I have become a huge fan of tininess. From the very first time I read about Tiny Games and watched this video
[youtube]http://youtu.be/IoQQJWn3DOY[/youtube]my fun-loving heart was all aflutter with fluttery things. It tickles, this Tiny Games idea. Little invitations to a few moments of semi-idle fun, like the first game in the video – a people-watching game where the people watchers try to guess which people are being watched. One watcher sounds out the footsteps of the person he’s watching. The others compete (or work together) to figure out which person it is. So simple. So slight. And yet, for the moment, so thoroughly fun.
Games, especially commercially produced games, have become huge, complex things that take months, even years to produce, and, in some cases, even more years to master. Like chess, only with hi-res, 3-D, surround sound, eye-tracking, multi-platform, multi-player capabilities.
Many of my favorite games, in fact most of the games you’ll find on the homepage of Deep Fun are like that, only not quite as tiny. So they take a little more commitment, a little more planning. Tiny games are really casual games. Casual games in pajamas, so to speak. Which makes them that much more accessible, that much more of an invitation to play.
And now, there’s an app called Tiny Games with hundreds, that’s right, hundreds of tiny games to play at home or on a walk or on the road or at a bar or when waiting in line or at work, with tiny games you can play by yourself or with another or with two or three or for or five or more others, and another tiny games app for people with tinier folk called Sesame Street Family Games.
And these apps are a whole new way to use your smartthing – as a tool for a bit of semi-spontaneous, patently casual playing in the real world in real time with real people – really. And they’re fun. Easy, simple, clever invitations to hundreds of not-so tiny moments of shared fun.
We don’t really have an award category for these games. They’re not virtual games, though they come to us via a virtual platform. They’re not packaged games – they don’t come in a box or even a blister pack. They offer all kinds of opportunities to play, so we can’t classify them as word games or puzzles or dexterity or thinking games or kids games or family games or party games. The only category that we have left that is strong enough to express our appreciation for these games is Keeper. Which, we strongly believe, they will most definitely prove to be – for you, your friends, your family.
