PGC Digital: Adding "real multiplayer" to hypercasual games from Janice Patton's blog

Photon Engine's head of growth, Mark Val, spoke at Pocket Gamer Connects Digital NEXT on the process of creating a hypercasual multiplayer game. Val took us back to the "beginning" of hypercasual games, identifying Don Nguyen's Flappy Bird as the first one.

"His goal was to build a game that puts a grin on everyone's faces while at the same time being incredibly easy to play," Val said of meeting Nguyen.

Nguyen's goal for Flappy Bird, according to Val, was for someone to be able to play on a bus with one hand on the rail and the other free to play the game.

Val then talked about the origins of hypercasual multiplayer games like Agar.io and Slither.io. In 2015, Agar.io was the second most searched game, and in 2016, Slither.io was the most searched game.

Val explains that many IO Games were released as a result of the remarkable success of these two games. The problem with these games is that the vast majority of them are "fake" multiplayer games that use bots instead of real humans.

Your aim is to bring the players together in some way, whether it's physically, digitally, or via a metaverse.

MARK VAL: “Typically, 80% of players are within 20% of the space”.

Val explained that many studios discover that creating a hypercasual multiplayer game is either too expensive, too time-consuming, or would not work on phones all over the world.