Casual Game Design Designing Play for the Gamer in All of Us - Sorting

Sorting

(Gregory Trefry, 101- 127)

We’re such experts at parsing information it’s no wonder we enjoy games that explicitly involve sorting. They enable us to practice a natural skill; they challenge our ability; they even help make us better at reading the world. 

Solitaire & Patience - sorting abstract symbols relevent only to the game

Drop 7 (Iphone)  - tiles numbers 1-7, goals is to organize them into order

Scrable, Bookworm & Wurdle - build words out of letters but sorting them

Sorting makes for natural casual gameplay as the player already possesses the necessary mental skill, Read - Parse & act upon information.

 Sorting extends the pleasure of matching. It takes the pleasure of pure matching and adds the idea of distinguishing and sequencing.

Managing Notes

Casual Game Design:Designing Play For The Gamer In All Of Us.

Gregory Trefry (p 139 - 154)

Fine line between work and play. Some games feature tasks we naturally enjoy but many games ask us to perform tasks that at first glance seem to be like playing with a excel spreadsheet.

Non digital games can only have a certain amount of things to manage at any given point as the players have a limit on how many they can manage. To many and the players will be become overwhelmed.

Video games have computers do a lot of the calculations for the player which opens up the opertunity for more variations of gameplay. RTS games ask the player to manage multiple variables at a time but are limited by how many the player can handle, where as turn based games can have many more as there is no thinking time.

Diner Dash - Timer management for each custormer, simple clicking input in the correct order to complete tasks.

Cake Mania - Timer based customers (same as Diner Dash) but adds in matching as you need to cook the correct food type for each customer then take it to them.

Managing Attention

Turn based and real time strategy games ask you to manage your own attention. They throw as many elements as they can at you and see at what point you simply cant keep up.

Insaniquarium - Players overwhelm themselves by the more fish they have, they are forced to manage each mechanic that the fish brings with it which means the player has control of how hard the game is to manage depending on how many fish they buy.

Seeking Notes

Come Out Come Out, Where Ever You Are

Craig Brannon - Casual Connect Fall 2009 (p 36-38)

A clear and crisp art style can help aid users in their recognition of items. Hiding objects in area's that are too dark is a mistake that will aggravate players. Items should be cleverly hidden but no unfairly so.

Placing items with items of similar shape or colour can camouflage the item without hiding to much of the time and still making it see able and recognizable.

Possible hint feature for games that have a limited amount of time or tries to find a object.

Timer modes possible with hidden object games but there should be a choice weither the user wants a timer based game or a relaxed non timer game.

Cut scene's can be used and usually are used in modern games to prgress the sotry forward but must be long enough to tell alittle story but not to long as to bore the player or make them antsy. Adding skip option for cut scene's is a good way to keep players happy.

Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in All of Us - Seeking

Gregory Trefry (p 129 - 137)

As games, they generally lack strategic depth. Instead of developing strategy, you find yourself reduced to squinting and cursing as you scan through a morass of illogical objects strewn about the game area.

The rules for a seek-and-find game are even simpler. You can boil them down to one rule: Find all of the listed objects before time runs out.

There can be real joy in this discovery, especially if the object is hard to find. You get the same feeling when you find your misplaced car keys or discover your sunglasses on top of your head after 10 minutes scouring your apartment. But you can’t deny that a lot of people enjoy the feeling. 

eventually, the games will evolve to a place where the players can take multiple logical paths to the same conclusion. They will be able to find a flashlight or a book of matches to find the light switch. This introduction of more varied choice will strengthen the gameplay hooks.

This dual processing will offer a more engaging experience. It will also allow the players to feel clever, creating what they believe are their own solutions