Merits of 2/3/4 player games

[sparkyboy]

Hi everyone,
Finally got the courage to make my first post.So here goes.
Basically,would it be worth creating a game for the casual audience that allows 2 or more players to play in turn.
From the demos of titles such as zuma and jewel quest,I noticed that they only allow one player at a time even though they allow seperate player profiles.

For me,if a game like jewel quest had the ability to allow multiple players to play in turn,it would help to involve the whole family in the enjoyment of the game at the same time.
What are your thoughts?

[Mike Boeh]

It's a good question, and one that hasn't been asked here before. I would definitely say there are merits to doing a game that supports multiple players. That is one of the things people often write in about with Platypus. One player takes the keyboard, and the other the mouse, and they have fun playing it together.

[ManuelFLara]

And how would jewel quest be able to handle multiple players simultaneously? Since keyboard or joystick are not recommended devices for casual games (which both zuma and jewel quest are), you only have the multiple mice option, and here you have (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2062) an extensive discussion on that topic.

EDIT: Considering Mike's reply, if you talk about not-so-casual games (like shooters or platformers) where other input devices don't scare players, I think it's a good bonus.

[tolik]

http://www.mouse-party.com/

[sparkyboy]

O.K I haven't been flamed(its early days sparkyboy)
quote

And how would jewel quest be able to handle multiple players simultaneously?

No i'm not talking in this instance about simultaneous play,but take it in turns.
Basically,lets take jewel quest as an example:

1.No option for multiplay.
Husband plays jewel quest.His better half sees him playing and wants to play,
he says no,not till i've finished,got just 4 more squares to complete.She walks off in a huff.

2.Option for multiplay.
Husband plays jewel quest.His better half sees him playing and wants to play,he says no probs babe,quits his game(which is saved for when he's alone)then selects 2 player game in which each player has a certain amount of time to make as many matches as possible before its the other players turn.

I think option 2 is the better.

[alfie]

Hi everyone,
Basically,would it be worth creating a game for the casual audience that allows 2 or more players to play in turn.


Definately worth creating because of the fun that can be had and the benefits of multiple exposure for the game. There is however a major barrier if your targeting the casual audience, in that the portals focus on single player games.

[sparkyboy]

Thankyou Alfie,glad you agree.But surely,isn't the whole premise of the portals about family entertainment?
If there are any representatives from these portals reading this,I (for one)would really appreciate your views on this matter.

P.S.
How do you get those quotes in nice shaded boxes?
Sorry to ask.

[alfie]

But surely,isn't the whole premise of the portals about family entertainment?



If you look at a portal like Real, they state that their target is something like Females aged 30-45. I dont think any of the portals are targeting "families", but I may be wrong, so if anyone knows of any?



P.S.
How do you get those quotes in nice shaded boxes?
Sorry to ask.

Click the QUOTE button when you reply to a particular post, then take out the stuff you do not want to include within the box.

[James C. Smith]

If you look at a portal like Real, they state that their target is something like Females aged 30-45. I dont think any of the portals are targeting "families", but I may be wrong, so if anyone knows of any?

I don’t know if they are ‘targeting” famines but I do hear of a lot of families who play the same casual game. Most games don’t support multi-player but they still take turns playing and comparing their scores. I hear from customers who compete with their spouse, parents, and grand kinds. One of my forum regulars plays my games a lot and says that the grand kinds come over and say “grandma, you have the coolest games”. I recently found out that one of my long time forum regulars is the mother of another long time forum member but for some strange reason they were keeping their relationship a secret. I hear from many couple where the husbands and wife booth enjoy the game.

I am talking here about feedback I received on my companies forum for the game but I assume it is similar to stuff that goes on with Real Networks customers since these games sold very well on Real Networks and many of the people on my forum actually did by the game from Real or other bug causal portals.

[sparkyboy]

Thankyou James and everyone else.
I really feel that if we are going to see more match 3 type games then the addition of a turn based mode in addition to the usual puzzle,adventure etc modes,will only serve to increase a games appeal and maybe longevity.
It maybe the so called 'twist' on a genre that's needed.

[JPGinLA]

Sparky,

FWIW, Snood has had a "Tournament" mode for years which allows users to specify how many players are going to play for how many rounds/games and then the computer keeps the scores and allows the players to alternate play with the lowest score going first in each round until completion of the tournament.

I think it accomplishes exactly what was described.

-JPG

[C_Coder]

What about old-skool split screen play? I quite like the idea of splitting the screen in 2/3/4 smaller windows. Nowadays it is quite simple to do so with render-to-texture capabilities of 3D cards.

Examples:
Wacky Races - Apogee
Diddy Kong Racing - Nintendo
Tetris :D

I'm sure you can think of something else.

[sparkyboy]

I'm hearing you :)
As with everything in life we need some good old fashioned values i.e.retro gaming (for the whole family). :D
Oh yeah just as a side note,I visited gamehouse today and lo and behold they have a game called spring sprung sprang(maybe the other way round).Thats a game i prototyped 8 bleedin' years ago. :eek:
Just shows you(well me anyway) if you have an idea just roll with it.
Kudos to everyone and for petes sake lets get those portals in line. :D

[Brian Poel]

Multi-player is definitely going to be more of a factor in the future.

This is already happening on some portals, primarily with the Web games.
The MSN Games web games have site-wide high-scores as well as assigning 'ranks' to specific score ranges for each game. It's not really 'multi-player' but it is 'community' oriented.

But more in the spirit of real-time multiplayer, some Web games are also being made to fit in MSN Messenger. So you have Bejeweled running next to the chat window, with a running tally of 'best score' and 'current score' below the game UI. It's pretty cool.

.brian poel
.producer
.oberon media

[svero]

I put a number of two player games in Twilight Mahjongg, and I heard back from many players that were using those modes, playing together or competing. I know in the past I've enjoyed certain games like mini golf and so on playing against my friends or girlfriend. Also artillary style games seem quite popular (pocket tanks, worms etc...) -- I suspect there's not enough of this sort of game around, but if I did do it I'd probably always make an effort to have a single player game, or a computer opponent, or net play.

[Daniel]

I dunno if someone already tried this out, but one idea I had to involve a whole family or group of friends in single player games is adding user-created online high score accounts.

I'm not talking about the regular “post your high scores online" stuff.
Well, sure a lot of ppl like that too, but the problem is your scores will drown among thousand of other gamers using the same high score table as you do.

Instead, a player creates a high score account within the game, let's say he'd call it bobs_crazy_family_account
The game creates the slot on a high score server you host, and all his records will be posted on it. Now he simply has to tell his family to use the same slot.
No matter which computer you’re using or where you’re located, you can always compete against your own family and/or friends!

At least, I know that that would come handy in our family. My mom and dad are trying to beat each others high scores in Bricks of Camelot.
If I could just post my results in their high score list I would totally wipe both of them out! :eek: :D

[James C. Smith]

I dunno if someone already tried this out, but one idea I had to involve a whole family or group of friends in single player games is adding user-created online high score accounts.

Crimsonland has this feature. You can create your own group and compete for highscores with just the members of your group. The groups are not listed anywhere. Someone in the group has to tell you the name of the group. Everyone in the group sees all the highscores of everyone else in the group. This is great for competing against friends or family when they are geographically separated. I like to compete with my brother and not have to see the 10,000 internet users who have us booth beaten.

Xbox Live Arcade has a different system that accomplishes basically the same thing. You can set up a buddy list which helps with other things such as joining multi-players games. But in the on-line high scores list you can also filter the list down to just your buddies. This makes it easy to compare your scores to just your buddies scores rather than the scores of the whole world. But this is different than the group thing mentioned above because not everyone in your buddy list will have the same buddies you do. So you each see different lists of people. I may have my brother in my buddy list and I can see that I have him beaten and I am #1 in my list. But on his list, I may be #10 after all his buddies who are better than both of us.