Inside Social Games

There are a lot of applications on Facebook that it’s “questionable” whether or not they’re really games. Sure, many of them have some familiar features, but they just don’t feel like a fully featured game. One of the more recent, and popular, applications to be added to this list is Kidnap, created by Context Optional for the Travel Channel.

In Kidnap, you start out in your “hideout” city and use various methods of kidnapping your friends and whisking them away to wherever this city is in the world. The more friends you kidnap, the higher “level” you become, but the thing is, you don’t really get much from leveling up.

There are ten levels to reach, and each one grants you another four ways to kidnap people. However, the different methods of kidnapping is purely cosmetic and has no actual bearing on game play. Basically, no matter which buttons you click, the result is the same.

The only actual game play occurs when someone is actually kidnapped and it’s time to escape and earn some points. In order to escape, a kidnapped player must answer multiple choice questions about the city in which they are being held (i.e. questions about Athens, Montreal, Moscow, etc). Answer enough and you go free, or if you so choose, you can use a “body double” and avoid the questions all together (like a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card that you receive every time you level up).

If you answer a question right the first try, you earn 100% of the points from that question, 50% on the 2^nd try, and 0% on the 3^rd. As for the kidnapper, they receive points in the reverse order when you answer a question incorrectly. The points are a tool meant to track a player’s ranking.

Overall, Kidnap is not “bad,” it’s just unclear whether this is an actual game or just a glorified quiz. Regardless, it does have a fun idea that is very reminiscent of the old Carmen San Diego games, but now it’s a friend who is being stolen and not the Statue of Liberty. Kidnap could benefit a great deal from looking at these old titles and if it were to emulate them, if even a little, this application could turn into a great mystery game. For a sponsored game, it’s one of the better directions we’ve seen.

AppData for Kidnap: