Inside Social Games

No, it’s not the onset of impending invasion. No, it’s not another bad Sci-Fi serious either. Actually, The Attack on Glowbuleville is the third release (currently in beta) from Facebook game developer Gogogic. The company has previously released very simple games Stack’Em and Who’s Your Friend?

Glowbuleville is a simple, high production value game with a familiar mechanic that emulates the well known arcade game of Whack-o-Mole. When starting up, the player enters the “cutesy” town of Glowbulevile and must enter each hut to defeat the Gorbs. Upon entering the hut, the are presented with a 3×9 grid in which Gorbs appear and the player must beat them down with their trusty stick (using the mouse or the number pad) before they run off and you start loosing health.

At first the game is actually quite easy, but as expected, each level comes with increased difficulty. As the player progresses, the Gorbs become tougher, “hostages” (so-to-speak) appear, and bonus items sprout out of the ground like candy. What is curious, however, is that the tougher Gorbs aren’t tougher in the sense that they need to be hit more often, but that they actually use simple abilities to make timing more important (i.e. some have shields, and you can’t hit them with shields up).

The only real problem with the game is that the effort to proceed becomes a bit tiresome (due to the fast and constant twitch reactions needed to win). However, other than the changing enemies, you are simply repeating the same action over and over again. To a casual gamer, this might not be a bad thing, but such repetition usually lies in puzzle based games (like Bejeweled) or at least games a little slower paced than this one.

In the end, all you get for your efforts is a higher score, and some money to buy new whacking tools, which, for all intents and purposes, do the same thing as the original stick. Even with the original Whack-o-Mole, you could win tickets (usually) in order purchase fun little plastic prizes. However, the game is still in beta, and there are some grayed out items in the game’s shop that look like they could add some depth. The only question is: Will these rewards be enough to compensate the effort it takes to earn them?

The Attack on Glowbuleville is okay right now, but its quality after beta will hinge directly on how well the player will be rewarded for their extraneous efforts in defeating the Gorbs. Will Gogogic add more items to the shop? Perhaps different game modes? Or maybe they could even make swatting the baddies more gratifying. Regardless of the path they choose, it will certainly affect the longevity of this application.