Casualizing Point and Click Adventures article at Gamasutra

[GarageGothic]

Whatever our personal tastes, I think the main communication disconnect in this thread is the failure to acknowledge that we are not the intended audience of these games, or at least not the primary one. Terran's phobia of all things glittery aside (though it is a fascinating topic - my current hypothesis is that was molested by a glam rocker), we're basically arguing - metaphorically speaking - whether or not training wheels are a valid aid in learning to ride a bike:
There's one side saying "hey, if it gets more kids riding bikes, of course it's a good thing", and another one arguing "I taught myself to ride a bike perfectly fine without training wheels, so why shouldn't the kids of today suffer the same falls and bruises I did?", possibly with a hint of paranoia that "if we let the kids use training wheels, soon all bikes will come equipped with them". Sounds silly? I totally agree.

[Monsieur OUXX]

. . .

Good analysis of the discussion. My thesis is that both sides are off topic. My thesis is that casual gaming is a paradigm led by economics, not artists. Therefore, our opinions (whatever our side) will eventually be worthless.

If I take your post:
- we are not the intended audience of these games. Very true. We're what I called "the experts" in my very first post.
- we're basically arguing whether or not training wheels are valid in learning to ride a bike. That's indeed the argument here. But that's not the right argument. IMHO, casual gaming is not only about the aid offered, but about the whole gameplay. It's something outside the game. The bikes we're talking about don't exist yet, but they're coming. And they won't even look like a bike. And they won't be designed by bike designers.

And the hint of paranioa you mentionned doesn't help having a clear vision.

[denimtrousers]

molested by a glam rocker

Gary Glitter strikes again!

casual gaming is a paradigm led by economics, not artists

This is exactly it. The ones concerned about reaching a wider audience aren't interested in introducing gamers to a new genre, they're interested in cash. If it's easy to churn out, market, sell, and make a profit -- and if it has a shiny achievements system to goad gamers along -- then game developers will be far keener on producing games like these, than another King's Quest VI.

Naturally, the ones who feel adventure games should remain undiluted, challenging, and lacking needless particle effects aren't worried so much about making a profit. Their main concern is creating a game that will speak to the interests of other equally involved adventure game fans.

There's nothing saying any of us even need to play Emerald City Confidential or Jolly Rover. (I took a crack at the demo, by the way, and was growing increasingly frustrated by the pseudo pirate jabber they insisted on having all two voice actors mumble about with. Not at all impressed; I would never pay for a game like that.) Those games aren't intended for us, as GarageGothic pointed out. They're intended for Internet gamers who don't mind shelling out a few quid/bucks/euros for an easy, feast-for-the-senses game to kill a few minutes between meetings and during lunch.

[Gravity]

Hm, well I think a lot of views have been expressed in this topic. They are all right and none are wrong. That is the beauty of opinion. I've expressed about as much as I wish to at this point and all I have left to say is... MOO!

[GarageGothic]

My problem with your argument, M. OUXX, is that you seem to perceive casual games as some sort of homogeneous entity designed by marketing people and molded into its most commercially viable form through focus group testing. But who says they have to be? They're small games that don't require a huge investment or a large team, in fact you'll have a lot better chance as an indie developer to compete in the casual market than against "hardcore" games with their next-gen graphics  and jaded audience.

If you're only in it for the profit, of course you will make something that's as appealing as possible. But just because you can make more money as a prostitute than flipping burgers doesn't mean that fast food places have to close because their employees are out in the street selling their bodies. A lot of developers DO take pride in their games, and DO have standards that they won't compromise. Maybe they won't move quite as many units, but at least their games will be out there for people to buy, on Steam or through the App Store or whatever.
Personally I see the casual games market as a great opportunity to innovate and make games that are simply fun to play instead of trying to satisfy an existing audience with preconceived notions of what a game in a certain genre should look and play like. It's too late to begin to worry about commercial interest dictating game design - that already happened 20 years ago, my friend. Now, perhaps we're getting a chance to start anew - please don't piss all over it.

Edit: The last comment wasn't directed at M. OUXX in particular, just the naysayers in general.

[Igor Hardy]

My thesis is that both sides are off topic.  

So what is the topic and what are the sides? The thread started with "An interesting read..." + a link to the article.

My thesis is that casual gaming is a paradigm led by economics, not artists. Therefore, our opinions (whatever our side) will eventually be worthless.

Economics - true, but to a large degree artists as well. Well, simple clones of Bejeweled and HOGs can be recreated from templates, but artists are useful when anything new needs to be done. Not because of their artistry, but because they are driven and passionate about what they create. If you will try making a game for the casual gamers while looking down on them and just thinking about the profit, you won't make a game that can be enjoyed.

...in fact you'll have a lot better chance as an indie developer to compete in the casual market than against "hardcore" games with their next-gen graphics  and jaded audience.

Nope the situation you mention is from several years ago. The casual market is as competitive as the hardcore now, and the casual gamers are more easily manipulated by marketing and even less interested in innovation than other players. To make money from casual portals which take 80% of profits (and which are the heart of casual gaming) you have to sell copies on a truly massive scale. Forget the word "niche".

The 3 Cards To Midnight games from Tex Murphy creators were a commercial failure, the Casebook games have been turning into more traditional adventure games as the adventure game fans were more supportive of the series than the casual gamers. Hardcore (sic!) casual gamers don't care about your innovative and simply fun to play games at all. Your best bet for finding an indie games audience is people like you find them in this thread - some of which enjoy playing casual games among other things, but who aren't casual gamers per se.

[Monsieur OUXX]

My problem with your argument, M. OUXX, is that you seem to perceive casual games as some sort of homogeneous entity designed by marketing people and molded into its most commercially viable form through focus group testing.

Yes, that's the definition I chose. It was a choice. I assumed from the beginning that we were talking about the kind of "casual gaming" that's accepted by the very same people who invented that term (communicants and marketers of the video-games industry).
As a reminder, a "standard" casual game (as understood by those people) is based on very few golden rules :
1/ Attractive immediately (no learning curve and an appealing feel),
2/ Addictive (there's a whole theory about that: a) Small, easily reachable goals, b) Apparently increasing rewards, c) Unreachable, distant goals)
3/ Can be interrupted any time (players should be able to easily switch in and out of the game's context - both the plot and the actual application).

There are small games that don't require a huge investment or a large team, in fact you'll have a lot better chance as an indie developer to compete in the casual market than against "hardcore" games

Yes, but there you broaden your scope. You're talking about Indie games in general. And then, inside Indie games, there are those that are casual and those that are not. Most of them have a strong casual factor, though:
They're "attractive immediately" (golden rule #1 above). How? For 2 reasons:
1/ Because they appear on a catalog. You see a picture and a description, and you buy it, like you'd buy a cheap gadget.
2/ Because, very often, they're light and it'll be very quick to download and run them.

Allow me to repeat that I'm not saying that all Indie Games are casual. Quite the opposite. The concepts must not be confused.

A lot of developers DO take pride in their games, and DO have standards that they won't compromise. Maybe they won't move quite as many units, but at least their games will be out there for people to buy, on Steam or through the App Store or whatever.

Exactly. And for that, they have to fit in an industry standard: light games, hosted on a standardized platform, that appear on an endless catalog.
It seems like an opportunity to innovate. My opinion is that it's indeed like a Renaissance of the creativity in the video games, but it will be a short one. Read below why.

You pointed out that commercial interest forced standards 20 years ago. I'd say it happened more recently, when video games went past the stage where a guy could create a blockbuster alone in his garage (I exclude the world of consoles, that moved at a completely different pace). Let's say it happened 10 years ago.
My point here is that this scenario always happens in 2 steps:
1/ Nexus of creativity, when everybody can create something and has a different idea of innovation
2/ the industry eventually understands the underlying mechanisms, creates a mould, and starts mass production

At the moment we are on the verge of phase 2, after what I'd call the "broadband renaissance": the industry has just understood 2 things:
1/ It's no use investing a lot of money immediately. Add downloadable contents if the game is a success (think of TellTale games)
2/ Flood the gamers with contents of averagely lower quality. For that, use Indie games makers, amongst other things. It's not by chance that Gabe Newell opened Steam to Indie games. The very existence of Steam depends on content.

The industry calls for content (whatever its quality), to sustain consumption. Not the opposite. Consumers would be better off with a slower pace and high-quality products. But they're force-fed with "games contents", like they've been force-fed with "TV contents" with the arrival of cable and satellite. Just like "casual gaming", the word "content" is a word invented by the industry for the industry.


The conclusion of what I wrote is that, once again, I'd love to see high-quality games. And I'd love to raise the intellectual challenge of games.
But I'm pointing out that the mutation that's happening now is out of control. It's good AND bad at the same time. If, like me, you think that consumerism is the plague of humanity, then you'll find it mostly bad. Casual gaming is an opportunity for a few artists to make better games BUT the very nature of what's happening will also pull the quality down (especially in the case of those games strongly relying on an immersive plot, like Adventure games -- because it obviously conflicts with casual gaming's golden rule "easily in and out").

Both will happen at the same time. And good games will be hidden by a mass of mediocre games. And they will still be adventure games -- but casualadventure games. Not necessarily Indie, but necessarily casual.

[GarageGothic]

I don't have the energy to argue all this, though I do appreciate your detailed reply. I think we have quite opposing views of the quality of casual games vs. adventure games. As I said earlier in the thread, I have no love for adventure games in their current form, whereas I quite enjoy well-designed casual games. I can't really see how the idea of casual adventure games is any worse than today's mediocre - and certainly no less profit oriented - attempts at the genre by low-budget Eastern European developers.

I'm by no means saying that all games can or should be made to follow the casual game "rules" you define, but to me all of them sound like good advice, also for non-casual developers to consider.

[TerranRich]

Adventure games have always been evolving, and continue to evolve to this day. Today's adventure games tend to use simpler controls, whereas games of the past used multiple action icons, verb coins, or even text parsers.

I just don't see the point in trying to mold an adventure game to also market to casual gamers. You inevitable end up losing most of the finer points that made it an adventure game, and it becomes something else entirely. I'm not saying the end result is a bad thing per se, but it's no longer a true adventure game. Any more than taking the shooting out of an FPS and adding in puzzle-solving would still make it an FPS (unless that stood for F__ing Pacifist Solver).

My second point was that over-simplifying things in a tutorial can sometimes go too far. I found the tutorial in The Blackwell Legacy to be perfect. You start off in front of your apartment, and the in-game text tells you to talk to the guy standing in your way. After you do, it's pointed out that Rosangela has an inventory item, and tells you what to do from there.

Also, there are some things that a player should be able to figure out on his/her own, but at the same time the game must make things easier on the player. If I didn't know intuitively how to put away an inventory item, I'd try several things... Escape button, right-click, going back up to the inventory and clicking on the item a second time... it can be argued that it is up to the game designer to make all three (and more) options the correct one.

There's nothing wrong with providing in-game hints, gameplay tutorials, and multiple correct UI options to the player... but there's a balance that must be struck between telling the player to figure it out his-damn-self, and holding them by the hand and rewarding them with a treat for every little action.

[Monsieur OUXX]

I don't have the energy to argue all this, though I do appreciate your detailed reply. I think we have quite opposing views of the quality of casual games vs. adventure games. As I said earlier in the thread, I have no love for adventure games in their current form, whereas I quite enjoy well-designed casual games. I can't really see how the idea of casual adventure games is any worse than today's mediocre - and certainly no less profit oriented - attempts at the genre by low-budget Eastern European developers.

I'm by no means saying that all games can or should be made to follow the casual game "rules" you define, but to me all of them sound like good advice, also for non-casual developers to consider.

Thanks to you too, even though we don't agree, your posts were all of great quality. Hey, wait a minute. I believe other people are reading our conversation!

[Ali]

My thesis is that both sides are off topic. My thesis is that casual gaming is a paradigm led by economics, not artists. Therefore, our opinions (whatever our side) will eventually be worthless.

I just want to respond to this point with the old economic determinism card. All commercially produced cultural artefacts are shaped, and in many cases defined by economic forces. The Hollywood studio system of the 40s and 50s was certainly led by economic forces. However, artistic and social forces also influenced its output and it produced many very great films (and many bad ones of course).

A moneymaking opportunity has arisen because of the appearance of a new market for games. There's no reason some of those games shouldn't be very good.

[Calin Leafshade]

RT is totally right when he talks about minimalism in the interface. if there is *any*genre that demands minimalism then its this one.
The more simple and intuitive the interface, the greater the immersion.

The genre doesn't demand anything specific. You're just projecting your likes on it, and saying that this is how it must be done.

Also, you have apparently changed your mind from a couple of months ago when you put a verbcoin in your game and didn't see that it goes against "the genre's demands".

Immersion is a key part of adventure games (we have it listed as something to rate in the games database) If the screen is covered in widgets and doohickeys or you have to navigate a complex menu then that reminds you that you are playing a game and thus it breaks the immersion.

and yes I did have a verb coin for mccarthy but i have since abandoned that... although mccarthy still had a very minimalistic interface without the gui taking up a good third of the screen like SCUMM does.

[NSM]

My thesis is that both sides are off topic. My thesis is that casual gaming is a paradigm led by economics, not artists. Therefore, our opinions (whatever our side) will eventually be worthless.

I just want to respond to this point with the old economic determinism card. All commercially produced cultural artefacts are shaped, and in many cases defined by economic forces. The Hollywood studio system of the 40s and 50s was certainly led by economic forces. However, artistic and social forces also influenced its output and it produced many very great films (and many bad ones of course).

A moneymaking opportunity has arisen because of the appearance of a new market for games. There's no reason some of those games shouldn't be very good.

This is a fantastic point and something I was thinking throughout my reading of this thread.  Creativity is almost always curtailed to some extent by market considerations.  Games that fail to take into account what the market wants are often horribly frustrating, and I think this is a part of what lead to the death of adventure games.  The Sierra games were absolutely merciless, killing you without rational reason or warning and I'm pretty sure that many of you have read the Old Man Murray article on Gabriel Knight III.

"Casual gamers," are not drooling idiots and it's pretty unfair to say they are because they never figured out that you needed the cat hair for a mustache.  I remember starting one of the Kings Quest games when I was younger, walking into a forest and then being devoured by some tree.  I quit the game right there because to hell with being killed by trees.

[Igor Hardy]

Immersion is a key part of adventure games (we have it listed as something to rate in the games database) If the screen is covered in widgets and doohickeys or you have to navigate a complex menu then that reminds you that you are playing a game and thus it breaks the immersion.

That's like saying that seeing the letters-filled pages of a book breaks the immersion of reading it, or that large pixels in pixel art ruin the image that they are supposed to represent. IT's true that complex on-screen interfaces can sometimes break the immersion, but only in cases when the interfaces done in a way that makes no sense. As a side note, I must say I'm always very impressed by the interfaces in your games (especially in Mccarthy). I notice that a lot of effort went into getting them visually pleasing and smoothly working, but that's the thing - I do notice their existence while playing, yet I am really happy in how perfectly they fit with the rest of the games.

Besides, if we are referring strictly to casualization , then it doesn't have anything to do with getting rid of widgets and doohickeys from your screen - casual games often add a lot more of those actually (+ immersion-breaking sparkles). For example, Telltale is determined to keep one mouse button controls in their games, but do want to offer more interactivity, so now you have a lot of additional buttons in their inventory windows (in TOMI and the new Sam & Max). If anything, it's Grim Fandango did give the best shot at getting rid of the on-screen interface and hardly anyone cared. Grim's keyboard controls felt intuitive enough to me just as well. But then again writing commands in parsers also feels intuitive to me. And my hands are more and more tired of using the mouse so I'm very happy to put it aside whenever I'm able to.

[Dualnames]

RT is totally right when he talks about minimalism in the interface. if there is *any*genre that demands minimalism then its this one.
The more simple and intuitive the interface, the greater the immersion.

The genre doesn't demand anything specific. You're just projecting your likes on it, and saying that this is how it must be done.

Also, you have apparently changed your mind from a couple of months ago when you put a verbcoin in your game and didn't see that it goes against "the genre's demands".

Immersion is a key part of adventure games (we have it listed as something to rate in the games database) If the screen is covered in widgets and doohickeys or you have to navigate a complex menu then that reminds you that you are playing a game and thus it breaks the immersion.

and yes I did have a verb coin for mccarthy but i have since abandoned that... although mccarthy still had a very minimalistic interface without the gui taking up a good third of the screen like SCUMM does.

Referring to McCarthy Calin has a point. The only part that the immersion broke was with the inventory on top of the screen. And occasionally with the verb coin (it had a timer unless I'm mistaken)

[blueskirt]

I've always found completely ludicrous this idea that all interfaces should be as minimal or as justified in-game as possible else it breaks the immersion. Interfaces do not ruin immersion, annoyances and frustrations do. Sparkles and messages boxes after every action broke your immersion because they annoyed/surprised you, not because they were visible.

Interfaces should be as intuitive as possible, sometimes it means less, sometimes it means more, sometimes it means better manage/implement the interface you currently have. An interface can occupy half of the screen, if it's intuitive, informative and doesn't get in the way of the game, you won't mind it, on the other hand, an unintuitive minimal interface, or one where you hide vital informations from your players for the sake of minimalism, will frustrate your players and remind them for a moment that they're playing a game.

[Dualnames]

Douglas Adams once wrote a great article on text parsers and how to write the best parser. I haven't been able to find it today, but I've come across it many times. About Starship Titanic he said that he always wondered why would programmers choose point and click interface instead of evolve interactivity levels. He referred to the point and click as the equivalent to banging the rocks.

[Anian]

Douglas Adams once wrote a great article on text parsers and how to write the best parser. I haven't been able to find it today, but I've come across it many times. About Starship Titanic he said that he always wondered why would programmers choose point and click interface instead of evolve interactivity levels. He referred to the point and click as the equivalent to banging the rocks.

And as the quality of the parser might be (as far as I remember it was at least pretty funny), that game was hard, I mean talk about not knowing what you have to do, random things doing radnom things and the whole thing being timed....

[Dualnames]

we agree, but at least the theory was great enough. And the article was really great.

[GarageGothic]

While I love Douglas Adams' writing, I don't really trust his opinions as a games designer. Have you played LucasFilm's Labyrinth?

Adams really liked the word "adumbrate", a rather obscure verb meaning "To prefigure indistinctly; foreshadow". So it ended up on the verb list. This obscure word was used in an even more obscure puzzle at one point in the game â€" you had to "adumbrate the elephant" when you were stuck in a prison, and an elephant would come and break a hole in the wall, freeing you.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth:_The_Computer_Game

And people bitch about the cat hair mustache...