Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor Trailer Reveals Interesting Gameplay

by Sylvie Krekow, Posted Jan 23rd 2014 11:05AM

Here's the newest trailer for the upcoming "Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor" game, and boy, does it look... interesting. In the game, which is set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, you're a Ranger named Talion who has special Wraith powers. These powers allow you to do several awesome slow-mo-Assassins-Creed-like moves, and you're also able to terrify certain enemies into becoming loyal to you. The game also features a unique "nemesis system" feature, which basically means it remembers your interactions with specific characters and enemies and adjusts the gameplay and storyline accordingly.
Although the gameplay looks pretty fun, however, it remains to be seen how interesting the plot actually is. And even though it's being developed for next-gen consoles like the Xbox One and the PS4 (along with being developed for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC), the graphics seem a bit unimpressive. Hopefully the the developer, Monolith Productions, spruces everything up in time for release.
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Here is 30 minutes of gameplay from God of War: Ascension

by Mike Splechta, GameZone, Posted Feb 1st 2013 5:10PM

The release date isn't that far off now, but for those that just can't wait to see Kratos tear sh*t up can feast their eyes on this 30 minute gameplay demo, which showcases Kratos being... well Kratos.Expect to see Kratos being pissed, killing anything and everything in his path, and doing it in style too. Slash them in pieces, use their weapons on them, and bathe in their blood. This is God of War after right? You can also expect Kratos to take on enemies that are infinitely bigger than him.

If you're into Football, and you're going to watch that ghastly Superbowl this Sunday, at least make sure to tune into CBSsports.com to watch the God of War: Ascension live-action spot, or you know, just head on over to the PlayStation YouTube Channel and watch it there.

God of War: Ascension is set to release March 12, 2013.

Tags: gameplay, gamezone, God of War, mike splechta, partner, preview, Santa Monica Studio

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1 Hour Gameplay of Saints Row IV

by Magadala See, PlayStation Gang, Posted Aug 19th 2013 12:00PM

Saints Row fans, feast your eyes on this one hour gameplay footage of the insanely entertaining game.

You will be able to do many things with your character like gain superhero powers, run across buildings, murder random pedestrians with killer moves, have sexual intercourse, and of course battle against the alien invaders.

Check out the video at PlayStation Gang> Tags: 1 Hour Gameplay of Saints Row IV, Gameplay of Saints Row IV, play saints row, play saints row the third, saints row, saints row 4, saints row 4 demo, saints row 4 gameplay, saints row 4 news, saints row 4 ps3, saints row 4 video, saints row 4 youtube, saints row footage, saints row game, saints row gameplay, saints row IV, saints row iv e3, saints row iv gameplay, saints row IV news, saints row iv trailer, saints row IV video, Saints-Row, Saints-Row-2, saints-row-3, saints-row-4, saints-row-iv, SaintsRow, saintsrow footage, saintsrow iv demo, SaintsRow2, SaintsRow4, saintsrowiv, saintsrowivdemo

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Grand Theft Auto Online revealed with new gameplay trailer

by Matt Liebl, GameZone, Posted Aug 15th 2013 11:00AM

As promised, Rockstar Games unveiled Grand Theft Auto Online, the multiplayer portion of Grand Theft Auto 5.

The online mode takes the persistent, constantly expanding world from Grand Theft Auto 5 and presents several "structured and unstructured" multiplayer activities you can partake in. This includes the freedom to explore Los Santos alone or with friends, working cooperatively as a Crew to pull off heists and other events, or compete in traditional online game modes. All the while, you'll earn cash to customize your character, weapon of choice, and vehicle.

Check out the trailer on GameZone> Tags: Grand theft auto 4, grand theft auto 5, grand theft auto 5 details, grand theft auto 5 multiplayer, grand theft auto 5 news, grand theft auto 5 release, grand theft auto 5 release date, grand theft auto 5 screenshots, grand theft auto 5 trailer, grand theft auto 5 updates, grand theft auto reveal, grand theft auto trailer, grand theft auto V, grand theft auto V details, grand theft auto V gameplay, grand theft auto v news, grand theft auto V release date, grand theft auto v screenshots, grand theft auto V trailer, grand theft auto V video, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Grand Theft Auto video, grand-theft-auto, grand-theft-auto-4, grand-theft-auto-5, grand-theft-auto-5-trailers, grand-theft-auto-5-video, grand-theft-auto-5-videos, grand-theft-auto-iv, grand-theft-auto-V, grand-theft-auto-v-trailer, grandauto, GrandTheftAuto, GrandTheftAuto4, GrandTheftAuto5, grandtheftauto5news, GrandTheftAutoIv, GTA, gta 5, gta 5 gameplay, gta 5 gameplay online, gta 5 gameplay trailer, gta 5 gameplay video, gta 5 trailer, gta 5 video, gta 5 videos, GTA IV, gta reveal, gta v, gta-4, gta-5, gta-iv, Gta4, gta5, gta5trailers, gta5videos, gtagames, GTAIV, RockStar, Rockstar Games, Rockstar-Games, RockstarGames

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Dumb Ways To Die - Gameplay Video

by John Bedford, Modojo, Posted Jun 6th 2013 5:00PM

Dumb Ways To Die has shot to the very top of the App Store charts since its release last month, and with good reason. Its WarioWare-like mini-games offer up some very satisfying light relief, and we gave the game a 3.5 out of 5 score in our review last week.

If you've yet to try it for yourself, we've put together some gameplay video for you to enjoy. We managed a score of 2,774 - what's your best? Let us know in the comments section below.

Read more about Dumb Ways To Die at Modojo >

Tags: dumb ways to die, dumb ways to die advice, dumb ways to die answers, dumb ways to die app, dumb ways to die app store, dumb ways to die cheats, dumb ways to die game, dumb ways to die gameplay, dumb ways to die gameplay video, dumb ways to die iphone, dumb ways to die iphone game, dumb ways to die tips, dumb ways to die tutorial, dumb ways to die walkthrough, modojo, ways to die, ways to die answers, ways to die cheats

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Leaked Star Wars: First Assault footage shows gameplay we may never experience

by Matt Liebl, GameZone, Posted Mar 14th 2013 2:35PM

Star Wars: First Assault is a game that first popped up last year. While LucasArts has never officially announced it, box art for the game indicated it would be release on Xbox LIVE Arcade. Fast forward a few months later -- with Disney having now acquired LucasFilm -- and we're beginning to get more details surrounding First Assault, which is now described as a multiplayer shooter that may never actually see a release.

Kotaku has been running articles all week about the game which is said to be in limbo since Disney's acquisition of LucasFilm and yesterday they posted what looks like leaked footage of Star Wars: First Assault. Two videos were actually posted, the first being a pre-rendered intro to the trailer that shows a first-person view of a Stormtrooper putting on his helmet.

The second video is a bit more revealing giving us our first look at a game we may never get to play. The video (found here) is said to contain real gameplay footage; you can clearly see stormtroopers and rebels battling across various Star Wars locations. It's unclear what stage of the game this footage was captured from, but it does look a little rough around the edges. Perhaps the delay is to polish things up a bit?

Tags: disney, gamezone, kotaku, lucasarts, matt liebl, star wars, star wars first assault, star wars first assault gameplay, star wars first assault leak, star wars first assault trailer, star wars first assault video, starwars, starwarsfirstassaultgameplay, starwarsfirstassaulttrailer, starwarsfirstassaultvideo

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Parallel Zombies focuses on cooperative, story-based location gameplay

Parallel Zombies is the next entry into PerBlue’s “Parallel” series of location-based games, following Parallel Kingdoms and Parallel Mafia. The game is PerBlue’s first Android exclusive title and is designed to deliver a location-based MMO experience that eschews player-versus-player gameplay in lieu of cooperative mechanics and story-driven missions.

The game takes place in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, with players working together to explore the world and stop the infection. Parallel Zombies features much more in-depth character creation than Parallel Mafia did, with players able to customize their avatars much more than they were in the previous game. These avatars now sport detailed designs and outfits and appear as full characters on the game map. A spokesperson for the developer says that fan feedback fueled the decision to allow more personalization in character creation.

There are three character classes: soldier, hunter and doctor, and players can create multiple characters to play as. Each of these character classes come with unique skills for players to level up as they earn experience in the game, like increased damage and healing abilities. These skills can be reset, for a price, so players can experiment with different abilities to figure out what works best for their character. The developer hasn’t decided yet if these can be reset for hard or soft currency.

As opposed to many location-based MMOs, Parallel Zombies doesn’t actually feature territory claiming mechanics. Instead, it’s based on cooperative play and story missions. When exploring a map, players are alerted to missions that they can examine and then accept or reject. Clicking on  a mission brings up a summary of the goals and outlines the rewards, as well as who played through it last and what player has the highest score. Accepting a quest will bring the player into a level where they move around and fight off hordes of the undead with melee and ranged weapons. Movement is handled with a virtual joystick, while combat is controlled via an attack button, quickslots  for weapons and skills and a reload button.

Social mechanics are much more significant than in PerBlue’s earlier games. Parallel Zombies will contain in-game messaging and chat, as well as synchronous multiplayer. If a player wants to play with  group, the game will launch an automatic search for people playing nearby and instantly teleport the player’s character to them as soon as they’re found.

PerBlue’s previous games have been available for both iOS and Android, and have proven successful for the developer. In April, Brand Director Forrest Woolworth told us the average player’s lifetime value on Parallel Kingdoms exceeded $95. Since then, Parallel Mafia launched for iOS and Android, reaching 120,000 players just two months after launch (a milestone that took Parallel Kingdoms a year and a half to achieve). Humphrey tells us more of PerBlue’s audience are Android players and the studio decided to hone its skill developing for the platform and made Parallel Zombies an exclusive for the platform.

Parallel Zombies is set to launch on Android on July 19.

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Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers mixes hidden object gameplay and wildlife education on Facebook

Disney Playdom looks for a second Gardens of Time-style success in the next few weeks with Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers, a Facebook hidden object game based on the Florida theme park of the same name.

Eric Todd, VP of product and creative director, and Lead Producer Patrick Hsieh walked Inside Social Games through a demo of the game. Developed by Disney’s Studio 24, Animal Kingdom Explorers is billed as a spiritual successor to Gardens of Time (which Studio 24 also created), though it very obviously has little in common with Gardens of Time spin-off Blackwood & Bell. The new game’s story will follow players as they join the Global Wildlife Research Team, visit locations around the globe and work with different nature specialists. Each nature scene contains animals to sort through and identify, as opposed to random items. Todd explained that players enjoyed learning about history in Gardens of Time, and so Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers will use the same kinds of techniques — like lists of animals’ names and pop-up facts —  to teach nature trivia.

Playing the demo for ourselves on Facebook reveals additional animal lessons hidden within Animal Kingdom Explorers. Players are given a list of animals to identify at the bottom of the screen, ranging from well-known creatures like chimpanzees to obscure critters like okapi. Puzzle tools include the usual magnifying glass and goggles, plus a a thermometer that indicates how “hot” or “cold” the mouse is to listed animals — which comes in handy if the player doesn’t know what an animal looks like.

Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers also includes a version of the garden decoration feature from Gardens of Time. Players build a nature preserve around the Tree of Life, the iconic centerpiece of the real world Animal Kingdom park. The screens that Todd and Hsieh presented included a wide variety of plants, animals and structures to place, though there was also a nod to Disney animation with Pride Rock from the Lion King on display. The preserve also generates bonuses when players put animals in environments they would normally be in, such as giraffes appearing next to the acacia trees from which they eat.

Although the Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers loading screen logo includes a dragon and a triceratops, Hsieh stated that only real world animals will appear in the game for the time being. He noted that fantastical elements and creatures may be included later on, citing how Tibetan yetis were known to be “real” for hundreds of years before becoming a part of modern day cryptozoological lore.

Hsieh also pointed out that players might occasionally see characters such as Mickey and Minnie Mouse wandering through their preserves from time to time. We’ve seen Playdom implementing Disney branding to great effect in GnomeTown and ESPN Facebook games, but this is the first Facebook game that we know of to feature Disney’s most sacred mascot.

Even without the Disney name at launch, however, Gardens of Time sets the bar high for Animal Kingdom Explorers. The game hit peaks of 17 million monthly active users and 4 million daily active users since its April 2011 launch, it currently brings in 6.4 million MAU and 1.4 million DAU. Whether or not Animal Kingdom Explorers is able to see similar success remains to be seen, but the game certainly looks like it’s got the potential thanks to the elements that made its predecessor so popular.

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Jungle Jewels Flash Matches Classic Puzzle Gameplay with Power-Ups on Facebook

Jungle Jewels Flash is the follow-up to GameDuell’s popular puzzle title Jungle Jewels. The game launched in late August and recently made our list of fastest-growing games by monthly active users.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Jungle Jewels Flash currently has 683,846 monthly active users and 45,414 daily active users.

Like the original, Jungle Jewels Flash is a match-three puzzle title; players must match three or more same-colored gems in a row in order to clear them from the board. The aesthetic is similar, as are some of the other core gameplay mechanics, like matching four or more gems to create a special gem that triggers an explosion when matched. Matching gems quickly in this game triggers a “Fire Mode.” During this period, all matched gems explode, destroying nearby gems. Continuing to match gems quickly while it’s active extends the time it’s active. The player’s score translates into coins that are awarded at the and of each game.

Some elements from the original Jungle Jewels, however, have been cut. For example, Jungle Jewels Flash doesn’t allow players to purchase more time on the game clock (which is 60 seconds in both titles). Instead, players can purchase power-ups using coins before starting a game and activate them at any time. These include a swirling gem that sucks in all gems of a specific color when matched, a cross bomb that takes out all blocks in four directions, an item that doubles the player’s score, and one that adds an additional 10 seconds to the timer. Up to three power-ups (the game calls them “boosts”) can be queued for each game, although one can only be obtained by having friends playing and another can only be obtained by watching an advertisement (up to five times a day).

The game’s social features include inviting friends, sharing high scores on Walls, and a scoreboard for comparing players’ scores to their friends’. As mentioned, players also earn boosts by having friends that are playing the game. They also receive bonus coins at the end of each game based on the number of friends they have playing. The game features a weekly tournament, as well, that rewards the best player among a group of friends with bonus coins.

Jungle Jewels Flash is monetized by players purchasing additional coins, to be spent on power-ups, using Facebook Credits. They can be purchased in groups of 120, 500, 2000 and 4000 for 9, 30, 99 and 199 Facebook Credits, respectively.

You can follow Jungle Jewels Flash’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

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City Wars Fights a War on Two Fronts With City-Building and Military Combat Gameplay

City Wars is a military-themed city-building game from Funstar Studios. The game launched in late February and since that time has seen steady growth in its monthly active user figures.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, City Wars currently has 810,940 monthly active users and 53,690 daily active users.

City Wars has two main components to its gameplay: city-building and attacking other players. The game is introduced via a brief tutorial which walks players through how to build structures for their city and attack other players, then the player is left to decide how to proceed — whether this is following the regular goals which appear at the side of the screen or taking their own route to conquering the regions of the world through defeating other players.

Buildings fall into three types: production, commercial and decorative. Production buildings allow players to produce units and protect themselves against enemy attack, commercial buildings provide income and decorative buildings are purely there for aesthetic value. Most buildings can be purchased using the in-game soft currency, but some buildings in all three categories can only be purchased through hard currency.

Other players can be attacked by calling up a strategic world map from which various destinations can be attacked — the precise number of which available to a player being determined by their level. Players work their way across a hex-based regional map populated by other City Wars players in an attempt to conquer as many territories as possible. Scattered across the map are a number of strong opponents who require certain numbers of troops to be trained in order to attack them. Combat is resolved automatically, with results determined by each player’s level, number of allies (friends playing the game) and the best troops and equipment they have. This part of the game is similar to the player vs player gameplay in text-based RPGs such as Mafia Wars.

The social element of the game comes from the familiar ability to visit other players’ bases. Experience and other rewards are offered for “repairing” friends’ buildings, with greater numbers of friends helped leading to larger temporary attack bonuses. Gifts can also be exchanged between players.

The game is, at the time of writing, monetized via its own proprietary hard currency of Gold. This is to be replaced with Facebook Credits on June 30, however, and all players have been informed that they must spend their Gold before then as it will not be converted to Credits. Premium items include decorative buildings, high-efficiency production and commercial buildings, strong “Hero” units, energy-restoring items and temporary “boost” items which provide a bonus to attack power for a set number of battles. Soft currency can also be purchased directly. Since the game starts by providing the player with a relatively low income, many players are likely to take this option early in their careers.

We didn’t hear back from Funstar Studios prior to the time of writing, but judging by the game’s Facebook page, Funstar intends to continue support for the game through daily bonus items, regular overhauls of existing content and the addition of new maps and challenges for high-level players. The company makes an active effort to engage the community with daily wall posts and special offers, and the growing MAU and DAU figures suggest they are having some success with this strategy.

You can follow City Wars’ progress with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

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Here’s what I’ve been cooking… (gameplay meets card art!)

I’ve haven’t made a big fuss about the Infected game progress. I haven’t shown much game art (mainly because there hardly wasn’t any art to show) and I’ve been working on the gameplay.

I compiled bunch of card texts and arts together (using my Duckduck program, which is a program for creating deck art), and here’s few card samples:

Blood sample card
This card determines if there’s infected blood running through your veins… You keep this card secret, so nobody else knows in which of the 2 teams you belong. Each player will receive a card stating either “clean” or “infected”.

Items
Items have gone through a big change. Essentially, I combined items and action cards into one deck (which is now called “Items”). Items are used to overcome challenges, counter nasty events and to progress on winning the game.

Event
Event cards give players challenges which they need to overcome. A number in the top left part of the card tells something about the difficulty of the event, and then there’s always a special power on events which might trigger when they are played.

Each card won’t have unique art (at least not in this point of project), only each deck will have unique art.

All these card art are from the Big Revision II (which consists of huge amount of smaller revisions). I will go through (at least) once more all the cards and then pretty soon get things shipped to my door (which will take 2-3 weeks or so).

The current version is much simpler to play, less random, and new version aims to offer several interesting decisions (events for example are very different from earlier version, and now the item have value number which need to be considered too when playing cards). Rules are very simple to learn and the game is fast to play.

I enter sleep mode now and get back to this tomorrow.

Tags: traitorgame

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 5th, 2011 at 10:54 pm and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Hero City Layers the Super Hero Genre on City-Building Gameplay, Developer Aiming to Build Distinctive Brand

Hero City is a Facebook game from developer Paprika Lab that soft-launched on the platform toward the end of April. Thought it hasn’t yet had a big marketing push, Hero City saw enough organic growth to come in at number one on our list of emerging Facebook games last week.

According to our traffic tracking service, AppData, Hero City currently has 767,405 monthly active users and 89,571 daily active users.

Hero City combines city-building gameplay and adds a layer of superhero camp on top. Players build and upgrade structures to improve the city and then collect superheroes to come live in their city. More superheroes means more advantages when undertaking the game’s quests, and will also give players the upper hand in player-vs-player gameplay, which the developer tells us is due to be added to the game soon.

Paprika Lab CEO John Kim believes that the superheroes give the game a unique spin over other city-building titles on Facebook. “As developers, we’ve grown up watching superhero comic books and movies where superheroes save the city and the world from villains,” he says. “So it seemed pretty natural to combine the superhero and city concepts together.”

The game is currently monetized through the purchase of “instant finish” items to complete buildings quicker, the purchase of in-game standard currency and resources, special buildings and superheroes. Facebook Credits are used as the game’s sole premium currency. The developer has experimented with using its own proprietary hard currency in its previous game Pirate Legacy, and Kim notes that there are “pros and cons to adopting each system.”

“We’ll be rolling out new features around superheroes where some new monetization features might come in,” he adds. “But as mentioned [previously], we don’t want to hurt the user experience by bombarding users with overwhelming monetization features.”

The developer is planning on expanding the game in a number of different ways. Besides simply adding more content in the form of more buildings, decorations and superheroes, Kim says that the game will also be incorporating battles with supervillains, as well as the ability to challenge other players’ heroes in player-vs-player gameplay.

Hero City is not Paprika Lab’s only project, but Kim hopes that it will help the developer form a distinctive brand for Paprika to trade on with future and other existing games. “Our focus is not only to merely make new games, but also to have some sort of a unique taste and style of experience where users will know that this game is made by Paprika Lab,” he says. “We think we haven’t reached that point yet, but basically, we want to create a Paprika Lab brand gaming experience, such as you’d find from Blizzard, Square Enix and id Software games.”

Hero City has enjoyed steady growth since its late April launch, with slightly larger jumps in MAU occurring at the start of the week for the last two weeks. At its current rate of growth, the game will pass a million monthly active users within a week.

You can follow Hero City’s progress with AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

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N.O.V.A. Elite’s User Figures Blast Into Orbit Thanks to Impressive Graphics and Competitive Gameplay

N.O.V.A. Elite, or Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance: Elite to give it its full name, is a Facebook first-person shooter game from Gameloft, a developer known for “porting” console game concepts onto mobile game platforms. Though we haven’t seen any resounding successes from other Facebook FPS games, Gameloft could succeed through cross-platform promotion, as N.O.V.A.’s iOS incarnation performed well enough to warrant a sequel.

Since its launch in late April, N.O.V.A.’s user figures have been climbing steadily, according to our traffic tracking service AppData. Its MAU currently sits at 251,000 and appears to be rising, while DAU has stabilized around the 35,000 mark.

N.O.V.A. is a competitive first-person shooter that casts players in the role of a technologically-advanced space marine and tasks them with scoring as many points as possible against the other players or team over the course of a five minute match. Points are scored simply by killing other players. There are currently two variants on the game — Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, which see scores being calculated on a “free-for-all” or team basis respectively.

The game stands out as one of the few new FPS Facebook games available. We compare it to older title Paradise Paintball (which was renamed UberStrike since we last wrote about it), which seemed to struggle with finding an audience at first, but has show steady growth in the last 12 months. Like UberStrike, N.O.V.A. relies on real-time synchronous play, meaning a large audience is crucial to the game’s success. N.O.V.A.’s social features are currently limited to a “party” system, which allows friends to play together, and the ability to compare statistics with Facebook friends.

The other notable thing about N.O.V.A. is that it has unusually high system requirements for a Facebook game. This is due to the fact that its graphics are 3D and the nature of the game requires that it moves quickly and smoothly. As such, the developers recommend a computer with at least a 1.8 GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 256MB graphics card and 1GB of free hard drive space. These system requirements may well exclude some players with older machines or those with more modest specifications (such as netbooks) from being able to enjoy the game — but when it comes to gaming demographics, the type of person who would likely be interested in playing a game like N.O.V.A. will probably already own a computer capable of running it.

This is where we express concern about N.O.V.A.’s future on Facebook. If the audience for whom its intended needs to have a higher end machine to run the game, why don’t they go play other PC or browser-based FPS games instead? The only thing Facebook can offer the genre that FPS games couldn’t necessarily get anywhere else is the social network, and at present, the game doesn’t seem to be making use of that. At best, we could see Facebook offering Gameloft a safe space in which to run microtransaction-based games, as the developer doesn’t have an infrastructure for direct payments from users.

N.O.V.A. is monetized via Facebook Credits, which can be spent between matches in the in-game store to purchase items. These range from additional maps to play on to gameplay enhancements such as radar screens which assist in tracking opponents. There are also cosmetic upgrades available for players to customize their character. Some items are available with the game’s virtual currency, others require Facebook Credits to unlock.

At time of press, we weren’t able to reach N.O.V.A.’s developer Gameloft for comment on future expansion plans for the game, but it’s fair to assume that more maps and game modes will be added as time goes on — the iPhone version of N.O.V.A. 2, for example, includes “Capture the Flag,” “FreezeTag” and “InstaGib” game variants as well as the standard Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch already present in the Facebook incarnation. It would also make sense for them to add more in the way of items for players to purchase — although there is a wide selection available now, dedicated players who have unlocked everything will be keen to see new rewards introduced, otherwise it’s possible they’ll lose interest in the game.

You can follow N.O.V.A.’s progress on AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

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Waku Waku Blitz Hopes To Break Into The Match-3 Genre With Highly Customizable Gameplay

Waku Waku Blitz is a simple but highly customizable game that fits our definition of the match-3 arcade game genre. Most match-3 games on Facebook that aren’t Bejeweled Blitz or Diamond Dash struggle to retain an audience, but Waku Waku developer Pix Builders hopes to meet the challenge with highly customizable gameplay options. So far, 20 days after launch, the game sits at just 631 monthly active users and 106 daily active users, according to our data service tracking application AppData.

Pix Builders’ Yvan Taurines describes Waku Waku Blitz as a “puzzle/match 3 game like Bejeweled Blitz,” but in practice it’s more like “whack-a-mole.” Square, triangular and circular shapes of varying colors pop out of holes on the screen and it’s the player’s job to smack as many as possible with a hammer in one minute. Score multipliers are given every time the player achieves a “combo” of three identical shapes, colors or both, and as the multiplier increases the player has to work faster to maintain their high-scoring potential.

Taurines claims the game is “one of the simplest games ever,” but explains that a lot of the depth to gameplay comes from “meta gameplay” in the form of experience points, player levels, and unlockable content. As the player progresses through the experience levels, new sets of shapes become available from the in-game marketplace, and completing a set offers the player specific bonuses that will help them climb the leaderboards.

“We have a lot to add to Waku Waku Blitz over the coming months,” says Taurines. “We can’t reveal all the upcoming features, but for example, we would like to add localization, an updated leaderboard that will keep track of one’s highest score ever, and some cool gameplay additions. And of course, we will add new shapes, new weapons and new backgrounds! Actually, cool effects for weapons will be added very soon — if not today, tomorrow.”

The game only monetizes through the sale of its standard virtual currency, which can be spent on new shapes, weapons and backgrounds from the in-game shop to customize the play experience. More buying options are unlocked as the player proceeds through the experience levels, and each successfully completed game also rewards the player with coins, so there is no obligation for them to spend real money, but Taurines says that “paying a small quantity of real money will save [the player] a huge load of time, and will help him to collect all of his missing items.” Taurines is keen to ensure that monetization of the game is “not intrusive to the player” and emphasizes that Waku Waku Blitz is primarily a “free to play game.”

The game currently uses Social Gold to take payments, but this will not be supported for much longer, according to Taurines. The game will be changing over to Facebook Credits in accordance with Facebook’s policy by July, and Taurines believes that Facebook’s system is “a good one — even if [it is] pricey.”

Waku Waku Blitz launched on April 8. Both its MAU and DAU numbers are currently very low, but it’s early days for the game, yet.  The next few months will be critical to determine whether it succeeds or fails based on what Pix Builders can do to support the game with new features — and whether Taurines and his team pursues future plans on Facebook or elsewhere.

You can follow Waku Waku Blitz’s progress on Facebook with AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

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An Early Look at Serf Wars Before a Big Gameplay Shift

Serf Wars is a take on the empire building, real-time strategy game genre with a fairytale look and feel. When the game launched early last month, developer Meteor Games told VentureBeat that Serf Wars was an attempt to refocus development on Facebook games that straddle multiple audiences, with battle elements to appeal to the male population and a beautiful art style to appeal to the female population of Facebook gamers. Since its March 7, 2011 launch, the game has climbed to a high of 11,870 monthly active users and 2,000 daily active users on AppData, our data tracking service.

As of press time, Serf Wars can be described as a game of empire building through mini-games. Players build and create a fantasy kingdom, train an army to attack others and play mini-games to fund this building and training. The look and feel of Serf Wars is reminiscent of fantasy fairytale lands, from the whimsical art style to the “magic beans” premium  currency. The game mechanics are simple, with only gold and food as the two main resource requirements. Food is grown by building farms and is required to feed the population and the armies. Gold is gained through daily taxes collected from the population and through mini-games, which players can then spend on building and training. Other items required for particular buildings and army training activities are also earned through playing mini-games.

Like other Facebook RTS games such as Backyard Monsters and Kingdoms of Camelot, Serf Wars monetizes mainly through the sale of resources for building and reducing the time to build or upgrade structures. The game also monetizes by restricting the number of mini-games a player can use to earn gold by requiring tokens per play, which can only be gifted by friends or bought with magic beans. Certain mini-games are also unlocked through magic beans only.

Random events also occur while players are logged in the game, such as cats in trees which have to be rescued and fires that need to be put out. These events add a little flavor to the game and earn the player small sums of gold and/or experience. The battle element in Serf Wars is currently limited to attacking your friends by pitting your armies against theirs. World maps and the ability to ally with your friends to attack others are forthcoming, as is more content for the game.

On April 18, Meteor Games announced that Serf Wars’ game design would move away from its current gameplay format to more quest-based and traditional RTS game play. We will be keeping a close eye on that transition and its impact on the game’s MAU and DAU. Interested readers can also follow the growth of this game via Appdata, our data tracking service.

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