Spa Life From FreshPlanet Pampers Players on Facebook
In its previous Facebook game, Dreamland, FreshPlanet took players into the world of dreams. Now with Spa Life the developer explores the world of spas, where customers pay money to be whisked away into a dream-like world of pampering.
According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Spa Life currently has 350,000 monthly active users and 40,000 daily active users.
Spa Life is similar to other industry simulation games (Cafe Life, Perfect Getaway, etc.), where players are tasked with managing a business and building a cash flow in order to expand it, buy better items, and reach higher levels. In this case, the business is a spa where players can set up stations for performing manicures, pedicures, facials, and other such services for customers. Only a small selection of stations are available from the outset, and each must be staffed before it can be put into service. This means that players either need to pay to hire a virtual employee, or can invite friends to fill the spot. Once a station is up-and-running, players manage the flow of customers to it. They enter the spa, take a seat if the station they want is occupied, then must be clicked on and moved to the appropriate station when the time comes. Customers have icons above their heads indicating the type of service they’re looking for.
Much like casual PC franchise Diner Dash, the goal with customers is to keep them happy. This is rated in hearts, which appear above their heads. Hearts decrease whenever customers are made to wait too long and increase when the customer is served or when the player uses a special item, such as hand sanitizer, at the station. Players can also boost waiting customers’ moods with special objects like teapots. The happier the customer, the more money and experience they’ll reward players with after they’re finished with their service. The better the spa’s reputation, the more business it gets. Decor can also raise the spa’s style level, which in turn enables players to charge more for their services.
In addition to a friend leaderboard and invite system, the game’s social features include sending gifts to friends and visiting friends’ salons daily in order to earn bonus cash and XP. As mentioned earlier, friends can also be recruited to run stations in the player’s spa.
Spa Life is monetized mainly through the sale of premium items and customer mood-boosters with Facebook Credits. Players can also purchase the game’s soft currency, cash, which is used on normal decoration items and spa stations.
It’ll be interesting to see if FreshPlanet can succeed with Spa Life where Diner Dash ultimately failed. The developer is relatively new to the Facebook platform and doesn’t have a very large audience among its other titles from which to leverage cross-promotion. As far as growth plans go for the short term, the developer continues to add new functionality to Spa Life and also recently expanded the game’s localization to include 16 languages.
You can follow Spa Life’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.
