Inside Social Games

Cellufun is an ad sponsored mobile gaming portal that offers free casual, connected, and multiplayer games for  web-enabled mobile phones. With a relatively large user base and award winning games, the company is now making its way into social networks with both new versions of previously released mobile games as well as new titles.

We recently tried out some of Cellufun’s Facebook games and came away impressed. Cellufun has created a large variety of games (Pets, Space Wars, Chess, Checkers, Blackjack, Poker, Slots, and more), all of which have simple ideas but are executed very well.

The most interesting title was The Captives of Witch Hill, an adventure game in the style of an old text based game – except with drop down boxes and text options which limits choices and makes it easier for people of any age to play.

Call of the Pharaoh is also an interesting game in which you build a pyramid which is displayed on your Facebook profile. This is done by using the game’s social community to help other players with tools and skills chosen in-game. Pharoah does a good job using the community to fuel the game.

Though a large portion of Cellufun’s catalog are made for mobile, does that mean they work well on social sites? The simple answer is yes. Fairly successful mobile IP’s such as Call of the Pharaoh can be just as popular as well established games like Chess and Sudoku if marketed to the correct demographic (and of course made freely available). As social networking sites become increasingly popular, it only takes a few clicks to spend 20 minutes on a ‘time waster’in the office!