Congratulations! You got yourself an Apple iPhone. You
finally have managed to buy one of the snazziest purchases of the decade! You
sure might have sat there looking at it for a while, gazing at this sleek piece
of technological wonder and its high-tech novelty with awe and admiration
Groovy! You take it in your hands, feel the smooth material, switch it on, and
hold it with pride and great enthusiasm.
Up till now, it has managed to hold your attention and make
you feel good about owning it. You show it off to all your relatives and even
the next-door neighbor. But then, the same iPhone tumbles over the edge of the
table and you are flabbergasted! Its only then its hits you that you have
invested $500 dollars (or could be more) on this little wonder and you have to
safeguard this dear investment from being dropped, scratched or broken. Pronto!
The next thing that pops in your head is to get a good case for your Apple
iPhone.
Although the iPhone is considerably new, there are some
great, exceptional quality iPhone cases in the market today. These Apple iPhone
Cases, range from cool to hip to suave and stylish. One such iPhone case would
be the OtterBox Defender iPhone Case.
Well known for being the makers of waterproof, tough cases
for iPods, mobile phones, PDAs as well as something like the cigar case; it is
not surprising that OtterBox has a case for the Apple iPhone.
Unlike other iPhone cases, the OtterBox Defender iPhone Case
provides complete control over the user interactivity and enables users to
operate the iPhone volume controls, touch screen and camera functions. This
semi-rugged yet sleek and 4.81" x 2.675" x .76" slim case is
water-resistant and hence safeguards the iPhone from outside detrimental
conditions. Although not 100% waterproof, the OtterBox iPhone Case is effectual
in protection from precipitation or a slight drizzle. When you are on the move
and wish to take your iPhone along, you need not take the case off. The
OtterBox Defender has a holster and clip, which comes handy (in the true sense)
and still protects your iPhone whether you have to shovel through a crowd or
catch the next train. Even the very thought of dropping the iPhone brings a
chill to many. Least you would want to do is drop it.
This particular case by OtterBox accommodates some of the
major Apple iPhone models like the 4GB, 8GB and the hefty 16GB Apple iPhones.
In comparison to other iPhone cases that block the interactivity with the
iPhone, the OtterBox Defender Case provides you complete access to the touch interface
through a patented touch screen membrane while safeguarding the iPhone. The
OtterBox has not one, not two but 3 Layers of Protection. Whether you are using
the iPhone or it's lying idle, the protective surfaces work as a shield,
covering the iPhone at all times. The external covering is made of silicone,
which is fitting for safeguarding the iPhone from all bumps and drops.
Apart from this, the iPhone comes along with a sync/ charge,
and a jack for the headphone. You can get easy access to the sleep/wake, home
buttons, volume controls and the proximity sensor through the case. The case
also has a swivel belt clip that offers full impact protection to the delicate
screen.Visit http://www.hoesje4u.nl/
Many people buy a case for their iPhone because they like
the look of it, or its their favourite color, or because it is the most popular
case at the moment only to find a short while later that the case is totally
unsuited to their lifestyle. They end up giving it away and going out to
purchase another more suitable one. So, how do you choose the best iPhone case?
Rather than blindly scouring websites looking for cases that
catch your eye try to spend a bit of time thinking about the lifestyle that you
live and then consider the message that you want to send to other people. By
considering your lifestyle first you can narrow your search down to a
particular type of case (soft tactile case versus hard solid case versus a
waterproof case), which allows you to then focus on finding the right color and
style from a smaller group of cases. This approach means that you are less
likely to spend your money purchasing a totally unsuitable case.
How To Select The Correct Case
Here are some thought on how to select the correct type of
case for your lifestyle:
If you work in an office environment and spend much of your
leisure time socialising with your friends in restaurants and bars then you
might want to select a case that is slim and sleek - this type of case provides
the basic protection for your iPhone but if your phone is always tucked safely
away in your handbag or pocket then you probably don't need a really big solid
case. Choose modern materials such as brushed steel or aluminium for a real
standout effect!
If your work and lifestyle is mostly outdoors in all types
of weather and working with machinery then you should probably consider buying
a rugged case that has been designed to offer your iPhone the ultimate in
protection. Many of the high-end protective iPhone cases come with both a
silicone case and a hard plastic case to provide shock and waterproof qualities.
For the sporty types your choice in iPhone case should match
the type of sport your are into. Water-based sportspeople should select a
waterproof case to avoid any possible damage by water, whilst other
sportspeople should buy a tough case that will put up with all the knocks and
bumps associated with their active lifestyle.
So, how do you choose the best iPhone case? Think about your
lifestyle first and determine what type of case you should buy, and only then
should you consider what color your case should be! And remember, you are not
limited to just one case! If you are a professional working in an office
environment, who loves to garden at the weekend and go on long canoeing
adventures for their holidays then you should probably buy a range of iPhone
cases to suit! Visit http://www.hoesje4u.nl/
The best time to buy a protective case for your iPhone is when
you first buy your iPhone for you will significantly reduce the risk of
damaging it! If you are the proud owner of an iPhone and you haven't got it
securely protected in a case then you are running the risk of damaging it
either superficially or permanently. Whilst the iPhone is made of toughened
glass and metal they have been known to get scratched and damaged through
normal daily use - the glass screens on the front and rear of the iPhone 4 are
particularly vulnerable.
For a relatively insignificant investment, when compared to
the cost of replacing an iPhone, a protective case or cover will pay itself
back many times over. The sudden jolt on the subway and your unprotected iPhone
drops from your hand, the careless placement of your phone on the edge of your
desk or the over zealous interest of young children are all examples of
everyday occurrences that could potentially lead to the destruction of your
most prized and valuable possession.
You don't have to spend a small fortune protecting your
iPhone. A simple plastic case or leather pouch is all that you really need.
Just get your iPhone into something that will absorb the sudden shock of a
fall, or protect your touch screen from loose keys and coins in your handbag.
The more active person (or clumsy!) may wish to invest a little more money
buying a case that has been designed and built with materials that offer top
class protection.
Don't waste another minute risking the future of your
iPhone, get it into a protective case now before it's too late! Visit http://www.hoesje4u.nl/
When communicating a message, brevity
can be more viable than verbosity.
It depends on the message you want to
convey, your delivery method, and your intended audience. As a game developer,
your game is your
message. Minimalism is the brevity of game design: a way to engage your
audience more efficiently by favoring simplicity over complexity.
But don't confuse a lack of
complexity with the lack of challenge or depth, because many successful games
have proven that minimalism and traditional game design philosophies can
coexist beautifully. Examples of this range from the rhythmically challenging,
geometric simplicity of Terry Cavanagh's Super
Hexagon to the epic scale of Fumito
Ueda's emotionally deep Shadow of the Colossus.
Whether it's a straight-forward
aesthetic implementation or a metaphorical, narrative-focused approach, this
article will help you to use minimalism in your projects and prove the old
adage that 'less is more'.
What is Minimalism?
A Brief History
Minimalism, as an art movement, arose
in the 1960s as a by-product of philosophical modernism. Modernism was a
rejection of outdated ways of thinking, and this directly affected artistic
expression.
Previous art movements consisted of
abstraction and subjective metaphors while minimalism focused on objective
literalism. Artwork from this period featured limited colors, geometric shapes,
and a general lack of detail. The aesthetic properties of minimalist art still
exist today, but minimalism in modern game design is ironically much more
complicated.
The general purpose of minimalism in
game design is to accentuate a game's specific elements by limiting the scope
or detail of the other surrounding elements. For a simplified 'real world'
example, imagine wearing a blindfold to place a greater emphasis on your sense
of touch.
An entire game can be designed with
minimalism as a core concept, but minimalism can also be invoked only when
needed. Art, sound, gameplay, and narrative can all be subject to minimalist
interpretations.
Examples of Minimalism in Popular
Games
The best way to understand minimalism
as a game developer is to experience great examples of minimalism as a game
player. In fact, an entire book could be written about the history of
minimalism in video games. Whether you play on consoles, PC, handhelds, or
mobile devices, you've undoubtedly encountered a game that was at least
partially designed around these concepts.
Let's take a look at a small
selection of games that feature a wide variety of minimalistic design elements.
Some of these may challenge your idea of what minimalism is and help you think
differently about game design.
Terry Cavanagh, the developer of
Super Hexagon describes his work as a “minimal action game”. The player
object is represented by a small triangle, and the game world consists of a
central hexagon that attracts rhythmically moving shapes. All the player has to
do is press left or right to avoid the incoming shapes and survive for as long
as possible.
The art style and gameplay mechanics
utilize minimalism to put extreme focus on the objective, while the pulsing
soundtrack and rhythm-fuelled animations put the player into an almost hypnotic
state. Super Hexagon is the perfect example of a game that features minimalism
as a core design philosophy while maintaining an intense level of difficulty.
Dwarf Fortress, by Tarn and Zach
Adams, is a notoriously challenging simulation game with roguelike elements.
The only thing about Dwarf Fortress that can be considered
minimalistic is the aesthetic design: game objects are represented by ASCII
characters rather than hand-drawn sprites.
In this case, minimalism is used to
trigger a nostalgic response that reminds players of a time when game graphics
required a powerful imagination.
Mirror's Edge, a first-person parkour
action game by EA Dice, combines futuristic architecture and minimalism in a
unique way to assist players with navigation. The city that the player runs
around in is full of bright, sharp edges and the buildings stand like white
monoliths against a blue sky.
Rather than following
screen-cluttering HUD elements, players are instead led through checkpoints by
running towards certain actionable environmental objects that have been painted
red. This type of minimalism is both visually striking and highly intuitive.
In 2007, Jason Rohrer released a
minimalist art game entitled Passage. This game takes place entirely within a
100x16 window and can be completed in five minutes. With themes of loss,
mortality, and the human condition, Passage manages to pack a powerful punch
despite its limited scope—although with no traditional win condition, it can be
argued that Passage isn't even a game at all.
This type of minimalism is used to
provoke thought and convey a very specific message through metaphors by forcing
the player to reflect on the experience by asking, “why?”
I bet you didn't expect to see a
Metal Gear Solid game in a collection of minimalist games! Hideo Kojima, the
creator of this iconic franchise, is known for drawing from numerous artistic,
historical, and pop-culture influences. A particular scene in Metal Gear
Solid 3 features the game's protagonist climbing an incredibly tall ladder.
After walking down a long, windy tunnel, the player reaches a dead end and is
forced to climb a ladder for two whole minutes. During this climb, an a
cappella version of the game's theme song begins to play. The words “I give my
life. Not for honor, but for you” echo through the tunnel during the song,
creating a haunting moment that sticks with players long after the credits have
rolled.
This is an example of minimalism
being invoked in an otherwise complex and verbose experience to create a
meaningful and poignant moment.
Thomas Was Alone, by Mike Bithell, is
a game that you will never understand just by looking at screenshots. On the
surface, Thomas Was Alone appears to be a typical puzzle platformer with
simple, polygonal characters devoid of personality. What lies beneath that
minimalistic coat of paint is a deceptively deep and captivating experience
full of character.
This combination of aesthetic
minimalism and compelling narrative design is useful for creators that may lack
advanced visual art skills.
The Nintendo Wii was a console that
was built entirely around the concept of minimalism. In an effort to attract a
wider audience, Nintendo created a controller with pared down inputs and a
focus on motion control. And with Wii Sports, Nintendo arguably created the
most successful minimalist game of all time. By removing excesses and placing a
larger emphasis on simplistic, yet intuitive gameplay, Nintendo proved that
minimalism could be incredibly popular.
Journey, the award-winning adventure
game by Thatgamecompany, uses minimalism in several unique ways. Much
like Flower, by the same developer, there is a distinct lack of
exposition, and no explanations to help the player understand exactly what is
transpiring. Players learn through unguided exploration instead of long-winded
tutorials and gratuitous on-screen prompts.
The simplified gameplay mechanics
help to facilitate this, but the true power of Journey's minimalism is found in
the game's multiplayer mode. Players seamlessly drop in to a co-op session
without a notification and with no way to communicate aside from a few simple
emotes. The bonding that occurs between two complete strangers in Journey is a
testament to how powerful human interaction can be, even after removing the
excesses of traditional multiplayer gaming conventions. Visit https://mobilefreetoplay.com/
Shadow of the Colossus, by Fumito
Ueda and Team Ico, is an adventure game on an epic scale. Players wield a
sword, ride a horse, shoot arrows, and fight enormous bosses in an attempt to
save a loved one. But unlike most adventure games, Shadow of the Colossus does
not feature any smaller enemies—"grunts" that typically exist in
large quantities to challenge the player through dungeons and overworlds.
There are only 16 enemies in Shadow
of the Colossus, and they're all giant puzzle-centric boss encounters. Time
spent between boss battles is somber, quiet, and full of relaxed exploration.
The mood set by this unique combination of elements is unmatched, and is a
trademark style of Ueda's particular brand of minimalist design.
If you want even more inspiration,
check out these 2,346 individual interpretations of minimalism in game
design.
Limitation vs. Intention
When talking about the history of
minimalism in games, it's very important to understand the difference
between limitation and intention. By today's standards, Pong
is a minimalist exercise in art, input, sound, and mechanics. But this was not
entirely by design; it was mainly due to hardware limitations.
Early Game Boy games used a
monochrome four-shades color palette, and the Game Boy Color saw an increase to
32,768 colors. Now there are entire gamejams devoted to replicating the limited
palette of the original Game Boy. Are these self-imposed limitations an example
of minimalism, or are they merely exhibitions in retro gaming nostalgia?
The rise in popularity of iOS and
Android devices also saw a rise in gaming minimalism. Touch-screen inputs and
the nature of mobile gaming creates an environment where quick, simple games
get the most attention. The line gets blurry when you begin to differentiate
between casual gaming and minimalist design, and that topic requires an
entirely different discussion.
Minimalism in Game Development
As game developers, we're always
looking for solutions to problems. A straight line is the shortest distance between
two points, and minimalism is often the straightest path to follow when
designing a game. If you find yourself struggling with a problem, start with a
simple solution and work your way up from there. By starting with minimalism,
you are forcing yourself to focus on the more important aspects of your
gameplay experience.
When your game works using minimal
art, sound, and gameplay mechanics, you can slowly begin to integrate more
elements, while maintaining that important balance.
Aesthetic Design
The visual style of your game is
incredibly important. A single screenshot is often a potential player's only
first impression, so it's vital that your game is readable at a glance.
Minimalism can both help and hurt you in this regard due to the possibility of
abstraction, so be careful.
Below are a few ideas to get you
thinking about ways to introduce minimalism into your aesthetic design:
Use a limited and deliberate color palette.
Colors can represent emotions, moods, locations, temperatures, and
personalities. Being consistent and tasteful in your choice of color is
far more important than using a certain variety of colors.
Contrast is your friend. When using limited
visual assets, the contrast between those assets becomes just as important
as the assets themselves. Blank space between items should be used to your
advantage when dealing with a limited number of on-screen elements.
Use simple and recognizable shapes. If you're
not familiar with the intricacies of art and design, you should at least
learn about the importance of silhouettes. Take the most detailed element
in your scene and reduce it to a single color. Is it still readable? By
working with limited colors, you can build recognizable scenes that will
remain readable as you increase the fidelity of those elements over time.
Lighting is more important than poly count. A
low-poly scene with superb lighting is a beautiful thing.
Use colors or light to direct players towards
a destination rather than HUD elements, maps, and markers.
Integrate potential HUD elements into the
game's environment where possible. Think of a digital readout on the side
of a gun to represent ammo, or an inventory system that exists in physical
space within a player's backpack rather than in a menu screen.
High quality animation on a less detailed
character is far more valuable than a badly animated photo-realistic
character.
Use real-time lighting to represent time,
rather than an on-screen clock.
Use damage models or other unique
environmental solutions to represent health instead of on-screen meters.
Think of an enemy moving more slowly or walking with a limp to represent
low health.
Use animated GIFs to advertise your game if
your minimalist aesthetic design results in unreadable screenshots.
System Design
The way that players interact with
your game should be as minimal as possible. Overly-complicated control schemes
can scare players away from your game and create frustration. A steep learning
curve is often required for specific games, but you should always strive for a
streamlined control scheme. Along with input, your individual game mechanics
will also benefit from being intuitive. Think about these following points when
developing your core gameplay experience:
Always side with familiarity over uniqueness.
This sounds incredibly counter-productive for anyone trying to create
something new, but it's true. If you're making something that is in any
way familiar to something that already exists, then your players are
going to have pre-existing expectations. Don't reinvent the wheel when your players are already familiar
with driving.
Use context-sensitive inputs rather than
expansive control schemes. If your player can open chests and doors, the
same button should perform both actions. It is up to you, as a designer,
to make sure that doors and chests never overlap.
To expand on the context-sensitive inputs: a
single button can be pressed in more than one way. Single tap, double tap,
extended hold, rhythmic tap; these are all different ways to press the
same button. It may be tempting to take advantage of an entire controller,
but try to find ways to limit the number of buttons your player has to press
when it makes sense.
Use timing and rhythm-based solutions to
puzzles and conflicts. Players can pick up on these gameplay patterns
without having to rely on intrusive instructions or explanations.
Force players to learn through experimentation
directly after discovering a new ability. Without relying on text boxes
and tutorials, you can immediately require the use of the ability to solve
a problem before the player can continue. Then, as the designer, it's your
job to make sure that this ability remains relevant throughout the rest of
the game so that the player doesn't forget about it.
Give your players a reason to not press
a button. If shooting endlessly down a hallway is a solution, then not shooting
endlessly down a different hallway can be another solution. Instead of
adding new gameplay mechanics, think of ways to temporarily remove
existing mechanics to add new gameplay experiences.
Avoid redundancies. Giving players a variety
of choices is usually a good thing, but make sure that a highly preferred
choice doesn't create obsolete solutions. For example, a jet pack power-up
will make your grappling hook and double jump power-ups useless. When one
solution is obviously superior, the other solutions immediately become
pointless and excessive. If you have multiple solutions, make sure that
they each provide a unique and valuable reward.
Narrative Design
As a narrative designer, it is your
duty to direct and control the flow of a game's story. Depending on the type of
story being told, minimalism may or may not be a useful solution. Minimalistic
narrative design requires that significant portions of a game's story be told
through gameplay mechanics, art design, level design, and other methods that
may be out of the writer's hands. Narrative designers have to ensure that every
element of a game comes together to tell the right story, requiring them to
understand multiple aspects of the game development process.
Here are some tips for approaching
narrative design from a minimalist standpoint:
Avoid extensive exposition. Instead of
starting the game with a voice-over, cut scene, or text crawl, put the
player in an interactive role. Set the scene with mood and atmosphere
rather than words. Introduce characters with actions rather than
biographies.
Value exploration over explanation. Reward
players for exploring your world rather than burdening them with excessive
pages of lore and back story.
Avoid optional collectibles that explain
crucial details of your world's history. Find ways to implement this
information into gameplay rather than audio files.
Silence can be just as valuable as
conversation. Use body language and facial expressions to express feelings
when possible.
Make the player ask questions and don't be
afraid to never answer them. If every detail of a game is laid out for the
player to discover, then the game has a finite depth. Mysteries and the
unknown represent areas that have never been explored and will exist in
the minds of players long after they put the controller down.
Complex character progression can be the focus
within an incredibly simple plot. Remember that minimalism can be used as
a contrast between two things to create a deceptively deep experience.
Conclusion
The topic of minimalism in game
design is deep, complex, and always evolving. The next time you play a game,
think about how it could be more or less complicated. Study the game's art and
try to think of ways to make it more simple while still maintaining its
original form. Pay attention to the "empty" areas. Listen to the
silence between important moments. Instead of focusing on the obvious, shift
your attention to the things that have been minimized.
Games are infinitely complicated, and
it can be tempting to dive into that infinite depth in search of solutions. But
as with many of life's problems, the right solution is sometimes the simplest.
It’s intuitive that people play games to complete
goals. At any given moment, players are
trying to satisfy a goal on some level, even if it’s a goal they’ve set for
themselves. An idea that may be less intuitive
is that goals can exist on different timelines, and that your game will
generally need to provide objectives along each of these vectors if you want it
to have solid retention and the long-term stickiness indicative of meaningful
gameplay.
Pictured above: the left image from Candy Crush Soda Saga
shows how a level's objective can be easily summarized, and on the right we see
how Wizard of Oz Match tries to add goals for a play session through quests.
While casual puzzle games have traditionally had concise, appealing short term
goals, long-term goals have been second priority or nonexistent. Until
recently, these further out objectives have taken a back-seat despite their
potential for making a more engaging experience for players and increasing the
regularity of their sessions.
We can look at the most well known casual puzzle game as an
example, the match3 mega-hit Candy Crush Saga. Candy Crush, and match3 games in
general, have clear short-term goals tied into their easy to understand
mechanics. For every match3 game, on a
base level the player is looking to put 3 of the same things together. Matching 3 tiles can easily be communicated
to the player, but a surprising amount of depth can come out of the system’s
randomness and content layered on top of the matching. This accessibility and
depth is a big contributor to the genre’s mass appeal.
In the case of Candy Crush Saga, every level revolves around
immediate short term goals:
Find matches
Identify the optimal match for your current goal
Create the match and repeat
With the player base for Saga style Match3 games likely
being completionists on some level, we can assume the long term goals align
pretty closely with the game’s structure:
Beat every level in a group (e.g. "world",
"island", etc)
Beat every level in the game
With mobile match3 games essentially being required to
follow the F2P model, the traditional “beat the game” goal is out, but “beat
every available” level is a suitable enough stand-in. The segmentation of
levels into different areas of the map adds a sense of progression from
clearing all the levels in a group. To
help refresh the interest curve for the player, generally new mechanics are
introduced on a regular interval, but it’s not uncommon for funding for these
to dissipate over a game’s lifecycle.
So, if beating every available level isn’t enough to keep a player
logging back in (e.g. you want to broaden your player base), OR you want to
extend the amount of time your players spend in game (i.e. session length), OR
you want to add another engaging mechanic that incentivizes existing revenue
streams, what’s a game designer to do? Recurring in-game events to the rescue!
The image above, taken from an article by game designer
Stone Librande in Well Played 2.0: Video Games, Value, and Meaning, visualizes
the reward scheduling for a single game session of Resident Evil 4's
Mercenaries. Just as there can be second-to-second, minute-to-minute,
day-to-day, etc. rewards in games (described in an excellent article by
Librande here) these rewards can correspond to objectives given to players on
the same schedule. As mentioned before, casual puzzle games typically have
second-to-second and minute-to-minute objectives well defined, but lack the
more long-term goals for players to work towards. When implemented correctly,
in-game events are a possible solution, superimposing additional long term
goals and rewards over the game’s core loop.
Present in Candy Crush, Cookie Jam, and Candy Blast Mania to name a few,
these events range from “reach level X within the time limit” to team based
piece collection with leaderboards. The majority of these events are targeted
at the existing player base, meant to increase monetization and session
length. Through the introduction of
secondary objectives with explicit rewards, a lot of these events meaningfully
enrich the player's’ experience.
For example, the
“Global Events” present in Storm8’s Hungry Babies (a game I worked on)
introduces any number of secondary goals revolving around the game’s core mechanic:
making matches. A piece is designated as
the event’s focus, and collecting that piece adds to your event total. Multipliers are added for making larger
matches and clearing levels, which adds a layer of rewards for player
competency. Additionally, totals are
tracked via an event leaderboard and players can be grouped into teams
depending on event type, with larger rewards for teams that perform
better. Smash tiles while smashing your
opponents!! It's questionable whether competition alone plays a large part in
match3 player motivations, but striving for more boosts is sure to get a
puzzler’s blood pumping.
The bottom line is that events modify or strengthen key
areas of casual games to improve the player experience:
Improved scheduling:
Human psychology has a strong relationship with schedules. Who doesn’t
like to look forward to something? Having different events on different
schedules gives players something to look forward to. If there is downtime between events, then
anticipation can build as well.
Dynamism / Gameplay Depth: Regardless of how well designed
your levels are, players may become desensitized to similar gameplay after
funding for new mechanics is diverted.
Events create an additional layer of progression through event resources
and their cyclical structure creates discrete moments of closure F2P games
Add value to existing mechanics: If your event gives x2
points for tiles cleared using special tiles, suddenly purchasing a boost to
beat a level becomes a better deal for the player. The player gets to beat the level that they
have been stuck on and get extra points towards earning event rewards.Visit https://mobilefreetoplay.com/
Match3 games have evolved to the point that a lot of newer
titles include the meta structures present in events in their core loop. In my next post I plan to talk about the
integration of these concepts in games like Gardenscapes and Toon Blast, and
how this signifies that player’s basic literacy in matching games has increased
allowing for a third generation of tile
matching games to emerge.
