Inside Social Games

It was late last year that we took a look at Elven Blood, the fantasy text-based Facebook RPG from Patrick Shyu who had built the app under the alias Royal East India Trading Company. In addition, Shyu also created three other popular titles including Blood Lust, Skies of Blood, and City of Blood. Though the core game play was more or less the same, the series of games encompassed very different styles, and at its peak, the original Elven Blood alone garnered over 240,000 monthly players.

However, due to multiple repeated breaches of Facebook’s Terms of Service, all of Shyu’s titles were banned completely from the Platform. This marked the first time that such a popular game, or series for that matter, was removed from Facebook. Nevertheless, Shyu was only down and not out – as he has just reappeared on Twitter with 140Blood.

As expected, all four Blood games are present and accounted for and are virtually identical to their Facebook counterparts. Players create a character, complete missions/quests to gain experience, earn money, buy items, build buildings, and team up with friends using limited resources and character stats. The only difference between them is, of course, the themes that range from the gothic vampire world of Blood Lust to the post-apocalyptic realm of cyborgs and mechanized battle suits in Skies of Blood. However, while this is the only difference between the four Twitter titles, there is one key change with the new adaptation.

Coinciding with the tradition of other previous Twitter games such as Spymaster and 140 Mafia, the World of Blood games are set up to incorporate automatic tweets. Tweets are sent out when you join, buy items, travel, win in combat, or comment on another player’s profile. As with the earlier games, the concern of tweet spam is always prevalent, but it does look like Blood has done a decent job of blunting the problem. Currently, the number of tweetable activities is relatively small, and most of them are limited to once per day with the only exception being the commentary on player profiles.

Overall, the games are just as strong as they were on Facebook. In fact, with the addition of the viral capabilities of Twitter, they are perhaps even more so. Long story short, if you enjoyed any of the World of Blood titles on Facebook, then you’ll enjoy them again on Twitter. Granted, veteran players will have to start from scratch again, but it’s better than nothing. With any luck, Shyu has learned from his negative experiences with Facebook, and the revived Blood series will be around for a while.