate the nearest
“mutation” to the
root segment.
Match the frame.
A unique and engaging puzzler.
Casual Game Case Study
Cameron Hughes
Cameron Hughes
•
•
•
•
I’m a Senior.
I’m from Dahlonega, Ga.
I enjoy playing pretty much all games.
When I’m not gaming I like to program and
play sports.
Attack of the Giant Viruses
• The world has been
taken over by giant
viruses which the player
must avoid to survive.
• Avoid the viruses by
strategically moving the
character around to
solve the puzzle.
Hook and Motivation
• The game is simple yet entertaining.
• Some of the levels are challenging but keep
you drawn into the game.
• The game has an interesting theme and title
that lures you in.
• http://www.gameso.com/play/attack-of-the-giant-viruses.htm
Mechanics
• Avoid the viruses or die.
• The viruses follow the
player’s movements.
• Viruses can be killed
with saw blades.
• Viruses can be helpful
to open doors.
Opinion
• The game is entertaining up to the point
where you can’t beat a level without cheating.
• The music gets a bit annoying after a while.
• Decent game but it’d be more convenient on a
mobile platform.
Smash Cops
-- Yu Feng
Game Theme/History
• Smash Cops is an new IOS action racing game
with unique and intuitive driving controls
specifically designed for touch screen.
• Smash Cops is designed by Hutch studio. It
was formed in June 2011 by 5 developers
Key Mechanics
• The player uses touch screen to control the
police car to try to smash the escaping cars in
the game world. Each of the car including the
player’s has a life bar. When the life bar goes
to zero, means the car is destroyed by the
player/ game over.
Opinion/Motivation
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1.Advanced graphic
2.Unique control (sometime feel bad)
3.Easy to start
4.Complete each level in around 5 minute then reward (score/new car/unlock new
level)
5.Clearly know the unlocked place and what needs to be bought (great interface
design)
6.Increasing the difficulty of level
7.Each level has it’s own scenario.
Video Demo
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIZjocZgo
wU
Casual Game Case Study:
by Henry Moss
CGDD 4203
Game’s Theme/History
• Players must work together to level up and
defeat subsequent ‘quest bosses’ to unlock
access to the final lair of the boss, Oryx the
Mad God
• As players level up, bosses get harder,
sometimes including area-specific battles
• Player deaths accumulate ‘fame’ which
actually allows access to more and more
unique locations as it increases
Hook
• “Fantasy-themed, cooperative bullet hell
MMORPG”
• No dedication of monthly
payment
• Multiple Classes to unlock
• Class-based
‘achievements’
• Paying optional
– In-game cosmetics
– Additional item storage
– Additional character slots
Key Mechanics
• Permadeath
• Co-op ‘raiding’ by
association
• Randomly spawning
bosses/items
• Character leveling unlocks
new characters
• Unique item equips
– Any class can collect any
items
– Stored items can be used
on new classes
Opinion
•
•
•
•
•
•
Lots of fun
Easy to pick up/drop
Addictive
Non-commital
“Story is completed quickly”
Dynamic gameplay
Valley Without Wind
Settlement
Missions
Combat
Timothy Goodson presents:
A brief review of a casual game
For iPad mobile device
A game by: Zack Wiesnoski, Thatcher Christeaan,
and Danielle Olson
Puzzle-Platformer built from paper
and cardboard
In Band Together® you must find a way to guide the Bandies safely out of
their corrugated environment to freedom, saving as many Bandies as possible.
Along the way you face dangerous and deadly devices made from common
office supplies.
Bandies fall asleep unless
exposed to light, but tend to
stick together when awake,
hence their name.
Band Together® was
developed by three game
design students in 2012 and
released for free on App Store
for iPad mobile devices.
Like Puzzles?
Band Together® offers
enjoyable puzzle
solving and
entertainment with
sharp graphics which
make the most of the
iPad’s retina display. A
true casual game, Band
Together’s levels are
short enough to play
each in 5 – 15 minutes
and the player may
attempt each level as
many times as
necessary to win,
advance to other levels,
or replay previous
levels.
Nothing but Touch & Drag
Gameplay is simple:
you touch a Bandie
and drag to make
him move, or touch
an area away from
all Bandies and drag
to make them all
move as a group.
Along the way there
are devices to avoid
and devices to
activate by moving a
Bandie into contact
with the switch.
Once the door has
been reached the
Bandie is safe.
Impressions and Opinions!
Like many indie games, Band Together® is too short to truly make me happy, but
the developers have promised more to come. I found the theme to be intriguing,
the graphics to be stellar, and the puzzles to be as balanced and fun as those of
LIMBO®, another of my favorite games in this genre. The touch controls are an
excellent use of the iPad’s capabilities, and the graphics were optimized to take
advantage of the retina display, making this a mobile game success, and the level
length and unlimited retries gives it appeal for the casual game experience.
This reviewer is patiently awaiting
the promised sequel!
-Timothy Goodson8-27-2012
SPSU
CGDD-4203
Triple Town
•A study by Gregory Williams
The Viewpoint
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
Full time student
Long time gamer
Indie gamer
MMO player
Browser game player
The Hooks
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Pattern Completion
Social Networking
Accessibility
Action Limitation
Persistent Growth
Microtransactions
The Mechanics





Match 3 by placement
Negative value placements
Persistent gains enhancements
Social gains enhancements
Gifting
The Verdict




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Reasonably Satisfying
Somewhat Compelling
Weak Social Effects
Original(ish)
Good Overall
Lawrence Ferretti
CGDD 4203
Monster Park
Game Theme/History
• The game was created by Kiwi
• It is a casual game with a free-to-play model that
can be connected to Facebook for a more social
experience
• The business model is based on micro
transactions in the game store
• The game was released on May 23, 2012
• I downloaded it August 12 when it was featured
in Google Play with 100k downloads
• It now has over 5 million downloads
Hook/Motivation
• It’s Pokemon meets ‘ville games
• The player is creating a monster park for people
to come and pay silver to view
• The player can link their park via Facebook and
show off to their friends
• The park can be expanded, decorated, and filled
with whatever monster the player chooses
• The player buys monsters and breeds them to
create new and random monsters
Key Mechanics
• The core of the game is collecting silver to be able
to buy rooms, breed monsters, and increase their
level with crystals
• Silver is earned per minute by each monster(and
increases with level)
• Crystals can be grown in timed intervals such as:
1 minute, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 4 hours
• Breeding two monsters will get you a new
random monster that shares a type of at least
one parent and takes a certain interval to
complete(usually a few hours)
My opinion
• To my dismay, this game is annoyingly addicting
• They tied in the social aspect of the game to
encourage competition between players(whose is
biggest, etc)
• The prospect of getting a “mythic” monster from
breeding is like gambling for gamers
• The free-to-play model is great for this game,
they need to tweak their real money prices in
their store to increase profits(currently $50 for
500,000 silver which a player earn in a day)
Ethan Treff
-Games
-Technology
-Music
-Art
-Programming
Doodle God
• Released for
iPhone/iPod Touch on
June 27th, 2010.
• Inspired by the Russian
javascript game
Alchemygame which
was based on an old
DOS game named
Alchemy.
• Later turned into a
flash game.
The Hook
•
•
•
•
Simplicity and ending difficulty
Requires the user to progressively think more
Start and stop at any time
Extraordinarily simple UI
Key Mechanics
• Combine available
elements together to
create new elements
• These new elements are
combined with existing
elements to create even
more new elements
Personal Opinion
• Pros
– Simple
– Humorous combinations
– Minigames
• Cons
– Expected combinations don’t always work
– Monotonous game play
Scott Williams
Tetris Battle
• Game Theme: It’s Competitive Tetris in Small
Chunks
• History: The Creator of Tetris decided, Let’s
make Tetris Competitive and Multiplayer.
Hook and Motivation to Play
• Competitive Tetris, What more Motivation Do
you need?
Key Mechanics
• Creating multiple Lines Clears your board While it fills
your opponents.
• If you clear lines multiple times, You start a combo chain
to give your opponent even more lines.
• If your board fills, You are K.O.’d And your opponent gets
a K.O. Point.
• Whoever has more K.O. Points or in case of a tie on K.O.
Points whoever has cleared more lines, Wins the battle.
My Opinion
• Does have energy system to stop you from
playing non-stop. Sushi Piece Style.
• Does allow for micro-transactions for small
competitive edges.
• All in all, Fun Competitive Tetris is alright in my
book.
A Casual Case Study
By: Michael Davis
Michael Davis
•
•
•
•
20 year old, 3rd year Game Design Student
From Athens, GA
Been playing video games since I was a child
First got into coding in High School North
Oconee High School
• First Game: Pokemon Red
• Current game: Counter Strike: Global Offensive
• Looking forward to Borderlands 2
Motivation
• Evil Wizard attacks your castle and steals a
powerful crystal from your king.
• He also kidnaps all of the princesses and
goves them to his evil allies.
• As a loyal knight you go after him to reclaim
the kings crystal and bring the evil wizard to
justice for his crimes.
Mechanics
• Choose a knight and defeat hordes of
enemies in a fun easy to learn hack and slash
environment.
• Use sword magic or bow to fight evil.
• Very easy to learn and get into, instant
gratification.
• More difficult game mode unlocked for the
more hardcore.
Opinion
• Over all a very enjoyable experience
• Its easy to learn but can be difficult to
complete the entire game a lot to do and a
good amount of fun challenges.
• Tons of replay ability
• 4 player multi player so friends can join in,
Local and online
Courtney Bortle
• Senior in CGDD program
• Educational-Serious Games
• Game: Harvest Moon FoMT
Harvest Moon
Motivation
Motivation – Nurturing, “flow”, upgrading,
unlocking achievements, making money
Mechanics – Farming, taking care of animals,
befriending neighbors, mining, fishing, cooking
Opinion
Opinion – Great game, addictive, more playable hours than
most RPGs, many options for player, small map, large scope
SUP!
A Ryan Silvera Production
STUFF!
WHAT?
Air Control
by Four Pixels
•
•
•
•
Puzzler
$2.99
> 500,000 Downloads
4.7 out of 5.0
HOW? & WHY?
• Air crafts will move in an initial direction until dictated
otherwise by the player using the pathing system.
• Landing the air crafts in designated areas increase
score
• Air crafts are different sizes, colors and move at
different speeds
• YOU CRASH! YOU LOSE!
CONFETTI!
.;*\(^o^)/*;.
• Chaos management is fun! (Remember “Diner Dash?”)
• Skill is directly equally to length of individual play
throughs (Players will know if they are doing well)
• The ability to have a full experience in small chunks
• Urges you to play again to do better than your previous
game
“This game is not fun!” – Satan
Noel Lines
The Impossible Game
• The Impossible Game was an Xbox Live Indie
Game that has been adapted to mobile
platforms.
• In the game you control a square on the
screen which scrolls along as you play.
• It is designed to be a difficult platform game
requiring critical timing of jumps to progress.
• http://www.flukedude.com/theimpossiblega
me/
Motivation
• There is only one major mechanic, jumping.
• There is a practice mode you can toggle on or
off in the game which lets you resume from
checkpoints you may set as you play along.
• With practice mode off, the game plays
excellent music tracks that suit the timing of
jumps in the level.
Mechanics
• The is only one button in normal mode, then
jump button.
• In practice mode, you can also place flags as
checkpoints as you move through the level.
• Each of the levels uses music with tempos
befitting the pacing of jumps and other
hazards within the game.
Opinion
• The Impossible Game is casual in the sense
that it doesn’t take very long to play a given
session.
• It is very challenging playing in normal mode,
but also very rewarding hearing the music as
you progress through each level.