Casual Game Tutorial — Simplification of Casual Games from 5 Aspects
As casual games gained popularity in China only not long ago, there are a limited number of best-case examples to learn from. As such, the best practices for casual games might be unfamiliar to game development teams with experience working on more hardcore games. Therefore, we would like to shed light on what the simplification of casual games means.
Simplification can be broken down into 3 sensory perspectives, namely “how it looks”, “how it plays”, and “how it feels”. It can also be broken down into 5 aspects, namely “UI simplification”, “game mode simplification”, “game goal simplification”, “game strategy simplification”, and “art style simplification”.
“How it looks” refers to the UI and art style aspects, “how it plays” refers to the gameplay and objective aspects, and “how it feels” refers to the strategy aspect.
We will now go through the details of these 5 aspects.
UI Simplification📱
“Stereotypes” exist even in the gaming industry. When the top right-hand corner is covered in a row of icons, for example, 7-day carnival, Entry pass, and Events, then the gaming UI must be complicated.
Amount of Information Obtained in a Certain Amount of Time
The less data players need to focus on, the simpler the game will be
The UI itself is designed to serve the system functions. There is no set limit to the amount of content that cannot be put into the UI. It merely depends on the UI design. As a hardcore game system is usually much more complicated, the UI has to contain a large amount of content and information. For example, if a piece of equipment contains 20 parameters, you have to put all 20 parameters into the UI. Miss any 1 parameter and it will cause the players who have dug into their pockets for the game to feel deceived.
On the other hand, casual games have fewer subsystems and do not require players to keep pursuing higher stats. The gameplay of casual games is relatively straightforward. When most of the general players do not care about stat improvement, the pressure on the UI will naturally be less.
Moreover, since single-player casual games do not contain competition among players, there is no direct comparison and quantification of strength. Players would not mind whether a weapon’s attack is 100 or 134.
Their expectations can be met easily as long as the UI has certain key parameters. As a result, the UI will become simpler and cleaner, which is what we call simplification.
So, what are “key parameters”? To put it in a nutshell, key parameters are the parameters that help players decide what is strong or weak, good or bad, superior or inferior, such as attack boost and legendary gear.
Game Mode Simplification🕹
A straightforward gameplay without requiring any techniques and skills is the core of current casual games.
The Principle of Parsimony — Never Add Unnecessary Game Modes
Hardcore games need players to spend a great amount of time in the game so as to increase their paying user rate. Therefore, current hardcore games have already included countless core gameplays. An action game can contain different mini-games or idle gameplay. You can enjoy all things you want so long as you start the game.
A variety of systems are coordinated and interact with each other, and players will find that it is very complicated and hard to experience everything in the game.
But casual games do not need to be, and never should be that complicated.
Here is one of the players’ expectations. Gamers download a casual game because they want to have simple fun. However, many of them do not expect to play it for a whole day, or even several months as they believe this kind of fun will not last long. (Turning this expectation into a long-lasting enthusiasm is our objective.)
Apart from the necessary game features and core gameplay, casual games do not need excessive features to retain their players. Adding the proper amount of game modes can help to slow down the player’s pace of progress, while adding too many game modes does not much more than increasing the development cost.
It takes a great amount of effort to link every game mode to the main story even though this can achieve a higher participation rate.
That said, reducing the game modes could negatively impact participation rates and cause cost increases.
As a result, the game mode of casual games is best to be presented as a straight line.
As shown in the picture above, core gameplay (as the essence of the game) provides the most fun. Core resources are used to control output and create advertisement slots. The combat medium, as a subject for development, is used to navigate the core gameplay and affects player performance.
If you want to enrich it, build off of the original storyline. You should not add anything outside the main story unless it is necessary, otherwise, it may become a burden to the players.
Most of the fun comes at a certain cost. It is worthwhile to add part of the burdens if it can improve the game quality.
Game Goal Simplification🎯
Gamers only want to play a game. It is possible that they do not want to take many things into consideration, so the game goals have to be simplified.
Simple & Direct
Simplification of game goals is currently the most common first step to simplifying a casual game. Making the game goals simpler can help to encourage players to continue playing by making the game appear less complex.
Take a game design that is not simplified enough as an example. Many games require players to replay previous stages over and over again for the replay value. But where is the fun in that? So the development teams have added different features such as stage challenges, 3-star ratings, no-damage requirements, time limits, and so on. For hardcore gamers, these features have a certain appeal, which is not true for some casual gamers (as they cannot handle all goals in one round of the game).
If some developers believe that it is necessary to add several goals for the more demanding players, they can design reasonable settings or thresholds to unlock these goals, while ensuring that casual gamers are presented with simple and direct goals in the early stages.
Regarding the content, simple and straightforward goals mean aspects of simplicity, not a lack of content. Take RPG as an example, players can pursue different equipment and equipment stats, which meets the requirement of simple and direct aspects. But if, in addition to equipment, you add talent points, skill books, and pets, the aspects of complexity will be greatly increased.
What is fun is not necessarily the most appropriate.
Game Strategy Simplification💡
A game without challenges cannot retain players, but a casual game is not meant to have extremely hard challenges. To retain most of the players, we need to develop different strategic layers for them.
Playable for Novice, Thrilling for Veterans
Although the development cost of casual games is relatively low, it does not mean that casual games can be made in a perfunctory manner. A simple strategy can ensure beginners have a good experience. Without any strategies, the long-term gameplay experience will be terrible. We need to take into consideration both the experience of most casual players and the feelings of active veteran players.
Therefore, strategies are an indispensable part of a game. The simplification of strategy should be Playable for Novice, Thrilling for Veterans.
“Playable for Novice”:
Each excellent design requires comprehension cost from a player, but not all players can afford it. In regard to the tutorial and difficulty design, if players can advance in the game and feel amusement through the basic tutorial, they can enjoy the core gameplay even without touching the subsystems (watching advertisements to solve obstacles they encounter).
“Thrilling for Veterans”:
To accustom general players to the game, the overall strategy in the early stages should be easier. Requiring players to be more strategic in the middle and later stages can give active players a sense of achievement. Common obstacles can be solved by watching advertisements. Once players reach the middle and later stages, strategies can speed up their progress and give them something worth pursuing. As a result, players will have something they personally want to get and more advertisements can be added to the game.
Art Style Simplification🎨
Adopt an understandable art style that can express the theme.
Tailor-Made Designs to Avoid Risks
The art style also requires extra attention. Its purpose is to serve the theme, but for most products, a confirmed worldview will basically decide the overall art style. In China’s casual game market, we should avoid bringing the players a sense of déjà vu for hardcore games. We recommend avoiding art styles that are noticeably ‘western’. An art style should be localized and should not test the aesthetic sense of or place a burden on the user. Low poly, pixelation, and rubber people are common art styles for casual games. Although they are more “down to earth”, their level of expressiveness is not completely sufficient as they are unable to show many details. As a baseline for casual game art, these art styles may not be able to compete with the art of top games, but they do certainly have lower development costs, rendering them still usable.
Conclusion
Ohayoo looks forward to hearing your opinions, and truly hope that our tutorial can act as an inspiration to help you step foot into the gaming industry! For more information about Ohayoo, please follow us and contact us by email if you have any inquiries.
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