The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

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If you are familiar with my previous post when I shared a few insights on what makes the hyper-casuals click, you’d remember how I fantasized about something called Gratification in almost every paragraph. It’s not a bad thing to fantasize about if you are a Game Designer or someone who loves crafting engaging experiences.

You’d wonder what took me so long? Good question. But you know, I have a life (just kidding, I don’t). On a serious note, I’ve wanted to pen down my thoughts but preparing Possessions for Apple Arcade kept me occupied.

But here it is, a post dedicated entirely to Gratification and why I feel it’s one of the most essential ingredients for a recipe we call “fun”. As a matter of fact, the game in conversation is the first mobile game which made me spend close to $500 on in-app purchases, I do declare, all thanks to the pleasant experience crafted with care and polish.

Ready? Let’s go!

Now, because I haven’t been able to spend enough time on my consoles or PC since last few months, I’ve been playing a lot of mobile games. Some good, some very good. The idea about exploring gratification and how to tackle it came to me when I got hooked to a game called Nonstop Knight 2, a sequel to the hit, you guessed it, Nonstop Knight, by Flaregames. It’s a top-down dungeon crawler in which the character runs and attacks automatically, while the player controls his special abilities. As you explore and raid dungeons, you gain access to new and improved equipment which improves your power in the game. A simple loop, right?

Don’t get fooled by its simple core loop, this game has layers of depth built into it in terms of gameplay and meta. For those who haven’t played the game, allow me to explain a few key aspects of it.

It all starts elegantly without any lengthy onboarding or tutorials. As soon as you boot the game, you see a good-looking Knight with the option to customize his look and nickname. Hit the “OK” button, and you see the Knight running around in a dungeon on a pre-defined path. The auto-running Knight is soon welcomed by two enemies. You see the Knight killing those weaklings in a couple of hits. Once you are done digging their graves, a big blue button pops at the bottom, and the game pauses for your input. You tap the button and see the Knight deliver a terrifying blow. That’s how you learn about your only interaction in the game. Don’t get me started on how satisfying it feels when you hit the enemies, watch them explode in a chunk of shards with a minimal screen-shake to go with it. We will, of course, come back to all of this later.

Once you are done with a dungeon, you win a chest which rewards you with new and powerful gear, and the game teaches you how to equip them. That’s one good example of getting your player in the game with the least amount of tutorial and get them playing asap!

As you learn about the gameplay and equipping items, the ‘tutorial’ ends with inviting you to explore more dungeons and get powerful. Who’d possibly refuse this offer?

Tell me more!

Alright, before we dive deep into the elements which contribute towards the gratification, you need to understand the core gameplay and meta. I, for one, adore the design decisions taken to make sure NK2 attracts a much wider audience, being a soft-core dungeon-crawler it is.

The core

As mentioned earlier, NK2 is a top-down dungeon crawler with a few twists to make it work efficiently on a mobile device. The character attacks automatically, and the player’s only interactive responsibility is his special abilities. Abilities include dealing a severe blow, setting things on fire, dashing away/towards the enemy, to name a few. Of course, using these abilities at the right time is what keeps you going, especially while raiding a hard dungeon where you can’t rely on your auto-attacks to do all the work for you. And not to forget, you can’t spam your way through the dungeon with your abilities since it costs mana and you don’t have an unlimited supply.

This is what I believe is one of the most crucial and well-thought design decisions the developers made. Considering the platform’s shortcomings, the game offers a sweet relationship between an idle game and an RPG. By cutting down the interaction, it enables the game to be enjoyed anywhere, holding the phone with a hand or two. Part of the credit goes to the portrait orientation, which makes it easier for the player to handle the game. And to make sure the player is well-invested in each session, the use of special abilities subtly promotes player’s participation while empowering him to feel like a vital piece in the machinery.

The progression

You don’t run and kill without a substantial purpose in the game, of course. The game has a robust progression system which complements the core mechanic very well.

At the time of writing, there are a total of (9) Worlds in the game, with each world having multiple dungeons, and dungeons further divided into floors (sub-dungeons). Moreover, dungeons frequently come equipped with modifiers to stir things up. For example, one of the dungeons in World 8 has a modifier “Paranormal” which allows the enemies to have accelerated mana regeneration, making them use abilities more often. And you’d be happy to know that each world can be completed in three difficulties in the search for better rewards, promoting replayability.
To complete a World, you have to fight through different enemies in each dungeon. Completing a dungeon rewards you with Chests and XP. To open a Chest, you need to have enough ‘Keys’, which is the game’s way of using the energy system for pacing the progression. You can still play the dungeons if you run out of Keys (which auto-generate in regular intervals). Again, you won’t get any Chests after completing it, just some coins, gear-upgrade ingredients and XP.

As you find and equip gear, you enhance your ‘Power Rating‘ which tells you how ‘powerful’ your character is, and tells you if a dungeon is easy or hard depending upon the difficulty of the dungeon which is also conveyed via the Power Rating. So to play a dungeon with 100 difficulty, it’s best to have your Knight’s Power Rating to be 100 or above.

How do you increase your Power Rating? You see, each gear you find comes with a Power Rating as well, and the gear you currently have equipped to your character contributes towards your total Power Rating. This makes you spend most of your time in search of powerful gear. However, you can be even more “powerful” by equipping passive (Talents) and active abilities (Skills). Remember the only interaction you have in the game? That’s what Skills are.

To summarize, the game will have you raid dungeons to find powerful gear which makes you unstoppable against the enemies, until you encounter someone more powerful, forcing you to repeat the loop to relive your profound memories.

(something about) The Meta

This is where things get interesting. You’d think that NK2 is too simple to grab your attention for a long time, but you’d be surprised to know how wrong you are. Although the game flaunts a simple core loop, you’d notice that it’s neatly supported by a strong meta. Let me try and cast some light on it before we move on to the major attraction of this post.

So far, we’ve learned two salient facts about this game:

1. You raid dungeons as a Knight who is capable of moving and attacking automatically.
2. Raiding dungeons allow you to obtain loot, which makes you more powerful.

At this point, I’d like to mention that these two facts alone are enough to drive engagement for most of the users, but for those who are fond of licking the game inside-out, NK2 offers a little something to satisfy your desires.

Each weapon comes equipped with one of the Elements (or modifiers) namely:

1. FIRE: deals fire damage.
2. VOID: deals void (magic) damage.
3. FROST: deals frost damage.
4. PHYSICAL: the standard element which does physical damage.

Deciding your loadout becomes important because you can magnify the effects of your gear by selecting the right set of Talents (passive abilities) in the game. For example, a Talent called ‘Delayed Bolt’ allows the Knight to deal an additional 25% VOID damage, so it only makes sense to hold a weapon which has the VOID element attached to it. Similarly, you unlock other useful Talents which reward you with passive and active support when coupled with the right kind of Element on your weapon.

Of course, you can upgrade your Talents to improve their effectiveness. Upgrades come in the form of duplicates which are dropped as part of your loot, and you can enhance your Talent when you have enough copies using Coins.

Last but not least, each gear you find is part of a Tier (Legendary, Epic, and so on…) and a Collection. Having a loadout where multiple items share the same Collection also reward you with additional perks, further enhancing your Power in the game.

Phew! I feel like I still have so many things I haven’t talked about, but then I remember that the reason I wanted to talk about this game is totally different. You guessed it right, it’s time for the secret ingredient!

The Star of the Show

If you came here for gratification but landed here after reading a whole lot about everything but gratification, my apologies. But I felt that it was important to highlight the critical gameplay aspects before sharing about how each feature is a beautiful wedding of functional yet appealing eye candy and game mechanics.

With games flooding app stores daily, unfortunately, you have to rely on the visuals to let your potential customer even click on your store listing. Think about the last time you clicked on a game which didn’t have a good store icon and you’ll know what I mean. Visuals play a significant role in attracting users towards your game, and NK2 exceeds in this domain.

 

Art Style

The minute you boot up the game for the first time, you’ll be fascinated to see a cartoony 3D art style with quirky animations and vibrant colours. Everything from characters to UI conveys that the designers spent a good amount of time presenting a high level of polish. The multi-tab UI is easy to navigate, with only a handful of buttons. After trying out a bunch of other idle RPGs like AFK Arena where I got puzzled by a variety of modes & mechanics, NK2 felt surprisingly simple to get into. I don’t mean AFK Arena is a bad game in any way, but NK2 cater to a different target audience, preferably players who are not used to hardcore RPGs. So it only makes sense to keep things straight with a minimal learning curve.

AFK Arena often made me miss the sense of ‘control‘ I have over the game. I’d openly confess there are still specific modes/mechanics that I even don’t understand. I participated just to get some extra XP and rewards. Coming back to NK2, it all comes together harmoniously, and I feel like I have good ‘control‘ over each and every aspect of the game. From daily missions to the campaign, it all just makes sense. But things might be different for other users. After talking to a few mobile idle RPG fanatics, I found out that NK2 didn’t offer enough depth, mainly due to lack of extra engagement features. But that’s subjective. For someone like me, who’s just starting my journey into the magical world of mobile RPGs, I felt that NK2 scratched my itch perfectly.

Again, this is not a comparison of good vs. bad, I wanted to share these images to give you an idea of how two games with similar playstyle can look entirely different and appeal to a different audience. I find NK2‘s UI clean and easy to navigate, something I found missing in AFK Arena.

The Eye Candy

This is where the game truly shines. I’ve begun to realize that there’s another force in action behind games like NK2. A force so strong that it compels you to engage every day and for what? For the pleasure received by performing an action, even with something as simple as hitting an enemy.

Notice how each hit on the enemy is validated via a subtle white flash and how charming it is to see an enemy explode into shards, which then fly towards the progress bar. A subtle screen-shake with fluid visual effects, all running effortlessly on 60 FPS makes even a repetitive action a joy to watch. The progress bar gives you a sense of completion and reaffirms your presence in the dungeon. You know you are blazing through a dungeon when you see a gazillion shards fill up the progress bar at light speed, informing you about the duration of your current session visually.

And when that’s not enough, you are also greeted by fancy appreciative texts such as “Spectacular” when you kill a lot of enemies together, verifying the fact that you are the most potent Knight to ever cross this dungeon.

I can’t talk about gratification without mentioning Skills. If you followed along, you’d remember how you have specific active abilities in your arsenal which makes the enemy resent you even more. Not only each ability has different use cases, but all of them also look beautiful to execute, making it harder to pick your favourite. To give you an example, here’s the “Flashfire” skill in action.

Look how beautiful it is to dash with a trail of fire on the ground, while your enemies burn in fear, gifting you a bunch of coins. And it’s not just fire, you can use other forces of nature to deliver nightmare to settlers who are just doing their job. But don’t worry, the game does not give you enough time to stop and think about the poor fellows. Here’s an example where I summon multiple shadow clones & a big tentacle to help me deliver my rampage.

Thanks to the big and bold UI, using a skill is as easy as tapping a button. Since the game is intended to be enjoyed with one hand, the right placement of buttons (close to the thumb) adds to the convenience. Here’s another example of multiple Skills in action and my Knight handling the chaos effortlessly.

Another area which deserves praise is the equipment design. It doesn’t just look great, it plays a vital role in conveying your progress and its effect in the game. I can’t stress enough on how crucial it is to feel the ‘progression’ in a game, especially when the game falls under the RPG genre. Since the gear you find in the game is categorized by their level of rarity, it was important for the developers to distinguish between all these fancy pieces of equipment visually. And boy, they did well.

Take the images below as an example. On the left, you have the default Knight in its standard attire. On the right, you’ll see my Knight wearing a rich set of ‘Legendary’ gear. Just a glimpse of my outfit tells you that my Knight means business and is fully committed to my cause.

Not to forget, each item provide extra benefits when coupled with the right Talent. By looking at my loadout, you can tell that my Knight is biased towards the VOID skill, thanks to the colour palette. This is an excellent form of gratification where the game rewards you with not just fancy-looking but meaningful loot in exchange for your precious time (and sometimes money). You feel content with your time when you see your Knight with a Legendary set of armour, directing the wrath towards puny enemies.
Because each item looks distinctive, they are accompanied by sleek effects to enhance their appeal and justify their rarity.

What’s the point of looking good when you can’t show it off? If you are someone like me who spent quite a bit on in-app purchases, then you’ll like to show off even more. And the game delivers. In certain dungeons, you have the option to bring along a companion either from your Clan or from a pre-selected set of users actively playing the game. Other players can use an AI version of your Knight too, and that’s when you get to boast about your shiny loot in return of social validation and Coins.

The game’s Clan feature works very well indeed. You have the option to showcase any item from your loadout for instant praise or jealousy. I’d also like to mention that it’s probably the only mobile game clan I’ve been serious about. It urges you to contribute towards the clan’s success by raiding dungeons and win Guild Chest – a special weekly reward for top positions on the leaderboard.

No matter where I look, every aspect of the game seems highly polished and well-detailed. Just look at all the confetti when you complete a tournament dungeon, how gratifying!

Even something as simple as opening a chest feels pleasing, which is mainly due to the game’s approach to art and animations.

The environment reacting to your deadly powers make a worthy mention as well.

At this point, I feel that I can go on and on, highlighting all the minor/major gratifying moments, but I think you get the idea.
NK2 is a perfect example of surprising the player with variable reward while leaving them craving for more with the help of delightful eye candy and meaningful progression. Because you are expected to engage for quite a while, it only makes sense to make your journey full of ribbons and unicorns. I confess that after about a month of daily play, the only reason I was still playing is to check out all the fancy gear & their effects, probably that’s why I couldn’t stop myself buying those expensive chests.

I don’t know how well the game performed compared to Nonstop Knight but I can get behind the idea of influencing the user to spend money in the game by entertaining her with lavish visuals and effects. It works, and I can totally see a lot of players converting just to see one of the Legendary items in action. You’d be amazed to know that the game doesn’t have any forced monetization, just the occasional rewarded ad which pops up in a dungeon allowing you to win extra rewards but only if you want to.
After a loving relationship with the game for about 4 months, I started looking for similar experiences and found some. For example, Epic Seven‘s animations and visual effects are at a class of their own, and also boasts a strong narrative. This game is such a joy to watch, and I can’t recommend it enough! Plarium’s RAID also supports neat visuals with an easy-to-grasp progression, enabling it to be a part of my daily habit in a quest for good-looking and casual-RPGs.

“Kill ’em with charm” – a motto I’ve picked up while exploring these games and will be focusing on it more often in future. If you’ve played NK2 or any other game in a similar genre, I’d love to chat more about it and see if you were charmed by their dark patterns too.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

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‘Why I Love’ is a series of lessons I’ve learned from my favorite game mechanics.

Before I get into the interjection mechanic, we need to go back in time.

In the 1910s and ‘20s, Lev Kuleshov demonstrated a film editing effect using a sequence of shots. In the first shot, there was a plate of soup. Then, a man’s expression. A girl in a coffin. The expression of the same man. A woman on a couch. And finally, the man again. Depending on what they were shown, the viewers thought the man was hungry (in the case of the soup), grieving (the girl), or desirous (the woman). Every shot of the man was the same. The only difference was the preceding shot. This psychological effect, called the Kuleshov effect, shows how context affects how people derive meaning from an experience.

Kuleshov’s demonstration. For full effect, check out the video!

The Kuleshov effect appears in branching game narratives and serves two purposes: the first, to make choices feel impactful; the second, to constrain the plot. Take the following example game. A character will betray the protagonist at a specific point in the plot. The player can make choices that affect their relationship with that character. One set of choices are “Good”. The player helps them, and the character responds kindly. When the betrayal happens, that character is a manipulative schemer. The other set of choices are “Evil”. The player harms them, and the character distances themselves. How do you think the character is perceived now? They’re a justified traitor.

To constrain the plot, player choices can be categorized under the Kuleshov effect as the context shot (the first shot, a.k.a. the bowl of soup). The betrayal is the to-be-interpreted shot (the second shot, a.k.a. the man’s expression). The player is given free rein to do whatever they like in the first shot, but not in the second shot. This helps us make decisions about what choices the player can make. For example, there can’t be a choice to kill the betrayer, because the second shot requires them to be alive. This limits what impact the player can have on the plot, while giving them the opportunity to explore their own story.

Now back to post-Disco Elysium. DE is an RPG and, as such, has character stats. These aren’t your typical D&D stats like strength, wisdom, charisma, etc. DE’s stats are things like empathy, encyclopedia, and authority. The more points the player puts into these skills, the better the character is at them and the more affected the character is by them. If you haven’t played, you might ask: “How can the player character be affected by empathy?” The answer is: the interjections.

Empathy interjecting [Disco Elysium 2019]

The interjections are the dialogue lines that are interjected by the player character’s stats. For example, if the character has high empathy, Empathy will pipe up during conversations with something like, “He’s trying not to show it, but he’s upset by the corpse in the backyard.” Then, when the player gets their usual dialogue choices, they’re now evaluating them based on what Empathy had to say. The fun bits in the game happen when two stats suggest different courses of action, like if Empathy says to watch out because they’re on the brink of crying, and Authority says to push them over it.

Why are the choices in Disco Elysium so much more compelling than in the example betrayal game? To recall, in the example game, the player’s choices comprise the context shot. The inevitable betrayal is the to-be-interpreted shot. In Disco Elysium, the interjections act as the context shot, so that the dialogue choices can be the to-be-interpreted shot. The player’s choices are no longer the context. By inverting the shot the player acts in, the player’s choices suddenly have more meaning.

Lesson: Acting with context creates meaning.

The interjections are the Kuleshov effect at work on a more micro-level. The dialogue options the player receives have their context influenced by what their character’s stats are. Why it’s so effective is that the Kuleshov effect this time around is not merely perception. It’s utility. The player can act on it. It’s a Kuleshov effect of gameplay.

— Stephen Trinh (@stephentrinha)

If there’s one thing we’ve been reminded of over the past year, it’s that fitness games are quite popular. When Fitness Boxing was originally released on the Switch, the developer Imagineer ended up having to issue an apology in Japan due to nationwide shortages after stories spread of weight loss success.

The same thing happened when Ring Fit Adventure arrived on the hybrid system last October – with Nintendo having to apologise for stock shortages (again, in Japan) after strong sales in the first month of the game’s release.

Has Ring Fit Adventure had the same impact on the health and fitness of users as Fitness Boxing? Apparently it has, according to one Ring Fit player who recently uploaded a before and after photo of himself after one month. This regular user reportedly exercised in the game for about 25 minutes a day and made sure to keep track of his diet at the same time. Here’s the result:

Is getting fit part of your new year resolution? Have you been exercising in Ring Fit Adventure regularly? Are you noticing any differences? Share your own fitness journey in the comments below.

Pokemon Sword And Shield News & Guides

• Pokemon Sword & Shield: All Max Raid Events Happening Right Now
• Pokemon Sword And Shield: Every Free Gift Available Right Now
• Pokemon Sword & Shield Eevee Guide: How To Get Every Evolution
• Pokemon Sword & Shield: How Do Fossils Work?
• Pokemon Sword Vs. Pokemon Shield: Exclusive Pokemon, Legendaries, And Raids

Last month, Nintendo of America’s former president Reggie Fils-Aimé predicted cloud gaming would take off over the next decade as technology steadily evolves and download speeds increase. Obviously, right now, the video game industry is still in the earlier experimental phases with projects like Microsoft xCloud and Google Stadia.

What does Nintendo’s current global president Shuntaro Furukawa think about the idea of cloud gaming, though? He was recently asked during an interview with the Japanese publication Nikkei if he thought this new technology would result in the demise of “expensive” and “dedicated video game hardware” like the Nintendo Switch.

Here’s Furukawa’s full reply, courtesy of a translation by Oni_Dino from Nintendo Everything:

It’s possible that cloud gaming could capture the public’s interest in 10 years from now, however at this point in time, I do not think that dedicated hardware will go away. It’s a long way off before we’ll really know the outcome. With that said, it would be pointless to solely focus on methods of play that can only be had on dedicated hardware. Once your audience starts saying they can play on other consoles or smartphones instead, you’re finished.

This isn’t necessarily the first time the president has shared his thoughts about cloud gaming. Speaking to investors at a Q&A last March, he revealed how he believed Nintendo’s current business of integrated hardware and software would increase in value in the future, despite advancements in streaming technologies.

I believe that our core value, the unique entertainment experiences that can only be achieved through the development of integrated hardware and software, will further increase in value. Delivering unique entertainment that only Nintendo can create will continue to be our top priority.

Although it might not seem like Nintendo is ready to embrace cloud gaming, there have actually been some cloud games released on the Switch, such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. For now, though, these experiences remain exclusive to Japan.

Is the future of gaming in the cloud? Share your thoughts down below.

Best Deals This Week

• PS4 Holiday Sale Round Two Starts Now: Huge Savings On 2019's Best Games
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• GameStop's Weekly Deals Include Discounts On Some Of 2019's Best Games

At CES, Lenovo continued revealing its releases with gaming laptops, an eGPU and monitors.

The new Lenovo Legion Y740S is Lenovo’s thinnest and lightest gaming laptop yet with up to eight hours of battery life [1]. It’s got up to 10th Gen Intel Core i9 processors (coming soon) reaching more than 5 GHz and Q-Control, with which users can shift gears with a simple press of their Fn+Q keys. Jump into Performance Mode for higher frame rates, down-shift into Quiet Mode for better battery life to watch a movie or stay the course in Balance Mode for day-to-day usage. Made with long-term gaming usage in mind, enjoy the new tactile feel of the Lenovo Legion keyboards, featuring quick response time with 100% anti-ghosting, improved ergonomic key size and responsive switches designed for smoother typing and gameplay. An anti-oil and abrasion-resistant coating amps device durability compared to previous generations.

With a display up to 600 nits bright­ and VESA certified with Dolby Vision, it has a 60 Hz refresh rate so washed out images are a thing of the past. The vivid picture quality is matched with up to 32GB DDR4 of memory, 1TB PCIe SSD [2] storage capacity and a thermal design with five-point sensor array and quad fan for four times the cooling when playing graphically intensive titles. Play action-packed multiplayer online battle arena games at the perfect angle with a new flexible 180-degree hinge. It starts at $1099.99 as a configure-to-order (CTO) offering.

Players can add to the power of the Y740S with the Lenovo Legion BoostStation. It serves as the gaming hub or performance box eGPU that fits on virtually any playing surface at just under 20lbs (9.07kg). Mixed-reality features (augmented or virtual reality) are supported with applicable specifications via the eGPU. It starts at $249.99 as a standalone accessory or option to bundle a NVIDIA GeForce RTX2060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU.

Both are expected to be available starting in May 2020.

Stay focused on the game with the new Lenovo Legion Y25-25 Gaming Monitor with a 24.5-inch, Full HD IPS panel display built into the near-edgeless chassis. Crank up refresh rates all the way to 240Hz—more FPS means that more data flows between the GPU and monitor, helping to eliminate tearing in most multiplayer games. It comes with anti-glare panel and up to 400 nits of brightness and is TÜV Rheinland Eye Comfort Certified to reduce eye strain. Its ergonomic stand enables a myriad of comfortable playing angles including tilt, lift, pivot and swivel; the VESA mount allows for on-wall display.

It will start at $319.99 and is expected to be available in June 2020.

Curved monitors make gaming more immersive and comfortable, as the curve simulates a more natural viewing experience for your eyes, neck and head—allowing the gamer to see all the action at once.

The new 31.5-inch Lenovo G32qc Gaming Monitor has near-edgeless bezel QHD (2560 x 1440) screen resolution for clear visuals and superior picture quality. Catch every player movement with its wide viewing angle, high-screen brightness and excellent contrast ratio. It’ll start at $319.99 and is expected to be available in March 2020.

Or, choose the heavy-duty yet compact 27-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution display on the Lenovo G27c Gaming Monitor—both monitors have a curvature of 1500R for complete game immersion. The latter is engineered to deliver virtually tear-free and stutter-free gameplay and is capable of an amazingly high refresh rate of up to 165Hz, helping to rid gaming distractions such as choppy images, streaks and motion blur. It will start at $219.99 and is expected to be available in March 2020.

While the Lenovo G32qc Gaming Monitor offers a speedy 144Hz refresh rate, both monitors give users a high-speed 4ms response time for ultimate clarity and to help eliminate ghosting. Both curved gaming monitors are TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light and Flicker Free Certified to help protect gamers’ eyesight during those uninterrupted sessions. They’re available with adjustable stands for ergonomic positioning, as well as a VESA mount for users who prefer to affix their displays to the wall. Easy access to HDMI, DisplayPort and audio out makes for seamless connectivity to gaming rigs for a better user experience.

Find out more about these and other gaming accessories at Lenovo.

[1] With 60Whr battery and 95W power adapter. All battery life claims are approximate and based on test results using the MobileMark 2014 ver 1.5 battery life benchmark test. Actual results will vary and depend on numerous factors including product configuration and usage, software, operating conditions, wireless functionality, power management settings, screen brightness and other factors. The maximum capacity of the battery will naturally decrease with time and usage. See https://bapco.com/products/mobilemark-2014/ for additional details.

[2] Actual available capacity is less and varies due to many factors, including formatting, partitioning and operating system, etc. which utilize part of this capacity. The available capacity may change with software updates.

Against all the odds, Nintendo Switch has hosted some stunning third-party ports since launching back in 2017. Disproving the idea that third-parties and Nintendo platforms don’t mix well, Switch has attracted some truly excellent (and unexpected) games that manage to squeeze performance from the console’s modest mobile chipset that few believed was possible. Where there’s a will there’s a way, it seems, and a handful of porting houses have worked wonders on Nintendo’s hybrid handheld.

One of those developers is Feral Interactive, the studio responsible for bringing both GRID Autosport and Alien: Isolation to Switch. Both games are masterclasses in porting to the console and, incredibly, they represent the first two games the developer has brought to any dedicated home console since the London-based company was founded in 1996.

“Feral began with the aim of bringing AAA games to the Macintosh platform and we built up a lot of experience doing just that,” says Edwin Smith, Feral Interactive’s Head of Design. “Over the last several years we have extended our activities to include Linux, iOS, Android and most recently Switch. We started working with Switch because it seemed capable of handling some of the games that we had brought to other platforms.”

Given Feral’s history of quality port work on other platforms, it’s unsurprising that the end results on Nintendo’s console have been impressive. While there are benefits to working on a specific device, each one has its specific drawbacks, too. “Having a single piece of hardware to target simplifies the development and QA tasks, all other things being equal,” Smith explains. “Having said that, all other things are rarely equal…the Switch CPU is not as powerful as most recent mobile handsets so you have to eke out of it all the performance you can and that means lots of performance analysis and optimisation, and that takes time and effort.”

When it comes to the two Switch games the company has worked on so far, it’s clear that that time and effort has been well spent. Feral is not alone in producing stunning work on Switch, but for every incredible port there’s another bare-bones or sloppy effort which only sets apart the quality examples further. With GRID on Switch the team went out of its way to provide players with graphical options to tailor the experience to their individual tastes, providing three distinct visual modes enabling the player to choose between graphical loveliness at 30 frames-per-second, smooth performance at 60fps or a handheld-only energy-saving mode to make Switch’s battery last longer. A free HD texture pack for the cars was also made available as a separate download, giving players even more choice over how much space the digital-only release takes up on their console.

There are a number of factors in [evaluating a potential port], not least our enthusiasm for the game as a game.

While it’s tempting to see these port houses like M2, Saber Interactive and the like as tech ‘wizards’, the reality often comes down to simple hard graft and time. “The elapsed time for each [game] was less than a year,” Smith reveals, “but in terms of man months we’ve had different teams working on different problems so it’s hard to give an accurate figure. Getting the games up and running was relatively straightforward. However we spent a lot of time tuning visual effects, controls and performance hotspots.”

Interestingly, it seems both Alien: Isolation and GRID came about more organically than you might expect, with neither being the result of a specific pitch from either Feral or the games’ respective developers/owners. “We are lucky to have long-standing relationships with both SEGA and Codemasters. A decision to bring a particular game to a particular platform tends to come out of our continuing conversations with our partners rather than a discrete event such as a pitch.”

Feral has partnerships with some of gaming’s biggest names – Square Enix, 2K and SEGA to name just a few – and while it maintains a dialogue with all partners throughout development, the team finds it most productive to keep contact to a relative minimum. “There is always regular contact with partners throughout a project that includes a range of companies, licensors, card vendors, platform holders, etc, The frequency of interaction and intensity of information flow varies by project and stage of the project. The ideal scenario is enough exchange of information, but no more to get the project done in a timely way at a quality with which everyone is happy.”

Of course, the notion of bringing a game – any game – to Switch is easy enough to dream up, but that’s just the start of a process. Potential projects undergo an evaluation which includes, perhaps surprisingly, whether the team actually likes and enjoys the game in question. “There are a number of factors in that process, not least our enthusiasm for the game as a game. But also, technical feasibility, sales potential, platform suitability, code quality, etc. If we are unable to port a game to the level of quality we wish to achieve, then we do not proceed, and occasionally that has happened. You see quite a few ports, which have dropped a number of features from the original game or else are released to run on a limited range of the latest hardware. We think that is self-defeating in that it generates disappointment rather than enjoyment.”

Some [players] don’t immediately understand the implications of an [in-depth Digital Foundry-style technical] analysis, but people are smart, if they are interested they figure it out, and it’s good to have knowledgeable customers.

On the subject of missing features, anybody who played GRID on Switch at launch will have noticed that the multiplayer mode wasn’t included to begin with. The local and splitscreen components instead arrived in December and online multiplayer is scheduled for later this year. “We wanted to manage the development risks,” Smith elaborates. “Part of that was to separate some of the major ones and so stage development and release. The initial aim was to make the best possible single player racing experience on Switch in a given time frame. If we achieved that, we felt that we would be in a good position to offer additional functionality via patches.”

Breaking development up in this manner might seem risky if the initial offering fails to sell sufficiently well, but by splitting multiplayer modes off and patching them in later the team has been able to give each aspect of the port the attention it deserves. “Similarly by first offering local multiplayer and splitscreen we have been able to focus on the multiplayer experience per se without having to worry about all the online issues that need to be solved.”

Whatever your opinion on this compartmentalised, staggered method of development, it has worked very well for Feral and the results speak for themselves. In the case of Alien: Isolation, Digital Foundry has argued that the Switch version actually looks better than its counterparts on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. While this praise must be encouraging to the team, knowing that the work will be analysed in such forensic detail, with side-by-side comparisons drawing attention to any minor inconsistency, must put additional pressure on the developers.

“It does add pressure,” Smith confirms, “but in a good cause. Reviewers such as Digital Foundry set a standard by which developers know their efforts will be judged, and setting the bar high is good for everyone, players, platform holders and developers. It is true that some don’t immediately understand the implications of an analysis, but people are smart, if they are interested they figure it out, and it’s good to have knowledgeable customers.”

We have had a blast working on GRID Autosport and Alien Isolation. We are confident that they won’t be the last games we bring to Switch

Of course, it’s impossible to please everyone. A small number of players noted input latency while playing the Switch version of Alien: Isolation and Feral responded saying this was partly the result of triple buffering and will remain present as part of a development ‘trade-off’. “Every game has some form of latency,” Smith explains, “as any input from the player has to do several things before any correlate appears on screen: the player presses a button on the controller; the Controller reports the input to the main device; the device reports the movement to the game; the input is processed by the game; the GPU draws the frame; the frame is rendered to the screen. Every step of this process incurs a small delay. Some players are very sensitive to these delays, but the majority of people don’t perceive them.”

“The trade-off here was between incurring a little extra input latency perceived by a very small faction of players versus displaying screen tearing, which would be seen by everyone. We chose the path, which affected the fewest players.” Given the inevitable compromises required when porting games effectively, it’s hard to argue Feral didn’t make the right choice here. Personally, we find screen tearing interminably distracting but everyone will have their own preferences.

With more powerful hardware, fewer compromises are necessary. A potential ‘Switch Pro’ would expand the possibilities for everyone, although Smith mentions a more surprising area he’d like to see improved with new hardware. “We assume the next version of the Switch will have more computing power, but less obviously support for analogue triggers on the joy-cons would be very welcome for racing games.” Indeed, Feral went so far as to include GameCube controller support in GRID Autosport, just another example of the studio going above and beyond in search of the best possible gaming experience on Switch. This year’s update will see Labo controller support added, too.

With Sega/Creative Assembly and Codemasters seemingly pleased with the team’s efforts (“They seem very happy”) and Nintendo itself being “a pleasure to work with, responsive, helpful and supportive”, we’re certain we haven’t seen the last of Feral Interactive on Switch. Smith is enthusiastic about the console and the studio’s work on it. “We have had a blast working on GRID Autosport and Alien Isolation. We are confident that they won’t be the last games we bring to Switch, but we will all have to wait and see.”

Whatever the future holds for Switch and third-party ports, Feral Interactive’s involvement will be a sure sign that potential future releases are worthy of investigation. ‘Port-begging’ might have become a dirty word, but with games like Witcher 3, GRID Autosport and Alien: Isolation showing just what’s possible on Switch, it’s hard not to imagine what could be with the right people on the job.

Many thanks to Edwin for his time, and to Timur at Feral for helping set up this interview.

Yesterday, physical games sales data for the UK revealed the best-selling titles of 2019. To nobody’s surprise, FIFA 20 took out the number one spot, with a total of 1.5 million sales. Nintendo also had a reasonably good year in this part of the world, with both Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Pokémon Sword (not including Pokémon Shield sales) making the cut.

Despite a strong year for Nintendo titles, no first-party games from the Japanese company have performed well-enough sales-wise to earn a spot in the UK’s top 10 best-selling physical games of the past decade. As you might have already noticed at this point, the game that did take out first was Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V, followed by Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops and in third place was Minecraft, which has at least been released on multiple Nintendo platforms.

The rest of the list is comprised of two other COD games and EA’s FIFA series takes up five spots on the chart. That’s FIFA 14 in fifth, FIFA 13 in sixth, FIFA 15 in seventh, FIFA 11 in ninth and FIFA 12 in tenth place. Unfortunately, sales figures were not provided by the GfK.

1.	Grand Theft Auto V
2.	Call of Duty: Black Ops
3.	Minecraft
4.	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
5.	Fifa 14
6.	Fifa 13
7.	Fifa 15
8.	Call of Duty: Black Ops II
9.	Fifa 11
10.	Fifa 12

As already noted here, FIFA 20 was the best-selling video game in 2019 within the UK. Clearly there are no signs of its popularity slowing down anytime soon, even after all the uproar last year about microtransactions and loot boxes.

Are you at all surprised by this list? Did you expect any Nintendo exclusives to make the cut? Share your thoughts below.