I am a Gamer. And on a special day, I got into mobile gaming. Until now I tested many games and today I want to present to you what a good single player mode in mobile gaming needs to be a good game.
Quelle: Augmentors on medium
Why there is a need for singleplayer for mobile games in general?
This is the reason I am writing this post. My new hope for mobile gaming, Augmentors, will have no singleplayer mode on soft launch. This is not a big deal right now but I know Augmentors is still progressing. My hope is that I am lucky one day and Augmentors implements a singleplayer game mode.
The most obvious reason for me is the mobility of smartphones. If you develop a game specifically for mobile devices, you know that your players will play on mobile devices, too. By this, you know that a player will not just play the game at home on his couch, he will play on the road while sitting in the train or waiting for something as well. In mobile situations, you mostly have not endless time and you don't know if your internet connection will be good for a long time. So if a player wants to play a game mobile, the probability is high that he will choose a game where he can pause the game every time. So if you would play a game where a battle will take some minutes you would not be sure if you can play the game until the end. With a singleplayer game instead, you could play the game without caring about this problem. By this, you are using the complete possibilities of the mobile devices.
How should the singleplayer be built?
I am orientating my opinion on the system of many games I like. Those are mostly the big games from Japan that are not playable in Europe or not supported in Europe anymore. Those games have nearly all the time a dungeon system which I try to explain in more detail:
Singleplayer on mobile devices you should be able to play in short steps in which you could pause all the time. So you do not need a story with a big world which you are passing for hours and hours. It is much better to create short dungeons (missions). Those are built like this:
In the game, the player has a list of dungeons like the screenshot on the right. In the beginning, it will list only one dungeon. As soon as this dungeon is succeeded a new dungeon which is harder to play will appear on the list. With a click on one of those dungeons, a singleplayer game will start. In a battle game, the system of those dungeons will stay the same: you battle. In the example of Augmentors, you usually play online with your creature against a creature of another person. In a singleplayer dungeon, the system would be same with the only difference that you battle an NPC instead of a real player. At the first story dungeons, the enemy creatures will be very weak. From dungeon to dungeon the creatures will stronger. As soon as a creature is defeated, the virtual dungeon is succeeded. This system can be expanded easily. For example, you could battle three creatures in a row in the dungeon. By this, a dungeon would be three turns long.
In my opinion, it doesn't need more. The only thing that every game needs to do for the game itself is to create a good battle system. This is the creative part of a game. An example of a game with a great battle system is Puzzle&Dragons. This is a complicated puzzle game where you need much skill to be good in the game and even after four years of playing I was able to improve my game style. It was important as well to choose a correct team. An example of a game with a really bad battle system is Dragonball Dokkan Battle. In this game, you do not skill or knowledge. The only important thing is to build the right team and then you can play like every other player. If you have a team that is able to defeat a dungeon you are able to defeat it all the time because you attack just with a click for which you have endless time to think of.
The benefits
This is the most important part of this article. I already told you why I think that a game needs to have a singleplayer. But the benefits you can give a player with a single player are much more than just using the mobility of a device. I try to explain the most important ones to you:
Stamina (+Rewards)
How much dungeons a player is able to play should be limited. A really good method to do this is the stamina system which I was hating first but loving and supporting now. Stamina are points each player has. This could be 100 for example. Every start of a dungeon will cost some of this points. So if a dungeon cost 10 points and you start that one you are just at 90 anymore. Now your points are reloading until they are at 100 again.
I did not like the system in the very first moment because there was no reason for me to limit the number of dungeons a player is able to play in a day. I thought a player should be able to play endless and the only reason could be that a game wants to let players invest money to refill their stamina. But this is the first important aspect: The stamina system needs to be built fair. The play should have at least that much stamina that he can play more than just 10 minutes. The next thing is that dungeons need to reward the players. The most games have an in-game currency, Augmentors as well. The most logic reward to begin is to pay the players some of the in-game currency - at least for the first clear of a dungeon. There should now be some special extra dungeons which have repeating rewards besides the story dungeons.
Special Dungeons
This is the central part of a good singleplayer game. They bring the game variety and make it more dynamic. Special dungeons should run parallel to the story dungeons. The most special thing about them: They are time-limited. They could appear repetitive or even once. So there could be some special dungeons which reappear on a specific day of the week, for example or let them run through a 2-week period. The special dungeons are the reason to let stamina be useful. If a player has just 100 stamina the player needs to think about which dungeon he will play first and how many times he will play it. So the special dungeons need to have beside the first clear reward some repeating rewards as well.
The possibilities of repeating rewards could be completly custom and game specific. Here are two examples of rewards:
- You could get the creature you battled in the dungeon as reward. This would need to be logic for a game to be a good reward. In the moste games you can sacrifice your creatures to strengthen other creatures. This wouldn't be a part of Augmentors but maybe one day there could be some farmable creatures that are not as strong as creatures you need to buy.
- Items that help you ingame. If you can collect Items in a game a nice reward would be some special item. In the example of Augmentors there are abilities which you get out of portals. This abilities you could gift to players by finishing dungeons. As a bonus there could be some abilities which you can just farm in a special dungeon and get not somewhere else. So if you are an early player of a game you have some more abilities than others.
With the rewarding system a game needs to be creative to give players a good reason to paly special dungeons. With custom rewards and limited stamina a player needs to think of if he wants to play dungeon A or dungeon B more.
long time motivation
The last important benefit which I want to point out is the long time motivation. In the alpha period of Augmentors I had a short feeling that it could get boring over a long time of playing because the battles felt sometimes the same. The game needs to have one last special thing to be good for a long time, too. Probably there is a good multiplayer way to do bring the players a long time motivation (like for me being number 1 on the leaderboards and be in the game from the very first moment) but I think special dungeons are all the time relevant content that you want to play. As well if a dungeon is just playable for two weeks a player wants to finish this dungeon in this two week period to get even the first time clear reward. Those special dungeos are motivating palyers to start the game continuesly to play the new content. You do not just play to win anymore you would play to farm stuff to have better items in the game. You get rather a long time motivation if you are "forced" to play the game than you just need to play the game if you want to right now. With special dungeons you could do cool extras while real life events, too. Christmas? No problem, do a christmas dungeon. Halloween? No problem, do a halloween dungeon. There are so many possibilities ...
What's your opinion?
At this point I am done with my opinion. I hope you was able to understand how much I like a good singleplayer in a game and you which benefits I see in this. Now I am interested in your opinion, do you think that a good mobile game needs a singleplayer? I wish everyone a nice day!