Inside Social Games

Playdom has had a few game projects in the works; one is Tiki Farm, which Games.com discovered earlier this week. And, we just came across the alpha version of another: Wild Ones.

In a nutshell, the game has players create their own personalized animal avatar and wreak havoc upon other players in an explosive, last-man-standing shooter sort of game. The game could be described best as the child of the old PC title, Worms 2 from Team17. Actually, for all intents and purposes, it is Worms 2. Players scurry about a highly stylized 2D level of varying tiers, tossing grenades and bazooka shells at one another in a turn-based fashion.

The overall objective is to be the last of four players remaining. Each explosion takes a hefty chunk of life out of both the opponent and the landscape itself. In some cases, this land reformation adds to the depth of the game as it can not only impede where users can move, but if the land beneath you is destroyed, you fall into the waters below.

Each match can be played against either computer controlled bots, in a practice mode, or real opponents. And if human competition wasn’t enough, the game tends to drop random health kits and weapon caches (many of which are most curious… such as a bee gun) from the sky to aid to the mayhem. Furthermore, if a match takes too long, the water level begins to rise with each passing turn.

Of course, all of these features were in the Worms series. That isn’t to say that everything is a copy off the classic title, as there are a lot of differences: Worms fought in teams, health was lower, you could only fight one human opponent, and it had different unique weapons (i.e. the holy hand grenade or banana bomb).

What the new app does have that is distinctive, is that players are actually able to customize their avatar and even change its animal type. When you start out, all you have is a plain looking dog, but as you play and level up you will unlock a rabbit, panda, and monkey template for purchase (using currency you gain periodically or purchase). Moreover, higher levels also have greater access to purchasable weapons and more intricate level maps.

Again, the game is in alpha, so a lot is subject to change. Quite frankly, Worms was a fantastic game, so as far as game play goes, Wild Ones doesn’t earn any major complaints; well, except for that it is still basically Worms. It does, however, beg for the physics that the Worms franchise was known for. Wild Ones does have them, but they don’t feel as sensitive as Worms’ did (which is actually something you would want to copy). As an example, if a grenade landed at your feet, you were about to go sailing across the entire map. Also, the health seems a little high. It takes forever for a match to end; especially when health kits keep falling from the sky.

Also, since the game is in alpha, it’s not really possible to make changes to the core of the game anyway, but the shopping for weapons and accessories does add some uniqueness to the title. Moreover, with the social integration, it makes playing against your friends infinitely easier than its predecessor.

Thus far, Wild Ones already has over 300,000 monthly active users, and we will look forward to seeing how it does once alpha is completed.