Casual games

' Causal games will be considered the game possibly of pick up and play'


Venturelli states that causal gaming should be made up of short bursts of gameplay but enjoyable in the long run. 
As well as that they should have a polished mechanics, interface design, good balancing and close attention to detail.


In his article he gives us different 'ingreadants' that he thinks are important to casual gaming.


Pacing- ' The rhthem of a game. This 'crafts' the players experience to create different emotions. Much like in my older posts, where the designer can't  make player feel they way they want them to. They can only use the mechanics of the game to influence the player.


Related concepts within pacing:
-Threat- Where the player feels like they are in a sense of danger 
-Tension- perceived danger. the player becomes the weaker side of conflict
-Movement Impetus- The will/ desire of the player to move forward in the game level and not quit
-Tempo-The intensity of the game. The time taken between each decision  the player makes. the shorter the tempo, the more erractic the game.


Space of Possibility and Player Exercise:

Venturelli states that when we all play games, we sub-consionsly looking for a pattern. When  there are no more patterns to figure out there essentially is no more 'fun' in the casual games.

He uses the example of nouts and crosses, becasuse there is such a small area to play on, the game possibility outcome is very low and so you can easily get board, where as chess is quite the oppersite, there is not pattern (unless both players are using staragies). Another one would be connect four, you could essentially call it a much larger version of nout's and crosses, but because it has a larger  player space, both players have the large choice to use which ever space they want.

Venturelli then says that is the player is forced to take an action that doesn't let them asset every other possible outcome, it could leave the player feeling like they have missed something out in the game, leaving then to get angry, so instead of  forcing them to take an action, just limit the game space they are in. By limiting the space of possibility, which altogether limits the game Pattern, this makes the game clearer to the player.  If in one level you have to compete a certain mission, and to complete that mission you have to obtain a certain item, and to get it you have to talk to a person who lives somewhere far away and the only way to get there is a griffin. With all this going on in one level (in ca casual game) it would easily confuse the player, ad Venturelli said

'Casual games are meant to be fast and Organic'

To back up his statement he says that in each level, instead of adding or subtracting certain mechanics, you should replace. by replacing you would have a much smoother and related level to the one before.

Venturelli  studies the casual games of 'peggle' and 'Plants Vs Zombies' he states how they use the same ingredients  in each game to make is casual. In both games they have a level one which is pretty much impossible to lose at, these levels slowly introduce the players into the game with out a mass instruction tutorial, after each level it gets consecutively harder, and you get more weapons the higher the level.

Because of these ingredients they create a perceivable pattern of continuous play meaning that in games once you realize a pattern and master it, in the next level there is still a pattern, which could be the same but with replaced mechanics, which could include new weapons, new enemies, life points. With these changes to the mechanics it makes the player want to complete the pattern/level essentially making them play longer.

From reading Venturelli article i wonder is all arcade games are causal games, they have a certain level which introduces you to the game mechanics, they are normally fast when you play and it defiantly has the perceivable pattern of continuous learning as it always manage's to make me pay £1 to play the game again