WATCH QUEST! Gaming Experience Built For The Smallest Screen
[Developer WayForward] is describing the game–Watch Quest!: Heroes of Time–as the “first adventure game made exclusively for Apple Watch.” WayForward says Watch Quest! Is a “new kind of game experience.” That’s for sure. …
“Gameplay revolves around choosing a hero and equipping them on the iPhone, and then guiding the Hero via the Apple Watch as he or she travels lands, battles monsters, solves puzzles, and searches for treasures,” WayForward explains. “Players are invited to play passively by selecting longer, easier quests and outfitting the hero up front–or by taking on more difficult quests which require foraging for items as you go.”
It seems to me that Makuch is inadvertently misrepresenting this title a bit, in at least two key ways. Firstly, this sort of gameplay is not a particularly new idea, as offloaded, second-screen side quests date back to at least the SEGA Dreamcast days. Currently, Nintendo’s Wii U makes regular use of this gaming concept through its fancy touchscreen GamePad.
Secondly, and much more importantly, the way Makuch frames the description above might disappoint readers who interpret it — as I initially did — to mean that Apple Watch merely acts as a graphical input mechanism for WATCH QUEST!’s main action on the larger iPhone display. Anyone who’s tried to play action- or adventure-oriented iPad games with iPhone controllers knows that there’s simply no easy, convenient, portable way to game on two portable devices at the same time, portably. Goro might could do it, but for the rest of us, it’s just not a winning proposition. There’s no doubt that scores of app makers will try to refine this model with Apple Watch in the future, but thankfully, WayForward doesn’t seem to be going that route.
Instead, from the limited explanation on the developer’s own WATCH QUEST! site, this seems to be a more refined and engaging experience where the main action — once pushed to Apple Watch from the central world housed on iPhone — is accessible and fully playable right on your wrist, with your iPhone tucked away in your bag or purse or pocket:
The iPhone serves as the player’s kingdom, while the Apple Watch represents a journey that spans several hours.
Exactly how much of the overall gameplay package this mechanism constitutes remains to be seen, but as early Apple Watch game formulas go, it’s a lot more promising than what’s been announced so far.
Personally, I still don’t know what to expect from Apple Watch as a gaming platform, or if that designation is even reasonable in the first place. Clearly, there’s a lot more potential for Apple Watch to be a gaming peripheral than a dedicated console, but I’m also expecting to be surprised by a few clever indie twists and turns as the device finally hits the consumer market.