Hyper Casual Games
When Casual Just Isn’t Casual Enough
If you’re not familiar with them, hyper casual games can seem like a weird idea. After all, aren’t all games casual? How can something be hyper-casual?
More Casual Than Just Casual
The distinction between hardcore games and casual games is a slippery one but it’s one you need to understand if you want to understand casual games. Casual games enjoyed twenty years of explosive growth starting in the nineties and today are a huge part of the games industry.
Casual games grew as mobile devices became much more capable. Mobile gaming suddenly became a commercially viable art form and took off, developing its own video game language as it did. That language was the casual game, a game born and bred for mobile devices.
There is no definitive list of the features that all casual games have to have. It’s not a genre. In fact it exists in all the genres. Essentially, a casual game is one that asks less of you. It does this in a lot of ways but in general;
- The controls will be simple, with probably just a single tap or swipe being all you will ever need to do. They will be designed so that they are quick and intuitive to learn. You know how to play almost as soon as you start. There’s no “control scheme” to optimize before you can move.
- The gameplay will be rewarding and fun. It will be delivered so that you “get” the game straight away and are enjoying it within seconds of starting. There is no loot grind and no quick difficulty spikes. It’s supposed to entertain, not infuriate.
- The game will be designed with shorter game sessions in mind. You won’t need to play for hours to get anywhere. Often the games will be very short indeed, perhaps just a minute or two. It means you can play on your commute, or on a break, or on the toilet!
It all adds up to a much more casual experience.
As Casual As Pacman
Casual games as an idea or a genre really took off in the nineties, but you could make a good argument that they are a return to a more classic form of video games.
All the hallmarks of casual games — simplicity, fun, short sessions, simple controls, cute and accessible graphics and characters — were present in pretty much every game of the golden era of arcades and the early days of home consoles. In the case of arcades a lot of it was by necessity. Arcade games had to be short so people could enjoy them before their money ran out. They had to be fun and understandable so that people wanted to play them. They had to be graphically simple because computing power was so limited!
The early mobile gaming market was similar in many ways. The available control schemes were not broad, processing power was a scarce resource and most players didn’t want to spend long on a single game.
Casual Gets Serious
Although early casual games were very simple, they tended to grow in complexity as the power of the cellphones they were on increased. Once your phone had a processor that could handle full games with complex narratives, many developers wanted to try to deliver on that capability.
This left a gap in the market for more casual games and so the hyper-casual game was born. It was a reaction to the increasing commitment that some casual games were asking for.
It also turned out to be a very shrewd development. Hypercasual games became hugely popular from around 2018, making up a consistently large proportion of the total games downloaded each year. Some mobile developers became incredibly powerful from their cleverly monetized, free-to-play hits, with downloads in the tens of millions being common for hypercasuals.
You Can’t Deny The Hyper
Hyper casuals are the most accessible type of game that there is, so of course they were always going to be a huge success. You wouldn’t be here if you don’t enjoy gaming. Well, hyper-casual games convince more new players to sample the delights of video games than any other type of game. They know where the fun is and how to get you there. Casual they may be, but you won’t catch them slacking!
Hyper-Casual Games On GamePix
We have a huge range of excellent hyper-casual games for you to enjoy right here on GamePix. Like all of our games, our browser hypercasual games are completely free-to-play and work without you needing to download, install or update anything at all.
Our hyper-casual games are perfect for when you have a minute or two to kill and you just want to have a little fun. They work on absolutely any device, including the one you’re using right now, so you can play them anywhere, anytime. They’re always ready when you are. Now that’s hyper-casual!
FAQs
What is meant by hyper-casual games?
A hyper-casual game is one that has simple controls, easy-to-understand gameplay and short game sessions. They are simple, fun games that are optimized for mobile gaming. You can play them with one hand and you can play them on a short journey. They are usually free-to-play and never-ending too. All of our hyper-casual games here on GamePix are free-to-play too. Like all of our browser games, our hyper-casual work on any device, without you needing to install or download anything.
What is the difference between hyper-casual and casual games?
Casual games were the games that came out on the post-iPhone mobile games market. Compared to console titles, they were simple, easy-to-control games that were often free-to-play, although monetized in other ways. As they developed, many of these games became more complex and playing them became more involved. Hyper-casual games were a reaction to that, stripping casual games down to their most essential elements. They often have controls that need only a tap or a swipe, they are playable forever, they are usually free and a game lasts just a minute or two, while delivering a lot of fun.
