Inside Social Games

Well, it certainly seems that Mafia/Mob based RPGs are quite popular amongst Facebook and MySpace social gamers (and profitable), and to that end, we have seen a number of similar games released since the first of them surfaced. The latest Mob Wars clone to come down the pipe, however, is Mobties by Hive7 (the makers of Knighthood), which is currently in public beta.

Since the app is still in beta, that means a number of game aspects will probably change, but overall it still seems pretty good, save for a few balancing issues.

When the player starts out, a petty mob title (hustler), two NPC “hoods,” and some cash are presented to them. So what do you do with all this? For some, the point of the game is what you make of it, but if there were one outstanding objective, it would be to build up your own city and be the strongest mob out there. That said, you have to begin constructing your empire.

Within your city you build various buildings that help in the security of your domain. Each structure takes a period of time to build and can be accelerated by spending cash. Primarily, these are defensive structures for incoming attacks which is where the real game play comes in.

Each player has a “power level” which indicates their usefulness in an attack.. This is where things get interesting: In an attack, you are trying to gain power. In order to gain power, you need “hoods” (players, and in some cases NPCs) which is essentially an army. The more you have under you, the higher rank you are, but it’s not quite as simple as this. When you capture hoods, you gain strength, but now you have to keep them. There are a number of ways that they could be lost, and some of it is beyond your direct control.

Captured hoods can be rescued directly, but also can be retrieved in a number of other ways such as ransom, being sold on the market, through a counterattack, and so on. However, what is most interesting is the “loyalty” feature of this game. You see, when you swear loyalty to a “boss” (another player), that’s when they gain your strength in their army, but this is a double-edged sword. Your hoods can actually plan rebellions against you, which means that they could secretly be gaining power to overthrow you. This sole feature is quite possibly the coolest mechanic in the entire game (sadly you won‘t see it much until the upper levels). The fact that you not only have to strategically build your army and gain the loyalty of hoods and defend against direct attacks, but also be wary of uprisings within your own ranks is fantastic. This means that even the strongest players could be uprooted from the inside, and puts a real life feel into the game – Who can you really trust?

At the moment, the only real downside is the credit system. When you shop, nothing uses cash, but they use credits, and some of the useful NPCs can be found there. Unfortunately, you have to spend real money to earn credits or deal with the nine million advertisements page. Beyond that, there are some minor balancing issues as far as costs (number of money, credits, hoods, etc) go. Early on, cash seems more or less trivial unless you are in a hurry to build stuff immediately, and the number of NPC hoods available should be more accessible to new players so they can actually check out the game more thoroughly before they start building a player army.

Nevertheless, these are all minor things that could very well change before the close of beta. The game is wonderfully strategic and does an excellent job of conveying a mob-like feel by allowing players to usurp their leaders. Mobties is definitely a game to help beta test. It has the potential to be better than Mob Wars, but the key word here is “potential.”