Robot Unicorn Attack: Evolution is the third incarnation of Adult Swim’s simple but addictive platform game to hit Facebook. Rather than being a straight port or reskin of the original Flash game with some rudimentary leaderboard support, however, Robot Unicorn Attack: Evolution adds a significant amount of new mechanics to the game, allowing for a greater focus on monetization, viral promotion and user retention.

The basic premise of Robot Unicorn Attack is very simple, which gives the game its enduring appeal among casual and core gamers alike. Taking on the role of the titular robot unicorn, players are thrust into a randomly-generated 2D scrolling play area and tasked with jumping over gaps or using a “dash attack” move to smash through obstacles. The longer the player survives, the more points they get but the faster the scrolling becomes. Additional points can also be scored by jumping through floating butterflies or breaking star-shaped objects.

“When we originally brought Robot Unicorn Attack to Facebook, we focused on leaderboards as its social hook — playing against your friends, trying to beat their scores,” explains Chris Johnston, senior games producer at Adult Swim. “As our first Facebook game, it was an experiment and we kept it simple; we always wanted to bring more to that experience. We’d have these brainstorms of ways to expand the gameplay and its social elements, but we knew we’d have to do it in a way that made sense and kept people coming back. We partnered with Mediatonic for that effort, and they took some of those initial thoughts and ran with them in Robot Unicorn Attack: Evolution.”

These new ideas for Evolution include a combo system. Smashing through four stars in succession without missing any causes an “Evolution,” whereby the background art changes and the unicorn transforms into a different animal — first a panda, then a wolf and onward into other forms depending on player skill. Missing a star causes the player to drop back down an evolution “level,” however, while maintaining a combo in the higher forms gives bonuses to score.

Evolution also adds leveling, powerups and currency to the game. Completing a level earns experience points and “Fairy Dust.” Once the player hits level 3, they unlock a powerup slot, with new powerups and additional slots becoming available with each subsequent level up. These features can also be unlocked early by spending Facebook Credits. Activating a powerup costs a certain amount of Fairy Dust each time it is used, but generally offers some sort of enhancement to the player that makes gameplay slightly easier — one slows the game down slightly, another allows the player to survive one collision with a star if they are not using the dash attack. None of these powerups significantly unbalance the game, however — it is still a very challenging experience.

Fairy Dust is earned after each level, with more earned if more friends are playing. Larger bonuses are also provided upon leveling up, and the player may purchase more using Facebook Credits if they don’t wish to grind for more.

The game also offers daily challenges, with big bonuses on offer to those who complete the challenge five days in a row. This is a feature designed for those who believe themselves to be skilled at the game, however, since trying again after an initial failure costs 1,000 Fairy Dust each time. The base game, meanwhile, can be played as much as the player wants for free, with Fairy Dust optionally being expended on powerups.

The game strikes a good balance between the simplicity, addictive nature and broad appeal of the original Flash game while adding a variety of features that will help to both promote and monetize the game. Its optional Wall posts are also all somewhat sarcastic and humorous in tone, which might appeal more to those players usually disinclined to share their game activity with friends.

“We’re promoting Robot Unicorn Attack Evolution in a number of ways: by cross-promoting with the original Robot Unicorn Attack on Facebook and on AdultSwim.com as well as on TV via advertising during the Adult Swim programming block,” says Johnston. “We’ve got some great plans for the game’s future expansion and ways to give players more ownership over their unicorns and use the Fairy Dust they’ve acquired while playing. I can’t go into specifics right now, but it will be awesome.”

2012 also looks set to be the year of Adult Swim taking bolder steps into the social games market.

“[We're] working with talented developers on new social game concepts with quirky, absurdist Adult Swim twists,” says Johnston. “Developers who find that idea enticing can contact us via game.submission@adultswim.com and get more info on pitching to us.”

Robot Unicorn Attack: Evolution is, rather aptly, a well-considered evolution of the original game’s concept, well-designed for the Facebook platform and social play. The good reputation and recognizable name that its predecessors carry will likely allow the game to build up a healthy and dedicated following, in turn leading to success and profitability.

Look for the game on our traffic tracking service, AppData to track its MAU and DAU progress as the game matures. In the meantime, you can try out the game here.

Play

A much-loved Flash game gets a well thought out social overhaul.

ESPN and Disney Social Games have teamed up to bring the ESPN Return Man game to Facebook. The game is still available in its original form at the ESPN Arcade games portal site, but it has been completely revamped with social play in mind for Facebook. It’s an action-based football game, but rather than covering the entire match, it focuses on the efforts of the titular return man to catch the kickoff and return it to the end zone for a touchdown. There is no team management, no complex calling of plays — simply pure, fast-paced arcade football action: catch the ball, and run up the screen to the end zone. It’s a very simple concept, but one that is executed very effectively, creating a naturally compelling and addictive game without having to resort to more manipulative tactics to keep the player engaged.

ESPN Return Man's arcade gameplay is both simple and effective.

Without a few twists, however, this simple concept could very easily get boring. The game regularly mixes things up, not least with the variety of situations the player must navigate in order to get those all-important touchdowns. Some plays may see the return man accompanied by other team members who will barge the opposing players out of the way, others will see the return man faced by a seemingly endless (and probably illegal) swarm of other players with no support. The return man also has a few tricks up his sleeve that come in the form of special moves and boosters, access to both of which is unlocked through a gradual leveling process. Each play also has several instant-effect power-ups scattered over the field, also, allowing the player to acquire score multipliers and quick speed boosts to get out of trouble.

Special moves, which are available in limited quantities and then must be topped up using the game’s soft currency, generally allow the return man to dodge or inconvenience a defender, with more physically-improbable moves being unlocked as the player increases in level. Four moves may be equipped at once, but an individual move may only be used once per play, meaning they’re far from being an “instant win” button. Boosts, meanwhile, must also be refreshed with soft currency when they deplete, but offer more passive bonuses such as increased speed or the ability to run through mud and snow without suffering movement-hampering effects.

There’s no obligation to spend any money on ESPN Return Man, but those willing to drop some Facebook Credits on the game will find they have access to a number of options which make the challenging gameplay a little easier. Additional blocking players can be purchased, for example, and certain boosts may only be purchased with hard currency. Players may also pay to unlock content before reaching the experience level at which it is normally unlocked for free, and those who wish to play more per day can pay for energy refills.

Unlike many Facebook games, failure is an option here, encouraging players to develop their own skills.

One of the particularly noteworthy things about the game is that it is possible to win without the use of any special moves or boosts — and in fact, players are rewarded for doing so with higher score bonuses at the end of a play. Given the game’s strong focus on topping the leaderboards against Facebook friends, this means that players are encouraged to develop their skills and become better at the game rather than simply unlocking as much content as possible through repeated play.

ESPN Return Man is an excellent, simple sports game perfectly designed for short gaming sessions Facebook users typically prefer. It’s made better by the tension that comes from the fact it is possible to “fail” a game and have to try again from the first play. This fact alone will attract both fans of the drama of sport and the core gamer market, the latter of which often finds itself frustrated and dissatisfied by social games which are either far too easy or impossible to fail at. Sports fans, meanwhile, will appreciate the little touches such as the ability to listen to ESPN Radio during play and the inclusion of the likenesses of ESPN’s Herm Edwards and Trey Wingo in the game. The ESPN branding lends the game a feeling of authenticity and credibility and, if past ESPN-branded titles are anything to go by, will likely see a large initial spike in traffic thanks to the recognizable name.

ESPN Return Man currently has 70,000 monthly active users and 5,000 daily active users. Want to track its progress? Check out AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

Play

A simple but effective sports game that deserves to see success among fans of football and arcade games alike.

Galactic Allies is the latest offering from Australian development studio 3 Blokes, who were acquired by RockYou last June. 3 Blokes were brought on board to the RockYou family to produce Facebook-based strategy combat titles that would appeal to the core gamer market, as well as offer some competition to other combat-heavy games such as Zynga’s Empires and Allies.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Galactic Allies currently has 30,000 monthly active users and 1,000 daily active users.

Galactic Allies is, in 3 Blokes’ words, a casual take on the real-time strategy genre popular among core gamers, and an episodic story-based experience. Players follow an unfolding plot concerning humanity’s struggle against a mysterious alien race, and must gather allies from around the galaxy, build up their forces and engage in combat against both the computer-controlled enemies and other players.

Players control their fleet of ships in combat by clicking on them and directing them to attack specific enemies. Ships can be moved in formation or directed individually, allowing for either concerted efforts to attack strong enemies or splitting up to deal with lesser threats. Different styles of ships are better against certain other types in a “rock, paper, scissors” arrangement, and the key to success in combat lies both in understanding this system and keeping ships upgraded with the latest technology.

Alongside combat and ship upgrading, players can also explore the galaxy, sending mining probes down to planet surfaces to collect resources. This provides players with soft currency, items for trade and experience points.

Social features for the game are varied. There’s the usual facility to visit friends’ bases and earn bonus energy, but there’s also a trading system where players can put various resources up for sale as well as create a “wish list” of items. Alongside this, players can compete against one another for ranking on the Combat Leaderboard in asynchronous combat — the computer takes control of a player’s fleet on their behalf when someone challenges them.

Monetization is handled through the sale of the game’s hard currency, Galactic Points. These are purchased using Facebook Credits and can be exchanged for additional soft currency, used to bribe enemies (effectively skipping combat sequences), used to acquire Research Keys (used for upgrading the player’s ships), exchanged for Energy (used for mining and other actions such as exploration) or used to purchase Power Cells (required to enter into combat sequences).

Galactic Allies launched into open beta last September. Its MAU figures have been declining over the course of the last month, but its DAU took a sharp upswing in early January 2012 that lasted almost an entire week.

“In general, the decline of Galactic Allies’ user base came as we paused our standard user acquisition efforts while in development on game changes,” explained RockYou’s senior vice president of publishing Josh Grant when we asked him about the fluctuating numbers. “Reduced acquisition efforts on top of natural attrition will find a game at lower user levels.”

There hasn’t been any official communication from RockYou on the game’s official Facebook page since November, but Grant attributes the increase in daily users this month to “exploratory testing of new features in the game,” meaning that new player acquisition had been opened up for a brief period.

Judging from comments left on the official page, the player community appears to be somewhat disgruntled with the relatively recent addition of the Power Cells mechanic, and some blame the decline of users on this along with what they see as a lack of communication with the developer.

“RockYou continues to be excited about our entry into the mid-core genre of social gaming,” says Grant in response. “We expect Galactic Allies to play a significant part in this channel. We are currently undergoing development changes that will drive a more robust combat and strategy game.”

Exactly what the future has in store for the game isn’t clear at this time, then, but despite the silence on the official channels, it sounds like RockYou and developer 3 Blokes have a long-term plan in mind for the game.

“At this time, 3 Blokes is solely focused on making a best of breed real time strategy game out of Galactic Allies,” explained Grant. He did not, however, elaborate on the specifics of exactly how this would be achieved.

BMW xDrive Challenge is a new Facebook-based driving game developed by game.punks and designed as a promotional tool for the motor company’s series of xDrive-powered four wheel drive cars. The game launched into a public beta in November of 2011 and saw its official release as a full scale game with competitions and prizes on December 15, 2011.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, BMW xDrive Challenge peaked at 90,000 monthly active users and 9,000 daily active users.

The game gives players the chance to drive several vehicles in the BMW X series, beginning with the X1 and progressing through the increasingly powerful X3, X5 and X6 models.

Players are able to drive freely around the game’s area for as long as they like to get a feel for the cars, and can engage in races by stopping at the start line of the game’s various racing environments, which include Road, Dirt, Ice and River. Players can either challenge their friends to a race, take on computer-controlled opponents or enter daily, weekly and monthly championships, with prizes provided by the game’s sponsors.

Rather than providing real-time racing, BMW xDrive Challenge takes an asynchronous approach, with players recording their best lap times with which to challenge their friends. When racing, a “ghost car” can be seen showing the route the opponent took, but there are no collisions between vehicles. The same is true for the championship races, with the only difference being that opponents are pulled from all over Facebook rather than the player’s friends list.

Completing races awards players with BMW Credits, Race Credits and experience points. BMW Credits are used to refuel and repair the player’s car and purchase new vehicles. Experience points, which are awarded not only for completing the race but also for driving stylishly and accurately, are required alongside BMW Credits to unlock the different vehicles. Race Credits, meanwhile, are used to access championship races.

The game is graphically intensive and as such requires a relatively powerful computer to enjoy to its fullest. The developer recommends an Intel Core 2-powered PC or Mac with a Shader Model 3 graphics card as a minimum. There appear to be a few technical issues at the time of writing — when tested, the game ran consistently well in Mozilla Firefox but sometimes refused to start at all in Google Chrome, giving an error message complaining of “too many players.” The developer does, however, claim to have tested the game on six browsers across PC and Mac, so results may vary.

As an advergame, the game is sponsored by K2, Bang & Olufsen, Deluxe Music, Rauch and BMW itself. The sponsors’ involvement extends not only to having their names on the game’s introductory screens, but also in providing prizes for the championship races. At the time of writing, for example, K2 is offering a prize of some BMW-branded skis for the best drivers on the icy track.

The game has been primarily marketed towards selected countries in the central-eastern European markets (specifically  Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia), and promoted heavily via local BMW Facebook fan pages in those regions. The game has also grown organically through its “friend racing” mechanic as well as Facebook’s usual Like and Share systems. AppData shows relatively steady growth since launch, but it’s still early days for the game, and the team at game.punks is thinking long-term.

“Currently the game is growing, and we are hosting daily, weekly and monthly competitions with prizes from the sponsors,” explained Marco Höglinger, managing director of developer game.punks. “As the game goes into this year, we will look at the options for increasing the number of cars in the game and adding a new game mode to encourage off-road driving.

“[We currently have] no plans to launch on G+,” added Höglinger, on the subject of potential expansion to other platforms alongside Facebook. “It would be an interesting experiment to launch on a mobile market, and also on gaming networks such as BigPoint and Steam. This would need to be negotiated with the brand holder, though.”

Grave Maker is an upcoming social game for Facebook, iOS and Android, set to launch in February 2012 and currently undergoing beta testing on its own dedicated site. The game has been built entirely using YoYo Games’ own Game Maker product, and is intended at least in part as a demonstration of Game Maker’s application in making cross-platform social games as well as more traditional interactive entertainment.

The game casts players in the role of a graveyard keeper, and tasks them with defending the graveyard against frequent attacks from disgruntled locals. This is achieved by sending undead minions into battle to confront the locals, and gradually building up the graveyard with useful structures, crops and decorations.

Gameplay blends several popular social and casual game styles together into one coherent experience. Sending minions into battle is somewhat similar to the “tower defense” genre, where enemy forces approach the player’s base along a predetermined path, and the player must deploy defenses (in this case, minions) to deal with them as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the building and crop harvesting is similar to city-building and farming games, with actions taking time to perform, and crops ripening and spoiling over time. In an interesting twist, the player acquires new troops with which to defend their graveyard by planting them just like normal crops. Finally, the combat involves elements of role-playing and strategy combat games, with both player minions and enemies having varying strength levels, and some working better than others against one another.

Since the game is currently limited to a ten-level beta demo on its own website, social and monetization features have not yet been implemented, nor can it be tracked via our traffic tracking application AppData. Planned social features include a “fear factor” rating for players’ graveyards, where friends will be able to compare what is effectively the “net worth” of their land of horrors. There will also be the facility for players to send gifts to one another.

Meanwhile, monetization will be accomplished through use of the game’s hard currency of skulls. The current version doesn’t give any specific indication of what players can expect to purchase using skulls, but the placeholder menu promises “special items, structures and creatures.”

When the game launches in February, however, it will be simultaneously released on Facebook, iOS and Android. This is made possible by the  HTML5 and cross-platform export support found in YoYo Games’ newest Game Maker product, Game Maker Studio, set to release shortly after Grave Maker’s launch. Game Maker Studio’s export pipeline means that the game can be made once and easily deployed to multiple platforms rather than having to go through a lengthy and complex porting process. The multiplatform support also allows one game account to be used across all three versions, meaning a game can be started on Facebook and later picked up on the go via an iOS or Android portable device.

“Grave Maker is a huge project for YoYo Games and in many ways, it represents the culmination of everything we’ve been working towards with the Game Maker package,” says Stuart Poole, head of publishing at YoYo Games. “Grave Maker is every bit a modern social game, but its cross-platform abilities and the power of GameMaker’s HTML5 support means that the player gets the same gameplay experience across all three platforms, with the game in play accessible from any of them, at any time.”

GT Racing: Motor Academy is a new 3D racing title designed to run in Google+. Created by established mobile and digital developer Gameloft, the game aims to offer a deep, social racing experience inspired by console and mobile titles such as the Xbox 360′s Forza Motorsport 4 and iOS’ Real Racing 2.

The game offers three main modes of play: a simple “Arcade” mode, which allows players to jump in to a variety of different race types immediately; a multiplayer mode which is currently undergoing beta testing; and an in-depth “Career” mode that tasks players with completing license tests along with purchasing and upgrading cars as well as the racing itself.

Racing takes a realistic approach, featuring 111 different licensed cars from 26 different manufacturers. It’s possible to play the game from a variety of camera angles, including an in-cockpit view featuring authentically-recreated interiors of the cars in question. A healthy degree of skill is required to make progress in the game, though a variety of assistance options are available for those with less experience in realistic racing simulations. These include a “suggested line” superimposed on the track, indicating where players should accelerate and brake; traction control to help prevent out of control skidding; assistance with braking; and an Electronic Stability Program (ESP) setting to help the player stay in control of the car and keep it on the track.

The game is monetized through the sale of soft and hard currency. Most cars can be purchased with either soft or hard currency, and hard currency can also be spent on skipping challenges such as license tests. It’s also possible to purchase experience points directly, which is unusual for a social game. Since experience levels unlock game content such as new cars, those players who wish to jump straight to the part of the game with high-end concept cars can do so by spending money. Conversely, those willing to put in the time and effort to work their way through the early game can gain access to almost all of the game content — though some later cars and performance upgrades can only be purchased with hard currency.

“Gameloft is very excited about offering our games to Google+ users,” said Baudouin Cormon, VP of publishing for the Americas at Gameloft. “GT Racing is bringing a stunning racing experience right in the browser, and we are happy to be pioneering the field with Google to bring the social gaming platform to the next level.”

We didn’t hear back from Gameloft prior to the publication of this review, but it’s clear what the future could hold for GT Racing. Racing games are, by their very nature, modular experiences to which it will be easy to add new cars, tracks and challenges. The game’s multiplayer options will also ensure that an active community will arise around the game, particularly as regular play is incentivized by daily bonus packages.

The social network version of GT Racing: Motor Academy is currently exclusive to Google+. The game is also available for iOS and Android devices, but the mobile editions do not have any link to the computer-based social network versions.

Shadow Fight is a new game from experienced European social games publisher Nekki for the Facebook platform. The game launched in early May and since that time has made itself a regular on our weekly top 20 list of emerging Facebook games.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Shadow Fight currently has 398,425 monthly active users and 44,879 daily active users.

Shadow Fight is a martial arts competitive fighting game with a stylized “silhouette” aesthetic. Players choose a shadowy avatar to represent themselves and compete in a series of one-on-one battles against opponents drawn from their Facebook friends list. Players aren’t directly competing against their friends in real-time; all the choice of friend as opponent means is that following victory, the player is able to post a message on their friend’s wall saying that they “beat” them, thereby encouraging the friend to join in the game also. It is also possible to play with two people on one keyboard — the second player also chooses to represent themselves as one of the Facebook user’s friends, though this does not affect the other player’s statistics if they are also a Shadow Fight player.

Players can engage in a variety of different fight scenarios, ranging from one-on-one unarmed combat to tournament play. Competing in tournaments and winning increases the player’s tournament rating, which in turn unlocks more challenging tournaments. Players are ranked on a worldwide leaderboard according to their rating, so competitive players who want bragging rights will need to compete in tournaments rather than only engaging in single combat.

The fighting itself is controlled by the arrow keys coupled with punch and kick buttons. Gaining a “Dan” level, achieved by passing an examination battle, unlocks additional moves for the player to use, all of which are unleashed with a combination of directional keys and the two attack buttons.

Competing in fights of any kind costs Energy, with different types of fight costing different amounts of Energy. Dan examinations, for example, cost significantly more Energy than a friendly duel. Energy can be replenished by waiting, leveling up or by using items. Energy items can be acquired either by random chance following a match or purchased from the in-game store.

The game features a standard currency of Coins, which can be used to purchase three different traditional martial arts weapons for use in some tournaments. It also monetizes with a premium currency of Rubies for purchasing Energy boosts, stronger versions of the three weapons and magical items to assist in defeating strong “boss” opponents. Rubies can be acquired in several ways; they are awarded for inviting friends and completing a “daily checklist,” but can also be acquired by exchanging Coins or purchased via credit card and PayPal. The game did not support Facebook Credits at the time this article was originally written, but has since switched to use them.

Representatives from Nekki didn’t get back to us before publishing this article, but future expansion plans for the game are already clear. “Fatality” moves, inspired by the popular Mortal Kombat video game series are due to be added to the available techniques soon. It also looks like some premium player avatars will be available in the future. The modular nature of the tournament system also means it will be easy for Nekki to slot in more opponents and challenges for high level players as the community progresses through the experience levels.

Shadow Fight’s user figures are showing a healthy upward trend at this time. It doesn’t look from Nekki’s website that it has started a big marketing push for the game as yet, with the only mention of it being a press release from May 24 announcing the game’s launch. Once Nekki steps up the marketing efforts, it’s possible the company could have a successful — and unconventional — title on its hands.

You can follow Shadow Fight’s progress with AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

N.O.V.A. Elite, or Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance: Elite to give it its full name, is a Facebook first-person shooter game from Gameloft, a developer known for “porting” console game concepts onto mobile game platforms. Though we haven’t seen any resounding successes from other Facebook FPS games, Gameloft could succeed through cross-platform promotion, as N.O.V.A.’s iOS incarnation performed well enough to warrant a sequel.

Since its launch in late April, N.O.V.A.’s user figures have been climbing steadily, according to our traffic tracking service AppData. Its MAU currently sits at 251,000 and appears to be rising, while DAU has stabilized around the 35,000 mark.

N.O.V.A. is a competitive first-person shooter that casts players in the role of a technologically-advanced space marine and tasks them with scoring as many points as possible against the other players or team over the course of a five minute match. Points are scored simply by killing other players. There are currently two variants on the game — Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, which see scores being calculated on a “free-for-all” or team basis respectively.

The game stands out as one of the few new FPS Facebook games available. We compare it to older title Paradise Paintball (which was renamed UberStrike since we last wrote about it), which seemed to struggle with finding an audience at first, but has show steady growth in the last 12 months. Like UberStrike, N.O.V.A. relies on real-time synchronous play, meaning a large audience is crucial to the game’s success. N.O.V.A.’s social features are currently limited to a “party” system, which allows friends to play together, and the ability to compare statistics with Facebook friends.

The other notable thing about N.O.V.A. is that it has unusually high system requirements for a Facebook game. This is due to the fact that its graphics are 3D and the nature of the game requires that it moves quickly and smoothly. As such, the developers recommend a computer with at least a 1.8 GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 256MB graphics card and 1GB of free hard drive space. These system requirements may well exclude some players with older machines or those with more modest specifications (such as netbooks) from being able to enjoy the game — but when it comes to gaming demographics, the type of person who would likely be interested in playing a game like N.O.V.A. will probably already own a computer capable of running it.

This is where we express concern about N.O.V.A.’s future on Facebook. If the audience for whom its intended needs to have a higher end machine to run the game, why don’t they go play other PC or browser-based FPS games instead? The only thing Facebook can offer the genre that FPS games couldn’t necessarily get anywhere else is the social network, and at present, the game doesn’t seem to be making use of that. At best, we could see Facebook offering Gameloft a safe space in which to run microtransaction-based games, as the developer doesn’t have an infrastructure for direct payments from users.

N.O.V.A. is monetized via Facebook Credits, which can be spent between matches in the in-game store to purchase items. These range from additional maps to play on to gameplay enhancements such as radar screens which assist in tracking opponents. There are also cosmetic upgrades available for players to customize their character. Some items are available with the game’s virtual currency, others require Facebook Credits to unlock.

At time of press, we weren’t able to reach N.O.V.A.’s developer Gameloft for comment on future expansion plans for the game, but it’s fair to assume that more maps and game modes will be added as time goes on — the iPhone version of N.O.V.A. 2, for example, includes “Capture the Flag,” “FreezeTag” and “InstaGib” game variants as well as the standard Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch already present in the Facebook incarnation. It would also make sense for them to add more in the way of items for players to purchase — although there is a wide selection available now, dedicated players who have unlocked everything will be keen to see new rewards introduced, otherwise it’s possible they’ll lose interest in the game.

You can follow N.O.V.A.’s progress on AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

Waku Waku Blitz is a simple but highly customizable game that fits our definition of the match-3 arcade game genre. Most match-3 games on Facebook that aren’t Bejeweled Blitz or Diamond Dash struggle to retain an audience, but Waku Waku developer Pix Builders hopes to meet the challenge with highly customizable gameplay options. So far, 20 days after launch, the game sits at just 631 monthly active users and 106 daily active users, according to our data service tracking application AppData.

Pix Builders’ Yvan Taurines describes Waku Waku Blitz as a “puzzle/match 3 game like Bejeweled Blitz,” but in practice it’s more like “whack-a-mole.” Square, triangular and circular shapes of varying colors pop out of holes on the screen and it’s the player’s job to smack as many as possible with a hammer in one minute. Score multipliers are given every time the player achieves a “combo” of three identical shapes, colors or both, and as the multiplier increases the player has to work faster to maintain their high-scoring potential.

Taurines claims the game is “one of the simplest games ever,” but explains that a lot of the depth to gameplay comes from “meta gameplay” in the form of experience points, player levels, and unlockable content. As the player progresses through the experience levels, new sets of shapes become available from the in-game marketplace, and completing a set offers the player specific bonuses that will help them climb the leaderboards.

“We have a lot to add to Waku Waku Blitz over the coming months,” says Taurines. “We can’t reveal all the upcoming features, but for example, we would like to add localization, an updated leaderboard that will keep track of one’s highest score ever, and some cool gameplay additions. And of course, we will add new shapes, new weapons and new backgrounds! Actually, cool effects for weapons will be added very soon — if not today, tomorrow.”

The game only monetizes through the sale of its standard virtual currency, which can be spent on new shapes, weapons and backgrounds from the in-game shop to customize the play experience. More buying options are unlocked as the player proceeds through the experience levels, and each successfully completed game also rewards the player with coins, so there is no obligation for them to spend real money, but Taurines says that “paying a small quantity of real money will save [the player] a huge load of time, and will help him to collect all of his missing items.” Taurines is keen to ensure that monetization of the game is “not intrusive to the player” and emphasizes that Waku Waku Blitz is primarily a “free to play game.”

The game currently uses Social Gold to take payments, but this will not be supported for much longer, according to Taurines. The game will be changing over to Facebook Credits in accordance with Facebook’s policy by July, and Taurines believes that Facebook’s system is “a good one — even if [it is] pricey.”

Waku Waku Blitz launched on April 8. Both its MAU and DAU numbers are currently very low, but it’s early days for the game, yet.  The next few months will be critical to determine whether it succeeds or fails based on what Pix Builders can do to support the game with new features — and whether Taurines and his team pursues future plans on Facebook or elsewhere.

You can follow Waku Waku Blitz’s progress on Facebook with AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

Shooters are not exactly common amongst social games, regardless of their form. However, we recently came across a Facebook title by the name of Twilight Wars, and no, it doesn’t involve any sparkly vampires. Developed by Gamelet, this top-down shooter currently garners over 246,000 monthly active users, but while this metric continues to grow, its daily active user count falls short at around 16,000.

A team based shooter, Twilight Wars marks a distinct minority on the Facebook platform with only a handful of other shooters, such as Cmune’s UberStrike (formerly Paradise Paintball), which hosts around 500,000 MAU and 49,000 DAU. Regardless, Gamelet is hoping to incorporate some minor social mechanics in line with synchronous multiplayer in both a battle-style and cooperative mode.

Players can catch on to Twilight Wars pretty quickly. The game places the user down into a top-down map with the simple rule of survive. The general idea is to battle it out with one’s allies and defeat all opponents. The basis of this concept is seated in the game’s multiplayer facet, supporting up to eight players at a time.

Each player navigates in a simple W, A, S, D fashion, using the mouse to shoot and aim, functioning similarly to old, top-down, Rambo shooters on the original Nintendo. Scattered about the map are a variety of weapons of both the projectile and melee variety; with players able to carry two at any given time. Each comes with its own unique benefits (e.g. more damage, longer range, etc.) with the more powerful items slowing the user down. That said, other than elements like damage, there is nothing terribly distinctive, which is where the melee items, theoretically, come into play.

The addition of melee in Twilight Wars shows some potential on two fronts. Not only do melee weapons do tremendous damage and allow the player to move significantly faster than when wielding a gun, but the also allow players to activate special melee abilities.

As players compete and earn total kills, they will earn Prestige within the faction of their choosing (Royal Knights, Skydow Warriors, or The Third Force) and be able to start using special melee abilities. The big problem with this is that the kills are tracked, in total, across all games played, which basically means that new users aren’t going to see anything significantly unique about this game until they have played for some time. Additionally, when introduced to this mechanic, it’s not clearly stated that this is an overall measurement of play, and new players will likely spend a good amount of time trying to figure out where their Prestige is measured before just starting to ignore it all together.

If team battle royals aren’t one’s preference, users can enter into some cooperative play as well. In a separate Mission mode, players can take on ever increasingly difficult missions against AI opponents. From here, users can play together (with a set number of players allowed based on the mission) to overcome the various challenges, and quite frankly, synchronous play is almost required due to the difficulty. Of course, should one be a loner through and through, a basic single player mode against AI is also available.

With each game played, players will also earn in-game currency. Like most free-to-play shooters, this is then used to purchase various items and arsenals in the Twilight Store (virtual currency, Facebook Credits here, can be used as an alternative). As one would expect, purchased items will boost things like damage, ammunition reserves, armor, health and so on. The most interesting one, however, is an item dubbed “Emergency Help.”

In a more uncommon use of asynchronous play mechanics, using this item will randomly summon a friend (who plays) to the battlefield to help out. The downside, is that they will always have only half of their health. Beyond this, the only other social game mechanics implemented are all fairly basic and standard. This includes unlockable badges, leaderboards, and lobby chat rooms.

As for any other aspects worth noting, the multiplayer, in general seems a bit clunky. Whenever placed into battles with other users, latency often seemed an issue with players teleporting about the battle field. Moreover, there didn’t appear to be a matchmaking system based on player experience. As an example, in one of our first matches, we were pitted up with a player that could use the special melee abilities, while we were brand new, giving that user a distinct advantage.

Overall, Twilight Wars is an okay game, but has past shooters have shown us, such a genre rarely, if ever, does significantly well on Facebook, regardless of whether or not they are fun. The social gaming population, or at least the format available to them, just isn’t looking for fast-paced and twitchy shooters. It doesn’t help either that the most unique aspect of the game, melee abilities, is something that new players aren’t going to see until they’ve played for a while. In the end, this Gamelet app seems like a decent title, but is a genre whose growth tends to plateau early.