Casual/Indie borderline.

[Therion]

Hi, i'm in the process of designing a game. I'm aiming to a "casual" audience, but i recently twisted my design a little, and i'm afraid that i crossed the line between "casual" and "indie"... There are some shallow guidelines on this or i am subestimating the casual crowd?. I mean, if a game have a couple of intrincated or not-so-obvious rules of play, can be appealing to casual gamers if a good in-game tutorial and game feedback is introduced?.

Cheers!.

[Musenik]

The mainstream casual audience has grown slightly more sophisticated, but the best answer is to find several casual gamers and watch them try it. You'll learn more from them than you will from all the experts on the internet.

[bvanevery]

Keep It Simple Stupid. What are tweaky weird rules supposed to do for anybody? Nobody wants to play "Guess what the Game Designer was on about when he woke up that morning."

[Nikos Beck]

I think of casual as games that are easy to pick up, learn and enjoy. Indie games are aimed at experienced players who want a challenge and demand more immersive environments.

I think that a good in-game tutorial and good feedback are necessary. You need those in every game. It doesn't turn an indie game casual. The latest first-person shooter doesn't get considered casual because the controls are well defined. It's still a chellenging game requiring skill.

[bvanevery]

Indie games are aimed at experienced players who want a challenge and demand more immersive environments.

I don't like this use of the word "indie." It does not mean "more challenging," "more immersive," "for more experienced players," or "for more demanding players." Indies can and do go after any target demographic they care to.

Everyone agrees that an indie is someone who is trying to be financially independent, regardless of the products they're making. An indie studio could ship exactly the same products that the mainstream industry typically ships; if they're self-published they're still indies.

Then, within indie-dom, there's the camp that's into "innovation and originality." And there's the camp that doesn't care about that so much. For instance, zillions of indie match-3 games. Since I'm in the innovation camp, I don't mind if the word "indie" indicates that to people. I just know it ain't always so.

I think this discussion probably should have been about the expectations of Casual vs. Hardcore gamers. Looking at a game as "Casual vs. Indie" makes no sense, there are lotsa casual indie games out there.

[MedievalElks]

I think this discussion probably should have been about the expectations of Casual vs. Hardcore gamers. Looking at a game as "Casual vs. Indie" makes no sense, there are lotsa casual indie games out there.

Yeah, "casual" is a kind of game, "indie" is a kind of game developer.

[Nikos Beck]

I think this discussion probably should have been about the expectations of Casual vs. Hardcore gamers. Looking at a game as "Casual vs. Indie" makes no sense, there are lotsa casual indie games out there.

Good point. I was interpreting "indie" as "hardcore".

[Therion]

That's true, i was referring to "indie" games as more "hardcore" ones... I don't know why i associated indie to hardcore :P

[Jesse Hopkins]

Hi, i'm in the process of designing a game. I'm aiming to a "casual" audience, but i recently twisted my design a little, and i'm afraid that i crossed the line between "casual" and "indie"... There are some shallow guidelines on this or i am subestimating the casual crowd?. I mean, if a game have a couple of intrincated or not-so-obvious rules of play, can be appealing to casual gamers if a good in-game tutorial and game feedback is introduced?.

Cheers!.

It sounds interesting to me! Then again. I play on the DS/Wii...

[NathanR]

Take it from me: crossing the line only makes your market harder to nail down, and therefore makes your marketing more expensive covering a larger audience and generally more irritating it you are a small developer without the budget for such a thing.

If you can focus it to a more specific consumer you'll have an easy time telling those people your game exists so they can come use it.

Crossing borders isn't by any means bad, just be prepared. :D