[casual_games] Use of keyboard on casual games

[Pedro Honório Silva]

I totally agree with Oscar here.

I know that Publishers/Distributors tend to “only bet on the winning horse”,
which include really simple (yet amusing) games for their audience.
Therefore the independent game developer companies tend to develop games
that they often don’t really enjoy doing just to satisfy the market’s
apparent desires.

 

However, we at Ignite believe that an increasing number of people is getting
more interested on different kinds of games, less simple, yet still amusing
and entertaining. And many of those games have the need to use the keyboard
or even a mixture of mouse and keyboard. 

 

Telling me that the 40 year old woman that plays casual games doesn’t know
how to play a game using the keyboard is kind of hard to believe. Even more
when several good (and successful) games out there use the keyboard as their
primary input.

 

What I feel is that, as Oscar said, being a design issue, it should be left
to the game designer to decide what way is better to play the game. Imposing
these type of rules will only accomplish two things: independent game
developers continue to develop games they don’t like just to make some cash
cows; at some point in time we’ll have a subset of the casual market where
we’ll have “not-so-casual” games (pc downloadable) for different audiences
(which actually will be the same people looking for different games).

 

Honestly, such rules is clearly Publishers/Distributors rules and not game
developers’. It will most likely level down the quality and variety of the
games in the casual space. Leaving little space for innovation and new forms
of gameplay. Or even worse, it’s a huge investment on “keep-doing-clones”
strategy that many game developers follow.

 

Just my 2 cents


 

Pedro Honório Silva

Chief Financial Officer

 

Ignite Games

Rua Cova da Moura, nº 2 - 2º Dto.

1350-117 Lisboa, Portugal

T: +351 212 427 695 - M: +351 933 465 985

pedro.silva at ignite-games.com

www.ignite-games.com

 

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of oscar oscar
Sent: quarta-feira, 30 de Maio de 2007 18:22
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Use of keyboard on casual games

 

There are NO  established rules that dictate a USER INTERFACE.  

Nor SHOULD there be. 

IT IS a conversation between the game DESIGNER and the game PLAYER.... and
that palaver is moderated by the DESIGN and INTERFACE... ANYONE who throws
out RULES about how "This is GOOD" and "That is BAD" is taking steps to
reduce the language by which we converse with those who would join us in the
interaction. 

A designer would be wise to include as many viable options to join that
conversation in the design phase... 

Design Permitting of course. 

oscar

On 5/30/07, Andy Fitter <andy at morpheme.co.uk> wrote:

I think either can be acceptable, many games only real work well with one
and not the other. What your design should avoid, as it's one of the most
painful experiences ever for me, is a game that is 98% mouse driven but then
requires you to press space to exit a menu screen for example, or entirely
cursor key driven but requires you to click a button with the mouse to start
each new level etc. 

 

Forcing the user to un-intuitively switch input methods to continue is has
to be one of the worst design 'features' you see in casual games, and you
see it far too often.

 

Andy.

 

 

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Juan Gril
Sent: 30 May 2007 15:50
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Use of keyboard on casual games

 

Keyboard control is well accepted on web games (because of their audience),
although i find that even those web games that use mouse control have a
better acceptance.

You are absolutely right that it is a design decision, so it is important to
design the game for the right channel. 

Cheers,

Juan

On 5/30/07, Jose Marin <jose_marin2 at yahoo.com.br> wrote:

Hi.

 

This question could look a little silly, but I think it's very important:

Every casual game must allow the user control the game via mouse, or it's ok
to use the keyboard to that?

 

It's a design decision, because some kinds of games could be more playable
using the keyboard.

 

What do you think about this?

 

Regards

 

Jose


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