Casual games

What is a casual game?

Casual games are games that usually exhibit simple rules that do not require excessive demands on time and learned skills.

Brief History

The first successful casual game is generally considered to be the arcade game Pac-Man that was released by Namco in 1980.

Tetris is the next notably iconic casual game. It was released by Nintendo for the Game Boy in 1989.

From 1990, a number of successful casual games were released for the computer after the release of Microsoft Windows. Some of the iconic games of this era include:

  • Microsoft's Solitaire

  • Minesweeper

  • Sierra On-Line's Hoyle's Official Book of Games

  • Crazy Nick's Software Picks

  • Villa Crespo's The Coffee Break Series

  • Epyx's Chip's Challenge

Casual games that you can play now

These are the latest casual games that are available to play on your Android tablet or smartphone.

Tapcentric

Tapcentric

The casual game where you tap to pop the shape before time runs out.

Casual games and the internet

In 1996 casual games moved on-line with a number of single and multiplayer HTML based games covering a wide range of genres, including cards, puzzles and trivia from sites such as Gamesvilla and Uproar.

The introduction of Flash sparked an explosion in the creation of web-based games by helping designers to create simple games. One of the most well known games developed during this time was Bejeweled (This is the original game that inspired Candy Crush).

Casual games continued to expand and grow across the range of web based technologies. The biggest growth is now seen on Facebook and on the mobile phones, where many different games can be found on the varius app stores.