Shrapnel Games Blog

Continuing from yesterday on why casual doesn’t necessarily mean crap…

Over the years as the genres in gaming have grown so has the need to label them. This in itself is not a bad thing, as we all have varying tastes in games and it makes finding games that we might enjoy that much easier. What is a bad thing though is that unfortunately many view the various genres as purely black and white, when in truth they represent various shades of gray. For example, Air Assault Task Force is a real-time game that also happens to deal in strategy, yet calling it a RTS game conjures up a certain expectation to your average gamer. Joe Q. Gamer will therefore be quite surprised that AATF does not play like say, Company of Heroes, yet there is nothing wrong with calling it a real-time strategy game, because that’s exactly what it is.

One genre that is extremely pigeonholed is that of casual gaming. Sprouting up a few years ago with endless variations of match-three gameplay, it’s easy to understand why the label was applied. The games are easily understood, don’t involve a heavy time commitment (learning and playing), and are aimed at the “casual” gamer; soccer moms, bored office drones, et cetera, who are simply looking for a quick diversion. They are also the bane of independent games because to the outsider (i.e. non-hardcore), casual games tend to be lumped in the same category as indie gaming, which to some is akin to equating your kid’s fingerpaintings with the works of Jackson Pollock.

The casual versus indie debate is a long running one, and considering the gigabytes of text that has already been written on the subject, a debate that I won’t get into on the blog today. Instead, I wanted to bring up one aspect of the debate that often seems missing, that being that you can be casual but that doesn’t mean you are casual. Clear as mud, right?

Both Weird Worlds and Land of Legends are casual games. Each plays out in under an hour. Each is very easy to pick up and play, and each is highly accessible to a wide range of gamers. That being said, they are not casual in the sense that they do not involve matching gems, baubles, flowers, balloons, or famous arctic explorers in groups of three. They are not casual in that they are not aimed at the mom waiting for dinner to cook and looking for something to do online (that’s not to say mom wouldn’t enjoy them!). And most importantly they definitely don’t fit the casual profile of being yet another unimaginative clone following the herd.

There are many wonderful examples in the world of independent gaming in which the basic design is very much casual. Indie gaming doesn’t have to mean esoteric UIs, and extreme niche driven designs. This is why yesterday I said that casual does not have to mean bad. Too often though we forget that casual doesn’t always have to mean “portal casual”, but can just mean easy going and gamer friendly, with a dose of creative passion—which is what really makes the difference. Even genres that you could find on the portal sites tend to be transformed into something much more magical when indies tackle the subject.

So remember, being casual isn’t always a bad thing. What’s important is the meaning behind being casual.