I have been writing books for my Wildebyte Arcades for a while now. All the way at the beginning, before even starting the first book, I made a general plan involving three “disks”: Handheld, Console and Desktop.
Each disk has Wildebyte stuck in an entirely different kind of device, which means different rules of the world and different possible games.
I started with Handheld and it’s the series I’m currently writing. But what is handheld? As I research more games and possible stories, as I play more games on different devices (also research, yes, very productive research), I realize the lines are becoming more and more blurred.
Mobile games are now as big and complex as desktop games. Many games are released on basically all platforms. The Nintendo Switch (and now Steamdeck) have really changed what is considered a “portable” game.
So I had to take some time and properly evaluate what I mean with each category. (Because I don’t want to do the same type of game multiple times, just because it can be played on multiple devices.)
In the end, I decided on the following.
Handheld Disk
These games …
- Are the simplest and most portable of all
- Would usually be categorized as casual or hypercasual. Short playtime, extremely simple rules.
- Really use the features of a smartphone or handheld device (such as GPS, touchscreen, etcetera)
Yes, this means that some games that can be played on mobile or a handheld device, will still get a story in a different disk. Perhaps because they are just too complex. Perhaps because they don’t really use a touchscreen but require a controller. Perhaps because they originally released on some other platform.
At the moment, this is the largest. That’s actually to be expected.
The mobile game market has been the largest market for a while now. There are waaaay more mobile games than any other type, because they are so small and simple, while also allowing a great deal of variety and flexibility in the types of games. (The fact that everyone basically expects games to be free also causes developers to keep games extremely light and sloppy and just “make something quick and throw it on there”.)
Way fewer games are released for consoles. (And back in the day, when you had arcade machines or just a few big game companies, the pace of game development was obviously at its slowest.)
Desktop wants to keep up, and does so admirably. But people expect more from a desktop game (longer playtime, more depth, better graphics), while this entire type of game shuts out anybody who isn’t at their computer a lot (or doesn’t have a functioning one, like me). Which means the people seriously creating new types of games for desktop, and being able to generate a profit from it, is relatively small.
There are certainly many different desktop games, but in the end they mostly boil down to the same few general categories.
Console Disk
These games …
- Contain the “classics” from when we actually played video games on arcade machines (think of Pong, Tetris, …)
- Fall between casual and hardcore. Gaming consoles have always had some games clearly for families/kids and some games clearly for the true gamers.
- Really use its features, which mostly means they require a controller / gamepad to play. (Traditionally, gaming consoles could support more graphical fidelity and larger games because those devices are made specifically for games. But even that isn’t really a thing anymore.)
I’m still finding the right approach, but this disk will “pingpong” between those classics and the modern game console staples.
Again, there are plenty of games that also release on desktop computers which are played with a controller. But, surprise surprise, most people don’t actually own a USB controller to plug into their PC. (Unlike me, a game dev, who has 6 cheap USB controllers of which half are broken in some way. I haven’t owned a game console in a while now.)
I’d therefore categorize almost all games that require a controller/gamepad as Console Disk material.
As stated, this is probably the smallest disk. (As in, it has the least stories.)
Desktop Disk
These games …
- Have the widest variety, because gaming on a regular computer allows the most freedom (and has a long, varied history).
- Contain the most “hardcore” games. (Which doesn’t necessarily mean complex. It mostly means that those games are for a niche audience instead of something widely popular like FIFA or Candy Crush.)
- Really use its features, which means played with keyboard and mouse. And perhaps some other features any regular desktop pc/laptop would have or excel in.
It surprised me that most of the games I played when I was young actually fall into this category. We had a game console when I was young, but I guess the computer always won. (Smartphones didn’t exist yet when I was a young kid. And they wouldn’t for a long time.)
Any other games I played were on the Gameboy, which ends up in the Console category (despite the Gameboy being a handheld device), as the gameboy was just a simple controller + screen in one. Not a single game from the Gameboy required a touchscreen to play, because that wasn’t a thing yet :p (Nor were annoying staples such as “in-app purchases”, “ads”, or “freemium”.)
As stated, this is probably the medium-sized disk. (The number of stories is between Console and Handheld.)
Conclusion
Handheld isn’t the best name for the disk. I knew that from the start. But it’s the most interesting and distinct name that mostly points in the right direction.
The other disks are, obviously, not set in stone and won’t be until I actually write them.
As usual, all of this is at the mercy of the story. The story always comes first. If I just can’t find any way to get a unique and interesting story for a game … it won’t appear. No matter how popular the game is or how many people would want a Wildebyte book inside it. (Similarly, some planned stories combine two different types of games that couldn’t really support a story on their own.)
It’s the fine line I’m walking here. The books should not just become a “written version” of the game. Because, well, just play the game then! They are entertaining stories, which just happen to be set inside game universes.
Anyway, I wanted to write this article to clarify this, both to any readers and to myself.
Keep reading,
Tiamo