Inside Social Games

Earlier this week, SGN announced that it has partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation for the release of a highly polished social game on Facebook: Space Movers: The Bloom Initiative. Now, with the addition of a cause implemented into game play, players can play a game and “save the world” while doing so.

As players play Space Movers, SGN will donate up to $50,000 in revenue (the equivalent of 50,000 trees) to the Arbor Day Foundation. The emotional appeal of “gaming for a cause” within Space Movers shows a new way games may be used to help motivate social action. Space Movers offers substantial rewards for playing socially and “contributing” to the cause – the more you play, and the more people you invite to play, the more goes to planting new trees. In fact, you also can actually see the exact number of trees you yourself have “planted.”

So, how is the actual game? In addition to the whole “green” hook, it is actually fun to play, and unlike a number of Facebook games, you CAN play alone if you so choose. However, it isn’t a terribly original game design, as it follows the Bejeweled “connect three colors” concept rather religiously. In the past, social games we’ve seen on Facebook have been focused a great deal on the viral growth aspect so much that there is often a great neglect when it comes to design and presentation. Even though Space Movers is a game that most of us have seen before, it does a good job of fitting a familiar game mechanic it into a social context.

What is most impressive though is the overall quality of the game. The game looks clean, plays well, is easy to learn, and there are no real bugs. It looks beautiful, and is a leap forward in improving the genre as a whole.

Where does the game need improvement? The main thing that comes to mind is the lack of game play modes. Most games like Space Movers have various puzzle modes, like time trials as well as marathon. Unfortunately, Space Movers only really has one mode; the difficulty doesn’t ever increase, and there really isn’t much of an objective beyond earning high scores. At the very least, it should include multiple stages with score objectives in order to progress to new levels.

Overall, however, Space Movers is a marked improvement over previous social games. Overall quality and presentation are fantastic, and it’s one of the first of its kind (“gaming for a cause” I guess you could call it). It will be interesting to see where SGN goes from here. And hey, it’s not often that you can say you’re saving the world while playing a game!