Some good explanation fo casual game among others defintions : )

Unity article

Good points and most we all take on board I think.
I often revisist this site as I like their approach in getting a product across with some really good pointers to the casual surfer to consider as as me.

I thought I know enough about the subject, but there's still something worth to consider:

Quote:

---

Reward Your Player
Keep players interested and engaged with the game experience. For example, in an action game you might offer a new weapon, power-up or enemy every 30 seconds or so for the first few minutes, then every few minutes for the next five to ten minutes, and so on. Or in a story-based game offer new items or character modifications on similar time scales to keep the player invested in the story and the game.

---

Also cool sound and grafical effects, special animations or a comment like "Perfect", "Outstanding"
are a reward for the player, and pleases his/her ego.
This pleases the players (unconcious) reward area of the brain.
(-> Bauchmizeln)

What I can really recommend about "game-design" in general is playing "Half Life 2 - Episode One" with audio-comments.
Its really interesting how much thought has to go into one scenery.

I also would not take many elements of the "Big" Games into Casual Games.
It would be an error to insert a complex story,
manyfold options, and complex character design. Casual gamers want fast-to-start and easy-to-understand
gameplay.
A good casual game should not need any or just very little explanation how to play it.
A trading simulation or RPG on the other hand should not be that simple,
to interest longtime players.
Also the biggest error is to insert "great-looking" grafix, shaders, models etc, because this just
leads to a slow and choppy game on a large porting of casual game customers.
(many forum users here think that good-looking grafix are shaders, and 20K poly Models..,
this is the wrong approach for casual games)