But not all of those holidays are necessarily celebrated everywhere. We wanted to make a global brand. So in this way at least we give our consumers a choice. If they're offended by something, they don't have to purchase it. CNN: What do you think is so compelling or so addictive about the game? Heijari: It's like a very, very direct experience.
It's direct controls and instant gratification. You get a sort of gut feeling. You get positive feedback from the game.
On top of that, you have characters. You have all the audio design and the visual design that's sort of -- it's easily approachable but still it has a quirky personality. If you have family-oriented entertainment properties, everything is often like supercute and it doesn't necessarily have like any kind of edge to it. But our birds are angry.
It's different in that sense. CNN: Who came up with that idea, that the birds would be angry? Heijari: It was one of our game designers, Jaakko Iisalo. He had a concept. The game concept was a bit complicated but he had the characters in a really rough sketch form. Everyone looked at the sketch and said, "Hey, forget about the game concept, but who are these guys?
Everybody got a really positive feeling. They look grumpy enough to destroy something. CNN: Did the characters go through different versions? Heijari: A usual Rovio mobile title took about three or four months to develop.
CNN: I heard there wasn't a slingshot at the start. Heijari: Yeah, the slingshot wasn't there at the beginning. The designers were doing a lot of play testing and people -- that's like one of the key things -- people started the game and you had just like birds huddling in the grass. And people were like, "What do I do? It was easy, but people still had trouble grasping what you had to do immediately. So then the designers added the slingshot.
They thought, well, everybody knows how to use a slingshot. You just pull back. Heijari: It was always the birds.
Then the pigs, they just sort of evolved out of necessity, to have some sort of opponent for the birds. But the birds were there from the very beginning. Heijari: Yeah. And that backstory that the birds are angry because the pigs stole their eggs was also necessary. Like, why are the birds angry? CNN: Were the birds always angry? Were they ever goofy? Heijari: Yeah, in the first sketch they were like really grumpy looking.
Heijari: The apps themselves were failures, but the mobile market was a lot different in the early '00s. Rovio was founded in , and from to all development was basically focused on Java games, for more primitive mobile phones.
That market was very difficult. There wasn't a unified marketplace, like what Apple has built for the iOS. Instead, you had to work with operators. You had to work with mobile phone manufacturers. For instance, operators wouldn't do business with game developers unless you had a massive portfolio of games to sell. If you say, "Hey, I have this one really successful game.
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Why do we enjoy building and personalizing virtual environments? In evolutionary psychology, the theory of signal ling suggests that a lot of our actions are actually methods of communicating our qualities. There is a less charitable reading of our addiction to creative sims like Farmville and Sim City, however.
First postulated by a Thorstein Veblen in , the theory suggests that an individual will go to great lengths — and expense — to show others their possessions. This may be especially true in free-to-play games that allow players to spend money on customization options like new outfits or building blocks: the more you purchase and show off, the theory suggests, the richer feel in comparison to friends.
Finally, Jamie Madigan sees another motivation at work in games that operate a timer system where, say, crops automatically fail unless the player regularly tends to them. People will spend resources like money or time just to keep things in play once they've gotten moving instead of losing the option to come back to them. Human beings have a basic desire for autonomy — a sense of control over our lives. In a meta-analysis, psychologists Ronald Fischer, and Diana Boer found that autonomy is a better predictor of happiness than money.
Battle simulation games like Clash of Clans give the player complete control over an army as it engages in combat with an opposing force, providing not just autonomy but purpose. At the same time, you also get to design and build your own home base, allowing personal creativity. That is very compelling".
In terms of casual game design, Angry Birds is effectively the perfect storm of compulsive factors. It has everything and it has it all in exactly the right quantities. Writing in Psychology Today, Michael Chorost once listed the four main reasons for the game's success: the interface is completely intuitive so there's no barrier to inhibit compulsion; there is disproportionate feedback when the bird hits the pig building glass shatters, logs fall, stone crumbles ; it's funny and different everytime so there's suspense; it's based on authentic physics, so we feel we can apply real-world skills to the game, making skill feel more 'legitimate'.
Chorost centers on the delicious delay between firing the catapult and seeing the results — it is nectar to our primal pleasure centers. And it's extremely easy to get yourself in a position of wanting, because the game is so simple. It gives you intermittent but extremely satisfying rewards. So you pull the slingshot again and again and again.
With modern video games it's often hard to see any progress being made; the levels are long, and the markers are few and far between. Angry Birds rejects that concept completely and returns us to a time when games comprised of dozens of separate levels.
I hate to admit it but there is a certain level of satisfaction felt in playing Angry Birds. Launching a bird into a wall and seeing the death and destruction rain down as a result is compelling. Getting it just right and seeing the whole level implode in one hit often elicits a smile or even a laugh. Which is more than usually happens when I'm playing the latest Call of Duty. Possibly because I'm crap at Call of Duty.
Why is satisfaction addictive? Because it makes you happy, releasing endorphins into the system. It's really no wonder you want, or even need, to keep on playing and keep those feelings rolling in.
The more you play the more you laugh, the more you laugh, the more you feel a rush, the more of a rush you feel, the more you want to keep on playing! I'm now playing Angry Birds on Facebook, which has rapidly become my favorite way of playing it. I'm pretty choosy who I befriend on Facebook, and for that reason it's only people I really want to talk to who make the cut.
Who have I been battling on Angry Birds over the last two weeks? My boss at MakeUseOf , and my girlfriend. And they're both kicking my butt. Even with me utilizing these hints and tips.
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