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.

Facebook-integrated massively multiplayer online games have been done before –titles like City of Eternals have made use of the social network as a sort of portal leading to a stand-alone site. Such is the case with an app by the name of DDTank. On our emerging list a few weeks ago, the game currently garners only around 300,000 monthly active users. Nonetheless, both this number, and its daily active users (around 46,000) continue to grow at a steady pace.

Developed by 7th Road, DDTank is almost like a massively multiplayer rendition of or the classic Worms franchise. Sounds interesting, yes, but the game has a number of shortcomings, only somewhat made up for by its visual style and the addition of MMO-style features, such as equipment.

Planted in the middle of a very chibi-anime-style of world, players are immediately engaged in a basic tutorial. Unlike other MMOGs, DDTank doesn’t have users milling about an entire world, but blasting opponents with a rocket launcher within isolated matches. The basic idea of the game is to join matches and beat other players in a Worms-style bout.

Taking turns, players move about a destructible terrain and lob shots at each other using similar physics to the predecessor. With each shot, players must take into consideration elements such as wind, angle, and firing power, with the winner taking home the most experience. Even when losing, however, players are able to choose from a deck of overturned cards with each containing a random amount of coin.

With each battle, varying numbers of people can join, depending on how many the game creator allows, but in context, the MMO aspect of the game feels somewhat lost. Regardless, it can be amusing to play as players make use of various special abilities to do extra damage, fire more shots, or even fire more missiles. Unfortunately, the resource that governs these abilities is a bit vague, so it’s hard to determine what limits it uses (usually we can only combine two, but have seen other players use more).

It’s part of the natural growth that many MMOGs have. Such games often only explain the basics, and leave it to the player to resolve the rest on their own. Unfortunately, this tends to be a problem as many users are not going to take the time to figure it all out and can often be overwhelmed when it is all available at once. Which is the case here.

Of the MMOG-style mechanics, players can actually perform quests that will reward the user with random items and gems. In one of the few aspects of this explained, these can be augmented with bonus stats through an in-game armory. However, this section of the game actually has five different things the player can use to improve items; only one of which is explained.

What makes matters worse, is that not only are many features available right away, but each item comes with a slew of tooltips displaying half a dozen or more different statistics, none of which are explained. For veteran role-playing players, the stats will be logical (e.g. Luck probably factors in to a critical strike rating), but such will not be the case with everyone.

Though the game doesn’t make direct use of Facebook for its social elements, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t social stuff going on. One aspect of the game that is of interest is that there are actually scheduled activities for users to participate in, and in a virtual world type of fashion, even a Japanese hot spring space to visit and chat within. Aside from these, however, the social is all standard to MMOGs, meaning chat, guilds (called “Leagues” here), and synchronous play.

The real issue with DDTank, however, is that it just doesn’t feel all that special. It’s basically a classic game, put online, painted with new artwork and called an MMOG. The new title isn’t ‘bad’, but it doesn’t really do anything that stands out at all. The virtual world integration of a Japanese spa is nice, but even this is underused and actually seems expensive (10,000 coins) to enter. Of course, coins seem to be easy to come by, but while on the topic of such, we actually had to search quite a bit to find out where the amount we had was shown. That’s a usability issue, as it was within a backpack that was lost in a sea of stats, tooltips, and features.

Overall, DDTank feels bloated with a myriad of superfluous features that feel more tacked on to the core Worms-style combat rather than integral to it. In that, the core of the game is lost and watered down, and time spent on these could have been spent on making everything feel more unique. Again, the game isn’t terrible, but it’s not all that exciting either. With underused Facebook elements, shallow additions, and seen-before-gameplay, DDTank just feels average, at best.

Supercell came out of stealth-mode today with the announcement of Gunshine, an isometric MMORPG/FPS that runs not so much in Facebook as through Facebook. With a AAA-list of company developers and execs, the bar is raised rather high for the title but initial impressions don’t fail to meet expectations.

Gunshine is most accurately described as a traditional point and click MMOG. The player picks one of three classes – bodyguard, hunter or doctor – and an avatar before entering an instanced area which leads the player through the opening of the game. Here the player learns that the world is not what it seems.

Reminiscent of the Matrix and Running Man films, all members of society have begun a pilgrimage to Dawn City (under the care of Labycore) for a better life. To enter Dawn City, each must don a permanent bracelet.  Through a series of unclear reasons – there is a lot of exposition and quest but it is not yet fleshed out – the player becomes one of the few who enters Dawn City unadorned. And so begins the story.

All of the familiar MMOG tropes are extant: a mini-map; NPCs with ?s and !s above their heads; main and optional quest lines; and in an interesting turn, the ability to choose henchmen based upon varying skills and price (both currencies) when friends are not available.

Allowing for synchronous play with friends, it also allows one to play asynchronously with Facebook friends by calling on them as psedo-henchmen. The characters will then play as they would were they actually there, according to their stats, abilities, and equipment.

Still in closed beta, the movement through the instanced world is seamless from room to room. The visuals are stunning. The reaction time impressive. The game feels like a lightweight MMOG. The writing needs work as the quests are still quite vanilla and though I had little time to interact with players most seemed to have a handle on the mechanics presented.

It is a dystopian world but one that gives a hint of intrigue and perhaps… perhaps the ability for the players to move the story. Look for an interview with the developers in the next several weeks.

With Christmas just a few days away, the hype of the holiday is at its peak. Social game developers are making the most of it with a tremendous influx of specially themed goods, décor, and game mechanics. From snowmen to Santa, the Christmas theme is showing itself to be far greater than Halloween and completely dwarfing the holidays from 2009.

From big to small, we take a look below at what Facebook games have done for the holiday. We’ve split our review into two broad categories: virtual goods and new features.

Christmas Virtual Goods
Themed virtual goods are easily the most common Christmas addition across all social games. Here’s a compilation of social developers and which games are hosting what:

A Bit Lucky – Lucky Train has about six Christmas-themed houses such as Santa’s House, a Gingerbread House, Toy Factories, and so on. Additionally, players can change the entire theme of their train town to resemble a winter wonderland blanketed in snow.

Players can also gift special, limited time, holiday items such as candy canes, snowmen, and Christmas trees. This plays well into A Bit Lucky’s more interesting holiday contests, which we cover below.

Booyah – Nightclub City, with all of its glitz and glamor, has put in a variety of stylized Christmas club items. These include decorative club items such as snowflake dance floors and “North Pole Dancers”, as well as holiday clothing for avatars and entourages. Complete with Santa hats and tops, the game also takes a goofier approach with Rudolph, Frosty, and Christmas tree avatar outfits.

CrowdStar – As with both Halloween and Thanksgiving, the majority of themed elements to CrowdStar games are virtual items. Of all the titles within the CrowdStar repertoire, It Girl seems to have been most affected, with city streets covered in the sights and sounds of the season.

Yes, sounds. It Girl is the only title we have seen thus far that boasts Christmas songs playing in the background. Beyond the décor, players can also purchase holiday clothing, of the sexier variety, including a Santa and elf outfit.

It Girl aside, virtual Christmas goods can also be found in Happy Pets, Happy Island, and Happy Aquarium. Such items include Christmas colored pets, scuba diving reindeer, and the ever-coveted Santa fish.

Digital Chocolate – The folks over at Digital Chocolate have decided to focus on Christmas virtual goods. Across five games — Millionaire City, Vegas City, Epic Fighters, Ninjas Rising, and Island God — there are 20 plus virtual items for the season.

The two business-oriented apps (Millionaire and Vegas City) contain the most goods, while Epic Fighters and Ninjas Rising host a special Christmas helmet and Santa costume respectively. All, however, have new Christmas themed backgrounds and snowfall.

LOLapps – In Ravenwood Fair, LOLapps is certainly in the holiday spirit with nearly 40 special holiday items. Igloos, snowy river banks, and holiday lights are only the tip of the iceberg. However, much more interesting mechanics are noted below.

Playdom – A good number of Playdom titles are in the Christmas spirit, including Social City, City of Wonder, ESPNU College Town, Wild Ones, Tiki Resort, Tiki Farm, Mobsters, Mobsters 2, My Vineyard, Market Street, and Sorority Life. For the most part, the items are fairly basic, but some are slightly different.

In Tiki Resort, players are being given daily Christmas items until the end of December (players can also gift “Xmas Charm” and Champagne), while in ESPNU Santa randomly flies about from time to time. In fact, City of Wonder has a few visual surprises in this regard as well, with many older items blanketed in snow.

The real treat is a bit more explosive. In Wild Ones, players don’t just get Christmas decorations, they get an entire “Winter Wonderblammed” map in which to blow each other to kingdom come in. And what better way to do this than with a “Snowman Gun”?

Playfish – As one of the larger social game developers, Playfish has a myriad of Christmas themed goods across some of its major titles (Pet Society, Restaurant City, Country Story, and Hotel City).

In Restaurant City, a handful of items come with functionality such as the “Festive Fridge” that serves drinks 10 percent faster. There is even a special Coca Cola vending machine that will earn 50 percent more profit off of beverages. It’s part of a two-week partnership with Coca Cola, a promotion that includes the Coca Cola penguin, polar bear, truck, and Santa.

As for Hotel City, there isn’t much, but come December 22nd, players will receive special “surprise” items just for playing. This special Christmas promotion will run until the 25th.

RockYou! – RockYou has incorporated new Christmas goods into Zoo World. That in mind, they are not mere aesthetics and actually have a much more complex, functional use described below.

Wooga – German outfit wooga is filling its games Monster World and Happy Hospital with well over 30 decorations that range from Christmas trees, to monster-like nutcrackers, to nativity-themed items. Beyond these, Monster World has been completely covered in snow, with the vendor non-player robot, Robert, dressed up as a robotic Santa Claus. Wooga told us that six new virtual goods will make their appearance come New Years.

Happy Hospital is a bit smaller in the virtual goods area, but has also been covered with snow and even comes with a special snowman that gives small rewards to users from time to time.

Zynga – With the biggest social games in its roster, Zynga has plenty of resources to produce holiday goods in FarmVille, CityVille, FrontierVille, YoVille, Café World, Treasure Isle, and PetVille. While most are fairly basic, such as the Ice Furniture Collection in PetVille, many involve the help of friends to construct, such as the Winter Throne chairs in YoVille that require friends to gift parts.

Most of these items are adaptations of past Thanksgiving and Halloween specials. For example, in FarmVille, instead of a haunted house, players can begin making a snowman, asking friends for parts to build it. As they get more parts, the snowman gradually gets fancier until it ends up as a veritable Frosty, complete with dance moves.

Special Christmas Features
While themed virtual goods are all well and good, most developers attempted to do at least one very different thing for the season. Be they contests, limited features, special quests, or new social elements, the following list is a compilation of some of the more interesting new features:

A Bit Lucky – Lucky Train, with its new snow-blanketing theme, is first on the list, and A Bit Lucky makes use of its themed virtual goods and gifts to offer players a chance to win some “Lucky Bucks,” the game’s virtual currency. Dubbed the “Winter County Decoration Contest,” players can view and submit votes on their favorite player counties. The winners earn Lucky Bucks as their prize.

Booyah – In light of the major changes to Nightclub City, players can now create multiple clubs in the game. One such locale is “Holiday Main Street.” A Christmas themed locale is needed to unlock most of the holiday virtual goods for purchase.

CrowdStar – CrowdStar has thrown a handful of special elements into its social titles. Though not as significant as some of its competitors’ additions, players can experience a few interesting features in both Happy Pets and Happy Island. In the former, there is a special “12 Days of Christmas” feature that will give users one gift per day. If all 12 are collected, players will receive a “Glow Elf Cat” as an extra special reward. If any day is missed, that missed item can purchased for virtual currency. Additionally, players can also spin a wheel for a chance at Christmas themed goods. If all five are collected, users earn Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

As for Happy Island, it also makes use of the 12 Days of Christmas promotion, rewarding a Christmas bundle (North Pole Islet, Santa’s Workshop, Reindeer Stable, and a Flying Santa with Reindeer). Additionally, players can create and send Christmas postcards from their island.

Digital Chocolate – The Christmas mechanic of merit for Digital Chocolate is a new creature in Island God called the “Festive Fiend.” A gremlin version of the Grinch, complete with Santa outfit, it randomly terrorizes the player’s islanders. Of course, since the player is a god, they can easily defend their followers with some godly gusto.

LOLapps – Along with purchasable décor, Ravenwood Fair includes two new holiday quests for users to complete. The rewards are a very special Candy House and Santa’s Workshop. Neither item can be bought; they must be earned.

In addition to these, three new avatars have been introduced. The abominable snowman Brumble appears to scare the wits out of the fair’s patrons, while Briggs, the snowman protector, helps to calm them. Also, players may also see the visitor character Hansel, the gingerbread man, who spreads “holiday cheer” to the characters in game.

Playdom – Social City stands out among Playdom’s games for its Christmas additions. Players are able to construct an entirely new city within the “North Pole District.” This means that every single item within the region is holiday themed. All of them. In fact, this area is all about decorative creativity, as there are no factories one can build here.

Players can still put Christmas décor into their main cities, but many of these items are won using the spin feature introduced when Playdom offered Disney-themed items. As a refresher, players can log in and spin a wheel for a small bit of virtual currency and will randomly win one of eight virtual items. Once all eight are collected, they will earn an extravagant “Town Christmas Tree.”

The additions don’t stop here. Playdom also informed us of a new eCard mechanic within Social City. With this, players can take a snapshot of their city and customize it with special messages, borders, and greetings. Those who the eCard is sent to do not have to play Social City, or even have a Facebook account.

Playfish – As it has in the past, Playfish has fairly involved Christmas game mechanics. Restaurant City is the most prominent, with two new mini-games that allow players to save Christmas.

With an ingredient reward, players can learn how to cook a reindeer’s favorite recipe (basically carrots) and must feed 50 of them as they wander around the outskirts of one’s restaurant. Of course, if décor is more appealing, players can also search the snowy virtual outskirts for Santa’s lost presents. Once 40 are found, users can earn a gingerbread window and door.

Country Story is a little less involved, but every day, Santa will bring gifts for players and allow them to send them to friends. Moreover, there is a small mini-game where players can use the help of friends to rescue a reindeer trapped in a stocking.

In Pet Society’s new “Snowflakes Collection,” players collect snowflakes and, should they collect all 12 by the 26th, they will be entered to win one of three Apple Mac Book Airs. Ten runners-up will receive a free PC download from the EA Store (The Sims 3, FIFA 11, or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), while the 10 after that will earn a Pogo Club annual subscription.

RockYou! – Zoo World is using a more involved approach to its Christmas goods, reflecting its Thanksgiving specials. Long story short, Santa has lost his reindeer and users must train new animals to pull his sled. In order to do this, players must first collect all the items needed to do so which includes candy canes, Christmas bells, a reindeer headdress, gingerbread cookies, and a winter scarf.

Each one is earned in different ways: Feeding animals holiday treats (Christmas cupcakes and lollipops) can produce candy canes; gingerbread cookies are earned when friends click a wall post; and bells, headdresses, and scarves are earned through gifting. All of these can be purchased with virtual currency or earned, randomly, from Mrs. Claus who shows up every two hours for a “check-in” opportunity. With five check-ins she gives a random component.

Once everything is acquired, players must ask five friends to help “train” an animal, which also provides the option to turn it into an “ultra rare” version of itself for virtual currency. Additionally, Santa himself visits on three different days, rewarding players with special gifts, should a set amount of animals be trained before his arrival. The special features will run until about January 14th.

Wooga – For Monster World, players that play during Christmas time will notice that their plants are growing rather differently this time of year. Rather than produce the usual, monstrous looking flora, these plants will grow to represent everything from toy blocks to frozen Christmas trees.

As for Happy Hospital, the major new mechanic involves the game’s core concept of treating sick animals. With its quirky ailments, players can now cure a frozen raccoon afflicted with “Icefluenca.”

Zynga – Like Thanksgiving, the biggest changes come from Treasure Isle. Placing a Christmas tree on their island, players can send presents to each other. As more are earned, the tree becomes larger and fancier, and will also grant rewards such as Christmas pets and boats.

The bigger element for the treasure hunting title is the feature to help a frozen Rudolph with friends. While he will get warmer with each day, friends can help expedite the process, and once Rudolph is better, users will unlock entirely new holiday maps to dig in. There is also a set of Christmas quests, tasking players to create elements of the 12 Days of Christmas (e.g. there is a quest to make a Partridge [cookie] in a Pear Tree). Doing these quests will earn significant coin and experience.

FrontierVille also has something interesting along this same thread. Called “The 12 Missions of FrontierVille,” players are given a series of 12 holiday-themed missions to complete in-game. Activated by clicking on carolers near a very Christmas-style toy factory, players can complete these goals for special, daily, rewards. In addition to this, players can earn a new currency “Toys” by helping neighbors, through random daily bonuses, or asking friends. These toys can then be used to redeem special holiday items such as Rudolph or a pink Christmas tree.

Each holiday is getting more and more attention from social developers as they attempt to adapt their top games for the season. From virtual goods, to contests, to special features, each of these listed titles have done something to coax greater user engagement, sharing, and purchasing.

A special thanks to all the developers who sent us screenshots of all their new Christmas features. You can find a full slideshow of these and our own images below: