All The Tropes

Casual Video Game: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Casual Video Game (view source)

Revision as of 20:47, 2 August 2019

931 bytes removed ,  4 years ago
→‎Subgenres Include: -> into examples template
VisualWikitext
(→‎Subgenres Include: -> into examples template)
 
(12 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[Casual Video GamesGame]]s are video games that are primarily aimed at [[Gateway Series|people who don't tend to game much]]. These games are usually distributed online and come with a free hour-long trial. If they're lucky, these games could get a boxed version available for purchase at retail stores. Others are made specifically for consoles rather than PCs, or are made for non-gaming devices like cellular telephones and distributed over a telco's data service. Still more are Flash or Java in browser, meaning they can be played anywhere with a web browser that has the necessary plug-ins installed. Surprisingly, perhaps (at least to younger gamers), many of these games are the spiritual descendants of what was cutting edge in the 1980s, during the era of the great stand-up arcade games, proving that an immersive world, hardware-stretching graphics, and complex AI don't inherently mean great gameplay.
 
The ideal Casual Video Game should be simple and intuitive in its controls. It should also be something you can pick up, play for ten minutes, put back down again, and replay for years. Casual Games are designed to relieve boredom during short breaks, not occupy hours of time.
Line 9:
 
While casual games often get accused of [[It's Easy, So It Sucks|being too easy]], difficulty is not part of the definition. The game must be easy to ''learn'' to be considered casual, and be relatively simple by design. In terms of completion or mastery, some are easy, some are [[Surprise Difficulty|hard]], and some are [[Nintendo Hard]]. Some games also use [[Rank Inflation|platinum medals]] to entice the [[Challenge Gamer]].
----
=== Notable Games Include: ===
 
{{examples}}
* ''[[Angry Birds]]''
* ''[[Bejeweled (Video Game)|Bejeweled]]''
* ''[[Bloons Tower Defense (Video Game)|Bloons Tower Defense]]''
* ''[[Bookworm Adventures]]''
* ''[[Brain Age (Video Game)|Brain Age]]''
* ''[[Chuzzle (Video Game)|Chuzzle]]''
* ''[[Cooking Mama]]''
* ''[[Cut the Rope]]''
Line 23 ⟶ 22:
* ''[[Diner Dash]]''
* ''[[Doodle Jump]]''
* ''[[Find Mii (Video Game)|Find Mii]]''
* ''[[Gratuitous Space Battles (Video Game)|Gratuitous Space Battles]].''
* ''[[Heavy Weapon (Video Game)|Heavy Weapon]]''
* ''[[Hey You, Pikachu (Video Game)|Hey You Pikachu!]]''
* ''[[Imagine Make Up Artist (Video Game)|Imagine Make Up Artist]]''
* ''[[Insaniquarium]]''
* ''[[Jewel Quest]]''
* ''[[Klax (Video Game)|Klax]]''
* ''Klondike'' and ''[[Minesweeper]]''. Probably the most popular casuals of all time, by virtue of being pre-installed on almost all Windows PCs. Offices with lax system administrators plus bored office workers equals joyful slackery since 1990.
** Referenced in [http://www.zazzle.com/old_school_casual_gamer_tshirt-235636950200555114 this t-shirt], complete with Windows 3.1 font.
* ''[[Luxor]]''
* ''[[Miss Management (Video Game)|Miss Management]]''
* ''[[Mystery Case Files]]''
* ''[[Nintendogs (Video Game)|Nintendogs]]''
* ''[[Office Jerk (Video Game)|Office Jerk]]''
* ''[[Peggle (Video Game)|Peggle]]''
* ''[[Petz]]''
* ''[[Plants vs. Zombies (Video Game)|Plants vs. Zombies]]''
* ''[[Puppetshow (Video Game)|Puppetshow]]''
* ''[[Pong (Video Game)|Pong]]''
* ''[[Rocket Jockey (Video Game)|Rocket Jockey]]''
* ''[[Save Toshi (Video Game)|Save Toshi]]''
* ''[[Skyrates]]'', designed with sporadic play form of gameplay in mind.
* ''[[Spore (Video Game)|Spore]]'', despite its apparent complexity, was pretty explicitly designed for the casual everyman gamer.
* ''[[Stay Tooned! (Videovideo Gamegame)|Stay Tooned]]''
* ''[[Strange Adventures in Infinite Space]]''
* ''[[Tetris (Video Game)|Tetris]]''
* ''[[Wii Fit (Video Game)|Wii Fit]]''
* ''[[Wii Party (Video Game)|Wii Party]]''
* ''[[Wii Play]]''
* ''[[Wii Sports (Video Game)|Wii Sports]]''
* ''[[Wii Sports Resort (Video Game)|Wii Sports Resort]]''
* ''[[Zuma (Video Game)|Zuma]]''
 
----
=== {{examples|Subgenres Include: ===}}
* Brain Training Game: ''[[Brain Age (Video Game)|Brain Age]]'', ''Big Brain Academy'', ''My Word Coach'', ''Hot Brain'', etc.
* Collecting Game: Online scavenger hunts like ''Hatchlings'', ''[[Mousehunt]]'', ''Treasure Madness'' or ''Enchanted Island'' make [[Gotta Catch Them All]] a simple matter of clicking stuff for a few minutes each time you visit their sites. Some incorporate [[Plot Coupons]] that must be found in order to access other items, while others just leave it up to luck. Some have storylines, others are just a bare-bones indulgance for players' acquisitive impulses.
* Commodity Trading: ''Taipan'', ''Sea Trader'', and ''[[Uncharted Waters (Video Game)|Uncharted Waters]]'', among others. These are signified by having a limited amount of places to travel (as little as five to as many as 25, though there's never more than six or seven 'types' of towns), and approximately 10 or less commodities so the game takes up less memory, both the PC's and the players'. [[Sid Meiers Pirates (Video Game)|Sid MeiersMeier's Pirates!]], could have qualified for this if travel time wasn't so long, and the ''[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradewinds_:Tradewinds (game) |Tradewinds series]]'' is a casual in the beginning but as raiders and pirates get more powerful they require more preparation and strategy to beat. ''Tradewinds Legends'' seems the hardest.
* Cooking Game : ''[[Cooking Mama]]'' comes to mind. (''Personal Trainer: Cooking'' is a cookbook, dammit.)
* [[Exergaming]]: ''[[Wii Fit]], [[Wii Sports]],'' and ''[[Wii Sports Resort]]'' fall under this.
* [[Hidden Object Game]]: ''[[Mystery Case Files]]'', ''Travelogue 360°'', ''Hidden Expedition'', etc.
* Marble Popper Game: ''Zuma'', ''Luxor'' and the like.
** One could say ''Puzzle Bobble'' falls under this.
* [[Match Three Game]]: ''Columns'', ''[[Bejeweled (Video Game)|Bejeweled]]'', ''Big Kahuna Reef'', ''[[Jewel Quest]]'', ''7 Wonders'' and way too many other games to count.
** May even come in 3D varieties, such as ''Cubis'', for the more cerebral-minded casuals.
* [[Party Game]] & [[Mini Game]] [[Minigame Game|collections]]: ''[[Wario Ware (Video Game)|Wario Ware]]'', ''[[Mario Party (Video Game)|Mario Party]]'', ''[[Raving Rabbids (Video Game)|Raving Rabbids]]''.
* Quiz games.
* [[Rhythm Game]]: The easier difficulties/levels of ''[[Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan]]'', ''[[Guitar Hero]]'', ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]'', and ''[[Rock Band (Video Game)|Rock Band]]''. Most well-known [[Rhythm Game|Rhythm Games]]s include extremely hard songs that require a lot of dexterity and skill (and therefore lots of practice, undermining the "casual" label), and ''Rock Band'' has Pro Mode, in which you play the songs with ''actual musical instruments''.
* Same Game:<ref> sah-may-gah-may (????)</ref>: Clicking clusters of the same type of block to make them go away. ''Poppit'' and ''Super Collapse'' are the kings of this genre.
** A twist on the genre came courtesy of the game ''Knightfall''.
* Simple [[Retro Gaming|Retro Games]] and [[Arcade Game|Arcade Games]]s (especially arcade games, since they were designed specifically for a walk-up-and-play experience): ''[[Space Invaders]]'', ''[[PacmanPac-Man]]'', ''Asteroids'', Pinball...
** As the percentage of the population that has habitually played games rises, the definition of 'simple' continues to rise. Heck, maybe ''[[Quake III Arena (Video Game)|Quake Live]]'' will really take off some day?
* [[Simulation Game]]: ''[[The Sims]]'', ''[[Sim CitySimCity]]'', ''Virtual Villagers'', ''Kudos'', ''Westward'', ''Nintendogs'', ''Fairy Godmother Tycoon'' and so on. These are a strange place amongst casual games - many of them can turn into major timesinks, but they still fit the rules of being a casual game because of the ease of use, the lack of goals, and the ability to start and stop at any given time.
* [[Time Management Game]]: ''Diner Dash'', ''Cake Mania'', ''Carrie the Caregiver'', ''Lucy's Expedition'', etc.
* [[Tower Defense]] games.
* Virtual [[Card Games]] and [[Board Games]]: Mah-jongg, Solitaire, Spite, Billiards, etc.
Line 86 ⟶ 85:
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Index Index/Sandbox]]
[[Category:Index Index{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:indexVideo Game]]
[[Category:Casual Video Game Genres]]
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/632431...1711647"