The Globalization of Casual Games

Photo courtesy of Casual Games Association

Recently members of the casual games industry convened in Kyiv, Ukraine, for the 4th annual Casual Connect Kyiv conference.  The Casual Connect conference series is sponsored by the Casual Games Association and brings developers, publishers and distributors of casual games together for three days of presentations and meetings.  Other Casual Connect meetings occur throughout the year in Seattle and Western Europe (historically Amsterdam or Hamburg).

Game Analysis: Rock Band 2

“We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.” – Donald “Duck” Dunn, The Blues Brothers

Gene Simmons I'm not.

We’re in London tonight. Last week was Boston, but we took a couple of nights off to rest up. Our record label recently bought us a private jet based on our success; some would say damn huskies has made it, but the pressure is higher than ever. We still sell-out houses, but the band isn’t content playing the same old sets; we are playing increasingly challenging music.

Tonight, Debbie Lou, our drummer, insists we play a 4-song set of Boston songs. We start off with “More Than a Feeling”, a good warm-up for both us and the crowd. Halfway through the song the audience is singing along with us – that’s a great feeling.

We segue into “Rock & Roll Band”, playing nearly flawlessly. Next up is “Smokin”. I’m getting tired, and my fingers are getting out of sync; Debbie Lou’s getting tired, too. I blow a couple of runs, but pull off a decent solo, winning the crowd back. We end up on a high note with a big finish, delighting the crowd.

World Report: Champions Online

Millennium City Under Attack!

Calamity has struck the city of the future!  The extraterrestrial race of insectoids known as the Qularr has unleashed a devastating surprise attack on Millennium City, cordoning off areas by force field and launching a full scale assault.  The Champions Headquarters, “Homestead,” was the first strategic location to fall.  The Champions were taken by surprised, scattered, and the leader of the Champions, Defender, is nowhere to be found.  Civic law enforcement, even with the help of PRIMUS, has its hands full trying to keep civilians safe.

This is Millennium City’s most desperate hour.  If the city is to survive, it is going to need a hero.

Fortunately, you just happen to be in the neighborhood… (1)

Casual Game Cloning

Casual games first appeared in the 1990s as browser-based games that were simple to learn and free to play.  They were small in file size so that the Web page loaded quickly.  As a result they were not complex games, but focused on simple designs, reusing art assets and sound effects to create randomized levels that increased in difficulty.  One of PopCap’s early games, Bejeweled, was a simple game that involved swapping gems to create groups of three or more matching gems on a grid, eliminating them from the playing field.

Screenshot from Bejeweled

Who Put the Crack in Evercrack and World of Warcrack?

A massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that takes place online.  After installing the game onto the user’s computer, playing the game requires an Internet connection to a hosted server facility.  This server farm tracks the user’s interaction within the game and communicates these actions to other users playing that same game.

When a player walks up to another character in game, that character is either another player (a “PC” – player character) or a computer controlled character (a “NPC” – non-player character).  The resulting interaction occurs on all systems nearby and the state is often persistent.  For example, if you and I are standing in front of a bear in the game environment, we both see that bear on our respective monitors.  If I attack and kill the bear, you see my character swing a sword in a series of animations and the bear fighting back.  After the bear is killed, if any other user comes to that spot, there is no longer a living bear to interact with; it is either a dead bear or (more likely) nothing – the server has disposed of the object after a short period to prevent clutter.