Inside Social Games

Ah, the never ending quest to throw the perfect party. There are few that have accomplished this goal. Granted, those that can hold rather deep wallets, and have a hefty amount of resources at their disposal, but now the playing field is a little more even with Facebook’s Party King by Gabi Mor and Ori Steinitz.

In this RPG’ish/strategy style game, you play as a party liaison. Your mission: To throw the best damn party you can imagine. When you start out, you have $2,000 and it’s time to buy a house. Once you’ve done so, you can start buying some upgrades for the pad, such as a disco ball, big screen televisions, Djs, etc, and throw a party. Yes, it is that simple to play, but that doesn’t mean the game isn’t fun. Essentially, you have to consider what makes a good party and make your purchases strategically.

After each party you are given results that will determine your revenue earned, length, number of guests, problems with the party, and success with the party. These will each affect both your earnings and reputation which are obviously needed to throw bigger and better parties (higher reputation attracts more guests). What this equates to is a very thought provoking resource management system. You need higher reputation to attract more people, but with more people comes more upgrade costs, which in turn attracts even more people, which can exceed your house capacity thus hurting revenue. Furthermore, you have to manage upgrades too: If you buy too much alcohol and not enough food, people get sick, or if you don’t buy enough of either, they leave early (any one of which will hurt reputation).

As you can see, every decision must be carefully considered, but this is compounded further with player party matches. These competitive games are two parties that go at the same time, but in this case, the upgrades are meant to sabotage the other player or prevent it. Some upgrades attract more guests for you, others subtract them from the opponent, and others prevent said subtraction. Of course, you can only buy so many, so it comes down to a rock, paper, scissors type of game unless one has significantly more money than the other. Either way, the match is fun to play and see the results.

Party King is a wonderful example of a fun game. It is exceedingly simple to learn, but holds a great deal of depth within it. The thought which you have to put into your purchases is great, and the feedback after each party is a great way to teach new players. If there were a downside, it might be the lasting appeal without the addition of new features and times, but nonetheless, the game is still very entertaining is most certainly worth a play.