by: Daniel Ramirez

If my own house is any indication, casual games are here to stay. I personally am not a big fan of them. While I do find myself running to whatever free games I can download on my phone whenever I find myself waiting at the DMV, I would hardly call them games. They kind of remind me of the old LCD Tiger handheld games they used to sell back in the 80's. I would see this colorful picture of two tanks going at it, only to get it home and realize my whole game is me in what "kind of" looks like a tank, shooting or dodging a fire ball that sticks to a repeating pattern. Those games were fun for a few minutes but I don't think anyone who played them thought it added to their "gamer" tag. Yet every night, my fiancé can be found plugging away at “Diner Dash” or “Cooking Quest. “

Regardless of what I think of the casual game market, it does have audience, which means if someone is buying, developers are selling. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why either. They are cheap to make and can be sold easily via downloads. So you have a product that has little overhead and an easily delivery system...you can just sit back and watch your bank account go up. This has lead to some more serious casual games or attempts to make "new" 8 bit games that would seem more at home on your old NES then on your PS3. Games like the new “Mega Man 10” or “Braid,” both great games in their own right. This brings me to my point...where are the casual horror games!?

I guess the easy answer is that if horror games are meant to scare you then having something on your cell phone is not likely to get those results. I couldn't disagree more. Casual games may do well on the go or while your playing something on the bus, but a majority of players are happy playing games like “Bejeweled” on their laptop or desktop. Even Nintendo has realized this by making full fledged adventure games for the DS system that involve either blowing into your DS or yelling at it (no lie, if you see someone on the bus yelling at their hand, they may well be playing Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass... or not, either way, be safe and don't ask him). So a casual downloadable horror game could work in this medium. Now before you start mentioning the games that are out there. I'm well aware you can download games like Doom on your iPhone. What I mean is brand new IP's. Games that solely designed for the casual market that would appeal to the horror fans out there. Games that come from a franchise like “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Good games too! Not cheap stuff they release, hoping the name alone will result in sales. While there may be some there certainly are not as many as there should be.

One good example of how a game could be made is one game that I was able to find in my research, To make a successful game you really need to find something that will appeal to your audience and use the hardware needed to it's highest potential. In looking for such a game I was able to find "SpecTrek." It's a downloadable title and what it does is use your phone's GPS to determine where you are and it uses the phone's camera to project ghosts on your screen. As you hold the phone down like a map, the game will tell you where the virtual ghosts are in your area. You then hold the phone up in front of you like your taking a picture and you will see the area you are in just like you would with any other view screen expect now you can see ghosts in view. As you approach the ghosts you will be notified when you are in range and use your weapons to "catch" it. It's a simple idea that uses technology almost everyone has and it's brilliant.

I hope for the sake of horror fans we will get to see more games like SpecTrek. I hope in time some developer out there is clever enough to figure out that a casual horror game doesn't need to be all that scary but it could be entertaining and as a result lead to sales. Until then.. I'll keep looking. By the way... my fiancé also plays next gen games....

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