Hardcore Mobile Gaming -- not just "shrunk from PC" (BONUS: confession!)
The basics: I actually *love* Clash Royale. I'm not "addicted" to it, and I'm not just playing it because it's with me -- I actually find it to be a beautiful and thoroughly thoughtful take on the idea of a mobile MOBA. I play matches even when I can't squeeze daily/hourly rewards from it.
Play it if you haven't. There's more to this thing than a recognisable brand and marketing budget.
Anyways -- check this out:
http://andreaspapathanasis.blogspot.co.za/2016/01/vainglory-vs-clash-royale-and-future-of.html
I've been reading a lot of this guy's stuff recently, and given all the games I've been trying recently I have to agree -- there's actually a pretty *widespread* problem with developers obsessing over "shrinking" the PC gaming experience to mobile instead of embracing the platform as a unique medium, and it's creating a lot of very mediocre work that 3D graphics, ginormous teams and millions of ad-views can't bring out of the darkness. It has reached the point where I actually get put off by games which have visibly intense graphics, not least because it's going to represent an awful load-time every time I want to kill a few minutes on the train.
I have developed a simultaneously increasing respect and dismay for mobile F2P games, having now explored them in bouts of what I would call "intense research" (which looks to friends suspiciously like "unhealthy obsession"). It feels like we're in a phase of the platform where everybody's trying to check all the boxes of what a "good" game should look like, while evidently forgetting WHY those traits made the game good in the first place.
An egregious offender in that regard recently was Lords Mobile, which I would describe in a word as "cumbersome". It tries to have literally everything in it, and it's just too much. I gave it a fair shot, but my eventual reason to stop playing? I got fed up with the ritual of collecting endless rewards and accolades instead of playing the game.
3D graphics, elements of all the other hotshot mobile RPGs, multiple game modes and determined advertising didn't save it from the fact that it just wasn't what I was looking for in a mobile game experience. And for all intents and purposes, the gameplay was still the classic idea of "casual".
I feel like there's a beauty standards metaphor lying about here, for mobile games which are taught to believe that they're ugly and have to look more like PC games to be acceptable. :3
Play it if you haven't. There's more to this thing than a recognisable brand and marketing budget.
Anyways -- check this out:
http://andreaspapathanasis.blogspot.co.za/2016/01/vainglory-vs-clash-royale-and-future-of.html
I've been reading a lot of this guy's stuff recently, and given all the games I've been trying recently I have to agree -- there's actually a pretty *widespread* problem with developers obsessing over "shrinking" the PC gaming experience to mobile instead of embracing the platform as a unique medium, and it's creating a lot of very mediocre work that 3D graphics, ginormous teams and millions of ad-views can't bring out of the darkness. It has reached the point where I actually get put off by games which have visibly intense graphics, not least because it's going to represent an awful load-time every time I want to kill a few minutes on the train.
I have developed a simultaneously increasing respect and dismay for mobile F2P games, having now explored them in bouts of what I would call "intense research" (which looks to friends suspiciously like "unhealthy obsession"). It feels like we're in a phase of the platform where everybody's trying to check all the boxes of what a "good" game should look like, while evidently forgetting WHY those traits made the game good in the first place.
An egregious offender in that regard recently was Lords Mobile, which I would describe in a word as "cumbersome". It tries to have literally everything in it, and it's just too much. I gave it a fair shot, but my eventual reason to stop playing? I got fed up with the ritual of collecting endless rewards and accolades instead of playing the game.
3D graphics, elements of all the other hotshot mobile RPGs, multiple game modes and determined advertising didn't save it from the fact that it just wasn't what I was looking for in a mobile game experience. And for all intents and purposes, the gameplay was still the classic idea of "casual".
I feel like there's a beauty standards metaphor lying about here, for mobile games which are taught to believe that they're ugly and have to look more like PC games to be acceptable. :3
Comments
Have you played War Dragons? I found it to be pretty well designed as well. It's similar to CoC in the build/attack split, but I found the actual attacks more interesting. It's also really pretty :)
I see that it's pretty much a mini moba, condensing 20-40 minutes of decisions into a 3 minute space with hearthstone/CCG elements and a really simple ruleset... It's really well done. And as such also suffers from the same problems as CCGs, but in a miniaturised possibility set, with variance for dexterity/knowledge gates in placements and timing.
More and more I'm drawn to experiences that doesn't take forever to engage meaningfully, preferring HoTS to other mobas which scared me off with the opaque first layer and time investment. Of course the irony is that I've spent way more time in HoTS than anything else right now :)
I still love Netrunner but no longer spend the time pouring over cards for deckbuilding, I just grab netdecks that sound interesting and boot up jinteki.net and get running. It's still great, but I being surprised by cards I'm unfamiliar with does take some wind out of my sails... Which is why the diminished cardpools of hearthstone and a smaller "shape of the game" in HoTS and Clash Royale appeals to me - I can attempt to keep up without memorising a billion things.
Casual entry into great depth - that's where it's at, I absolutely agree.
I really have appreciated how, over time, I've learned to leverage many elements of Clash that never felt compulsory to enjoying the game. And how quick and simple ALL aspects of the game are, not just the "playing". Much love.
@Mattbenic can't seem to find that name specifically, is that an iOS game?
https://itunes.apple.com/za/app/war-dragons/id958763157?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pocketgems.android.dragon&hl=en Yeah it's a pretty high end 3d game :/
I've also just discovered a sort of puzzle building/solving mmo by ZeptoLabs (of Cut the Rope fame) which is truly fantastic. The bases are essentially puzzle levels, and their mechanic for ensuring player built puzzles are actually passable is a stroke of genius-they force you to pass your own puzzle in a row. The great thing there is that as your skill increases, you'll be able to pass/build better puzzles, which provides a tougher challenge to other players:
https://itunes.apple.com/za/app/king-of-thieves/id952715194?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zeptolab.thieves.google&hl=en
What I enjoy about both War Dragons and King of Thieves is that while they lend heavily from Clash of Clans in the larger game loop (build a base to be defended, earn resources from that base to indirectly climb the ranks to face tougher challenges), unlike other games they don't just clone the 2d base building and attack approach.
One thing that surprised me was the choice of horizontal orientation. I always feel when designing for mobile if horizontal and vertical orientation are equally appropriate, vertical should be preferred for easier one handed playing. King of Thieves could easily have been vertical, with some minor redesigns of the dungeons.
Although I've enjoyed Clash's multiplayer, I really like the asynchronous experiences that mobile devices tend towards.
But this side of the game only really emerges really late into the game's life for the average gamer, so that's the transition from casual into hardcore.
I do think that that the direct correlation between simplicity in design (which is good) and rate of degeneration for the "hardcore" audience is a really careful tightrope that is damn hard to walk, and KoT, while being a great game, to me, failed that transition into the hardcore. That said, I haven't played it in a year, they may have addressed the one-frame damn "strategies" by now.
You're right though, this only happens late in the cycle. Nobody should be scared of trying out this game based on what we're saying, I reckon it's enjoyable for at least a month before reaching that sort of point. :D Breezing through the sort of dungeons that meant Certain Doom to you not so long ago is an incredibly satisfying experience!