Most of the game developers are people who play games. So, the first game they try to make is the game that they loved playing. But what they don’t understand is the background of the development process. They try and quit after a year. People don’t take seriously the simplest advice “KEEP IT SIMPLE”. In this post we will cover how making hyper casual game as your first game can boost your confidence and help you keep going.
What is hyper casual game?
Hyper casual games are those that require minimum user input to play them. Hyper casual games can be played at any time. For example, you can play them while standing in a queue, while on train, during a short break. Hyper casual games also have the ability to start playing from where you left earlier and pause immediately to start some other work.
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Most of the hyper casual games have only one scene. The start screen is where the game plays and its where the end score is displayed and you can just start playing again. The controls are generally one button, you mostly find yourself tapping, swiping or tagging around in these games.
Some examples of hyper casual games are flappy bird, hole.io, color switch. Vadoo is one of the major publishers of hyper casual games. An important thing to note for game developers is they don’t make all their games themselves. They buy games from developers and publish it in their name.
Making Hyper casual game-WHY?
Now for the most important part of the post. How does a new developer benefit from developing hyper casual games? You can also checkout some best courses on making hypercasual games.
1. It’s easier to make
Hyper casual games are easier to make than conventional games. The game mechanics of a hyper casual game is very simple, so it is easier to code and mostly accomplished with a few lines of code.
If a experienced developer starts making it, he must be able to finish the core mechanics within 10 to 15 minutes. Since most hyper casual games have single scene, so you don’t have to make the boring menu system.
2. Can be played by everyone
Hyper casual games are played by all. People of all age group, gender play hyper casual games during their free time. Hyper casual games help you de-stress. I play these games during my busy schedule for a few minutes just to remove the stress of my work.
More the number of people playing more potential customers for you to sell your game. So, you basically have a big customer base for these kinds of games.
3. Requires less art and simple sounds.
Art requirement of hyper casual game are very minimal. You would require simple shapes or images to make them. Games like flappy bird have imported game art that you can find for free in most of the cases. If you use unity then unity asset store is more than enough for making a hyper casual game.
As of the sounds, you can get free background music for your game and little noises for collision and achievements can be added. No complex music and voices are required to make hyper casual games.
4. Smaller in size
Most hyper casual games are smaller in size this helps people to quickly download and install them. Believe it or not, people don’t think much before downloading a game that’s less than 10mb. But, if you have a 100mb game, most people will think twice and look for reviews before downloading.
5. Chances to get a publisher are more.
Hyper casual games are mostly mobile and hyper casual game space is dominated by vadoo and ketchapp. It’s fairly easy to get these publishers to publish your game compared to AAA publishers.
If you have a game with good game play mechanics, you can submit your game to these publishers and if approved they might ask you to make some tweaks and resubmit. The good thing about getting a publisher is you don’t need to worry about marketing. You can negotiate your share with them. Many indie developers have become profitable by hiring a publisher.