Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
translations or games based on other arcade games. The casual play of the first video games'
era was overtaken by obsessively skill-based genres that took lightning-fast reflexes. In some
ways, it can be argued that the over-emphasis in single-player skill-based arcade contests
created a box for video game designers that led to public disinterest and helped to fuel the first
video game crash (however, this is a simplistic view, as there were many other factors involved).
When Nintendo broke out big in the USA in 1986, it offered the public a new style of contest that
would grow the simple arcade contest into what is now known as
core gaming
(“core gaming” is
a term now used to describe dedicated gamers who thrive on games that usually involve high
levels of difficulty and/or competition) Nintendo offered games such as Super Mario Brothers and
Zelda that were loosely based on earlier games like Pitfall! and Adventure for the Atari VCS, and
these games offered a much more compelling and engrossing game play experience that moved
beyond the single-screen skill games of the video game golden age (roughly 1978-1983) and
revitalized the video game industry. Ironically, these days, those core games are now considered
casual, but such is the continuum of game design.
Casual gaming did not appear as a definable genre until Alexey Pajitnov's Tetris
invaded the west
from the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. While there are other examples of casual style puzzle
games (for example, Flag Capture on the Atari VCS), they did not really break into the
mainstream until Tetris. Tetris used a classic set of shapes made of four blocks each. As each
block fell down the screen, the player had to manipulate them into an opportune spot. When a full
line was made across the playfield, the blocks in that line would be removed. The player's
satisfaction came from both matching the shapes with an open spot and with clearing the screen.
While called a puzzle game, Tetris was really more of an action game with puzzle elements that
had to be matched. While Tetris itself was a brilliant game, it was also a sort of dead-end as far
game design is concerned. Many other games have been created based on the ideas presented
in Tetris, but none have matched its simple brilliance. The best versions of Tetris that exist today
are only slight modifications on the original design. Tetris was one of the best selling games of
the late 1980s and was released in some way on almost every platform available. When the
Nintendo Game Boy was released in the United States in 1991 (1989 in Japan), the popularity of
the Tetris pack-in game increased its popularity further and proved that it was the type of game
that was great to play while traveling, waiting for the school bus, and other activities not normally
associated with video game playing.
In this way, Tetris
served as transition from the action-oriented video games of the early 1980s to
the more cerebral style casual games to follow. One such game was Columns, created by Jay
Geertsen in 1989 but popularized by Sega. Columns used lines of colored jewels that had to be
matched, three-in-row, to be cleared from the screen. Columns took the basic idea of falling
blocks from Tetris, but changed up the game enough to make it new.
While video game systems were evolving their own casual games, computer owners had been
playing them for many years. Again, while there are many examples of casual style games prior
to it, the most dominant casual game for the masses was the version of solitaire packed into
Windows 3.0 released in 1990. This free game was probably biggest time waster of the early
1990s for computer professionals, secretaries, and home computer users. It was instantly
accessible, easy to play, and could be completed in just a few minutes. When Windows 95 was
released, it contained still another game that would further the casual genre: Minesweeper.
Minesweeper was actually based on many similar games dating back many years on other
computer systems. However, like solitaire, it was easily available and compelling. The game used
a grid of blocks that needed to be clicked by the user. Clicking a block revealed information about
bombs that were surrounding that block. The aim was to mark as many bombs as possible
without clicking one, which ended the game. Minesweeper's idea of the using the mouse to select
