71–80 of 81 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
as bits slam into other bits and people scream and die. hmmm, perhaps this appeal isn't as strongly felt by the general public as cute birds slamming into pigs?
I think the market has once again made it clear that my opinions differ from most people. I can rant about how terrible modern popular books, TV shows and movies are for a while if you'd like. :-)
It's easy to start and easy to stop, and you don't feel that you loose something if you have to stop at this particular moment, and this is really import for the casual game on the phone.
Look at the Cut the Rope. It copies AB concepts verbatim - short engaging levels, three starts, cute character (and candy! :) It became quite a successful game. I don't think Tiny Wings will hold position 1 in the charts long - it's cute, but game progress becomes very difficult quickly and "start-stop model" is not as good. The main reason it is (most likely) not going to stick to position 1 is that there is no way to add incremental value by adding new levels and thus rekindling interest and pumping the rating (another ingenious thing Rovio invented or borrowed and perfectly executed).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's because Crush the Castle's origins are in Flash casual gaming which is an audience of 100s of millions of people that predates / exists somewhere parallel to iOS casual gaming. Although Angry Birds has undoubtedly made more cold hard cash the CTC franchise (3 titles) would have plays in the 100s of millions by now.
Plays in the 100s of millions sure. Unique users in the 100s of millions? I'm doubtful.
When a Flash game is very popular 1000s of other websites copy the swf file and host it themselves exposing their own audience to that game - and CTC is 3 very popular titles.
Why do the houses containing pigs shake ever so slightly at the beginning of each game play sequence? I assumed that it's because the initial positions of the objects in the game are slightly off the equilibrium state, so when the physics is switched on they slump a little bit.
I've even seen levels where every few times the level loads, if you wait 10-20 seconds, some part of the structure falls over on its own.
What about the story ? As already stated in the comments, Angry Birds is almost identical to "Crush the Castle", another game, of which Flash versions were quite successful but mobile versions weren't. (It involves destroying castles with a trebuchet -- play it here: http://armorgames.com/play/3614/crush-the-castle ). It would have made for a more interesting article to compare Angry Birds and Crush the Castle (CTC)…
I'd wasted enough time on Angry Birds to feel qualified enough to write about it. 1. The splash screen shows a high degree of polish compared to all other games. Every time I start it, it stands out heads and shoulders above other apps. 2. The whimsical characters mean that there are no scruples with killing real pigs. 3. The ability to advance to the next level quickly, but at the same time, there is a higher three…
What do you mean by point 5?
Once you have tossed your coin, the control is out of your hands. All you can do is sit there and watch the mechanical arm sweep. It is over in about 2-3 seconds. The tension climaxes when the arm gets to its full reach, and it is usually unresolved because the coins end up being herded together into an even bigger pile. (Incidentally, this reminds me of Screwball Comedies http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/screwball.jsp, where the male and female characters are kept apart right until the last minute).
It is the same with Angry Birds. When you launch a projectile, most of the parameters have been set. You may have some control later, but it could not "fix" a bad move. So you now have 2-3 seconds where you are totally helpless, and once it a while, all the stars line up and you get rewarded. Like a monkey throwing a stick at a stationary object. This is insanely addictive. It is a hail-mary gamble that works out often enough to make you keep trying. To earn three stars, one needs at least two "perfect" throws. This is extremely difficult and chancy.
The levels have been designed to progressively require smaller tolerance against errors. The Rovio people probably could programmatically control the angle and velocity to see the effects, and from that tweak the pieces to make the gameplay easier or harder.
At any rate, that game's success has been monumental and I am in awe of the creators.
I love projects that add a vim-like interface to browsers and other GUI applications. But adding an Angry Birds-like interface to enterprise applications would boost productivity even more. It's strange how rarely gaming metaphors influence business software, and I've often wondered why CMS software doesn't adopt the same type of interfaces you find in RPGs, making them more intuitive and engaging.
Problem is, good game mechanics are very hard to do. But even worse, using such mechanics makes it very easy to accidentally promote wrong behaviour.
For example, score 2 points for sending an email to a prospect, score 5 for calling. 3 emails will give you more points, but any salesman will tell you one call is worth more than 3 emails. So if the "game balance" in your biz app is off, you might thus end up with negative productivity for your users :-)
It's all very interesting though.
Angry Birds kind of reminds me of that old Artillery game on early Macs, which was really engaging with 2-people--if only Angry Birds had such. At any rate, that game's success has been monumental and I am in awe of the creators.