Casual Gaming

Angry Birds - A well known "Casual Game".

 Being out here in Yuma, I don't have access to my bad ass desktop computer or most of my consoles. I have just my old, falling apart laptop and my 3DS. Being someone who plays Video Games pretty much constantly, (I love it.) I'm always looking for new games to try and get addicted to. A lot of people in the shop have been talking about 'Casual Gaming'. Things like games for your iPhone, Android, Tablet, Laptop... pretty much anything that is a portable. It wasn't until I got bored and decided to try a few games on Google Play did I notice that 'Casual Gaming', in my experience, has changed.

 For the longest time I always thought of games like Mafia Wars, tower defense games, and the such as casual games. They were games that you could play during lunch break, while you were waiting in line, and beating them either wasn't the goal or it was really easy. It was simply meant as a means to entertain you while you waited for something else, unlike console games or what many would call 'Hardcore Gaming.' I really think the lines between these to categories are starting to blur a bit. Most noticeably, games made for Nintendo consoles have been catering to all age groups, giving an immerse, yet non-gamer friendly feel while still hitting some hardcore gaming aspects. The other side of the spectrum are phone games which are becoming more and more intuitive and have more depth. Some phone games are literally full, feature length games made by Square Enix and other popular gaming companies.

 So what does this all mean? I think there is a large selection of game designers that are starting to find that happy medium between being a grossly difficult game with rewarding experiences, and more laid back games which aren't very stress inducing and are fairly easy to understand, but are still fun. It's not really a bad thing, and depending on how it's done it can be an absolutely brilliant.

Galaxy Defense - An Android based game.

 I have two examples I'd like to share from both ends of the spectrum. 

 Take Galaxy Defense for Android as one. It's a simple phone game; it has 40 levels split across 10 worlds where you place, upgrade, and repair towers to fight off hordes of aliens. It's extremely simple at first but becomes insanely difficult at later levels and requires a lot of planning ahead, strategy, and logical use of resources. It's a casual game that quickly turns into a hardcore frenzy that had me spending hours playing the same 3-4 levels to get to the next world. 

 It's a really fun game with good looking graphics, music and game play, and if you have a droid, you should definitely give it a try.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf - An addicting game for the 3DS

 After playing 30+ hours of Pokemon Y in it's premier weekend, I needed a different game to play that didn't frustrate me from time to time. I wanted something that would be more relaxing, casual even. After looking on my phone and trying out a lot of the time-management games (Game Dev Story being one of the better ones.) I started to look into 3DS games since I had brought my hand held with me, and among the puny collection of 3DS games the PX on base supplies, I saw Animal Crossing: New Leaf. 

Ohhhh man.

 I started to have flashbacks of when my sister, Amanda, and I would spend hours playing the first Animal Crossing on gamecube. It was an absolute blast. I ended up getting the game in hopes they only had changed it enough to keep it fresh. In the past, I had always hoped they would make a sequel and until now I didn't realize they had made one for the 3DS.

 I was not disappointed.

 The game truly is a casual game on a Nintendo handheld. It's fun, has depth and length just like any other main series title, and has a lot more too it than a phone game. So what makes it casual? It's just relaxing. The game makes stuff you'd normally think of as boring in a game (Fishing, paying off debts, rearranging your house, pulling weeds, talking to citizens... you get the idea.) and makes it both fun, and rewarding.

 I've only JUST started playing it last night but I look forward to finding all the Zelda and other nintendo main titles referenced in the game.

 So what did I write this whole page for? To prove a point? To bring up and idea I had? Not really, it's just some food for thought to all the gamers out there~

Game on,

Andrew