Casual Connect

In order to reach new audiences and expand the overall market for games, it can be valuable for developers to explore new ways to engage mainstream audiences who have not yet found an interest in games. This talk explores the opportunities and challenges of delivering polished gaming experiences designed to offer players more life-relevant value. [...]

Story and narrative design have become hugely important to casual gamers whose expectations regarding plot and dialog for casual games have soared. A “”hardcore”” games writer with experience on over a dozen casual games breaks down the process for creating a story, intertwining it with your gameplay and writing good dialog using lessons learned from [...]

Direct-to-the-consumer channels have created a need for entirely new strategies for promoting titles. Traditional media is only part of the shopping bag of tricks a marketing person must employ. Social media, wherein friends tell friends what they are interested in, is a huge influence. Micro-targeting to niche audiences is key. This session would provide an [...]

The design process is about more than great ideasits also about crystallizing those ideas into meaningful touchstones and goals, and presenting those goals to publishers, licensors, execs and your team. The 2010 Design Workshop starts with a license, platform and genre for developing a new casual game, then walks through the process of creating touchstones [...]

Practical pointers for project and studio directors on the importance of maintaining adaptable project and studio direction for maximal success. Lloyd will discuss changing a companys business models to adapt to changes in the market. Specifically covering Merscoms successful transition into the social gaming space and subsequent acquisition by Playdom. Delivered at Casual Connect Seattle, [...]

Everyone knows the largest demographic of online game players are women over 35, but when is the last time you had a chance to hear directly from this group? According to research, moms are increasingly older, more educated, and are now wielding nearly $2.1 trillion in spending power in the US alone. King’s Managing Director [...]

Status, achievement, reward, competition, self-expression: David Tyler, SVP of Sales & Business Development at Bunchball, describes how to address and leverage these fundamental human needs and desires through the use of mechanics from game design and behavioral economics. Learn how to use these mechanics to increase engagement, content creation and consumption, exploration, visit frequency, loyalty [...]

Casual adventure games are gaining popularity over straight hidden object games. With a strong story, themed puzzles, and interesting characters, the writing behind a good casual adventure deserves more than just an afterthought in the production process. (Yes, it might even require the work of a real writer!) In this session, Boomzap Entertainment’s resident writer/designer [...]

Games are games no matter the platform – and PopCap has proven that great games have legs with their cross platform strategy. With hits Peggle, Bejeweled, Zuma and Plants vs Zombies toping the iPhone charts, they make it seem so easy. Do not be fooled, while the professionals make triple axels and the vault look [...]

In one year G5 Entertainment has expanded its activity from mobile game development to publishing casual games on the iPhone, iPad and PSP – which was a great success. Come learn about best practices in game development and porting for various platforms as Julia Palatovska discusses the following topics: Developing for small screens and constrained [...]