Small Surfaces » gaming

Designing games graphics for small screens

Gabriel White — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:31:06 +0000

“The judo rule: Turn your weaknesses into your strengths. If you cannot escape the limitations of the small screen, use them to your advantage! Think of ways to turn the screen size into an integral part of gameplay — part of the game’s challenge that the player must learn to overcome. Make the small screen a cognitive challenge, not just a visual limitation.”

Link: Mobile Game Graphics – Overcoming the Small Screen Challenge (nokia.com)

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Designing games for the long tail

Gabriel White — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 12:41:05 +0000

Yiibu has made available a wonderful little presentation about the design of mobile games.

“Design for play, quiet contemplation, exploration, discovery, suspense, laughter, friendship, joy…(remember boredom, stress, fatigue, personalization, control, play—everyone’s personal time is different)”

Link: Creating ‘Casual’ Games, Content and Applications for the (Mobile) Long Tail (yiibu.com, PDF, via)

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Designing games for people’s pockets

Gabriel White — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 23:22:05 +0000

Some guidelines for the design of handheld games.

“There are two major things you have to keep in mind concerning the interface and user-experience, first one is that most players will be picking up your game in short breaks. They need to be able to quickly start it, and quickly put it away without losing “everything”. The second thing is that you are dealing with alot of non-technical people, without any or little gaming experience. So keep things simple and intuitive.”

Link: Mobiles, design, and gameplay (orangepixel.net)

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Mobile game design process review

Gabriel White — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 03:38:34 +0000

A post-mortem of the creation of the mobile game “Tower Bloxx”.

“As we discussed earlier, the original idea came from a mock-up image which was later turned into a prototype, which led to our core mechanics. After production started, we also needed something to fill the long-term gameplay demand, so we had several ideas of how the rules of the city mode could work, and we prototyped those using both pen-and-paper and Excel. In this way, we could test and tweak our ideas without the need for programming time, which helped us getting the game done faster.”

Link: Postmortem: Digital Chocolate’s Tower Bloxx (gamasutra.com)

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Groundbreaking game controller designs

Gabriel White — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 09:37:05 +0000

Summary of the 11 game controller that have taken gameplay to new levels. Along with the most annoying interstitial ads I’ve ever seen.

“The Zapper shipped with the original Nintendo Entertainment System, bundled with seminal light-gun game Duck Hunt as its early companion. But it was games such as Hogan’s Alley, Gumshoe, and Operation Wolf that helped to make it a success. Though the Zapper wasn’t the only light gun to hit console systems, it was without a doubt the most successful, both commercially and culturally. And besides, had Nintendo never released the Zapper, we may never have seen the greatest light gun game of all time—the classic arcade shooter Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

(photograph from gamepro.com)

Link: The 11 Most Groundbreaking Controllers of All Time (gamepro.com)

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Design evolution of gaming controllers

Gabriel White — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 06:35:06 +0000

John Siracusa takes an illustrative look at the (lack of) evolution of handheld game controllers.

“But let’s take a step back. These are handheld game machines. You hold them in your hand. How many years will it take before someone realizes that sharp-edged rectangular solids are not ideal for gripping? Again, I recognize the constraints here. All I ask is some sort of acknowledgment of the reality of “hands”�some sort of progress.”

Link: Waiting for the handheld revolution (arstechnica.com)

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Namco Networks on mobile strategies

Gabriel White — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 06:05:03 +0000

“There’s a lot to [the mobile version of] Time Crisis, it’s long,” said Rubin. “And that is appealing more to the hardcore audience anyway. We think for the next couple years, mobile phones will be a viable platform even for hardcore gamers, even if they’re not necessarily playing ‘hardcore’ games on it. They’re carrying their mobile around pretty much at all times, and when they’re playing a game they’re just looking for five minutes of fun. So, I guess officially, we feel the phone is still all about looking for five minutes of fun. If that changes, we don’t see it happening for quite a while.”

Link: Gamasutra – Feature – ‘With A Cherry On Top: Namco Networks On Mobile Strategies’ (gamasutra.com)

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Play with me

Gabriel White — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:45:39 +0000

Russell Beattie asked whether the mobile games industry is on the verge of collapse, thanks to a flooded market. The fantastic collection of screenshots (see link below) really shows that most games producers are thinking about mobile games for Gamers, rather than games for people. I would love to see some great social games on my phone.

“First, even with the billions of people who are going to be playing these games, the amount of same-ol same-ol games that are flooding the market is going to kill it. To me supply is quickly out pacing demand, and it’s going to be 1983 again.”

Link: Mobile Games: Supply Vs. Demand

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