Trivia Adventure from Austin-based Steel Penny Games is a new Facebook game featuring elements of role-playing, quiz and board games. It launched in the first week of January for early testing by new players, and has been gradually picking up steam as users discover its intriguing blend of genres.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Trivia Adventure currently has 2,000 monthly active users and 400 daily active users.

Trivia Adventure is primarily a role-playing game. Players design a character of either gender, name them, choose a character class to enjoy an initial bonus to one of their statistics and are then thrown into a short tutorial introducing them to the game’s basic rules.

The majority of the player’s time in Trivia Adventure is spent exploring dungeons and wilderness areas. Movement around these areas is handled in a board game-like manner. Players draw one of three cards, each of which shows how many spaces they can move. It’s possible to spend soft currency to reveal all three cards if there’s a specific space the player wants to try and land on — for example, one which holds treasure, which can take the form of either items or soft currency.

On certain spaces, the player is required to engage in combat. This is handled in a turn-based manner, with the player usually attacking first. Upon clicking the “Attack” button, a trivia question pops up on screen.  Answering the question correctly gives the player a bonus to the damage they inflict on the enemy they are fighting, while answering incorrectly still allows the player to inflict damage, but also means they receive a greater amount of injury from their opponent.

All actions, whether they are movement or attacking, cost Momentum, the game’s version of energy. Momentum completely refills upon gaining a level, and also gradually tops up over time. Players can also receive Momentum bonuses by sharing their activities to their Facebook walls — there are benefits for friends also playing the game here, too, as players can share questions to their walls, with experience bonuses on offer to those who answer correctly.

Social features for the game include the aforementioned sharing mechanic along with the usual facility to send gifts to friends. A competitive element is also added, as each player’s run through a dungeon is scored according to how much they explored, how much loot they found, questions they answered correctly and streaks of correct answers. Leaderboards are displayed upon each dungeon delve, and players can replay past areas to improve their score.

For Steel Penny Games, whose development background has primarily been in contract work for a number of console developers, social gaming development proved to be a challenge.

“The move to social games was something that proved us wrong,” explains Jeff Everett from the company. “We played the occasional Facebook game in what spare time we had and thought we could do something fun real fast. As it turns out, web development and social games in general have a whole new set of problems we had to solve. Of course, that also meant we had a lot of mistakes to make and learn from before we could get our first game playable!”

The game’s monetization is primarily handled through the sale of hard currency, here known as Steel Pennies. These can be purchased with Facebook Credits and then used to top up Momentum; add soft currency; refill health; purchase premium items from stores; and add benefits to the character, including additional inventory slots or companion pets. Facebook Credits can be bought directly or earned via offer wall.

Trivia Adventure has showed slow but steady growth since its launch in mid-January. The game has already received several updates to improve gameplay, but the developer has plenty of new content in mind for the future.

“We have a pipeline of new locations, enemies, items and questions ready to release as they become finalized,” says Everett. “We plan to continue adding the new content over time, as we monitor our metrics and determine the time of things players enjoy the most. Our game technology allows for us to easily localize not only the game elements, but our questions as well. Since we could not just use the same questions [many of which are U.S.-centric] in other regions of the world, those questions will need to be written with that territory in mind.”

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

Risk: Factions is a new social game published by EA in collaboration with Hasbro, the rights holder to the Risk board game.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Risk: Factions currently has 30,000 monthly active users and 9,000 daily active users.

Risk: Factions was originally released as a standalone, downloadable title for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games consoles in 2010. A Windows PC version followed in early 2011, published through Valve’s Steam digital distribution network. The Facebook version is a fundamental re-imagining of the game for the social network, while maintaining many of the aspects which made the console version popular. Inside Social Games spoke to Spencer Brooks from EA regarding the move to Facebook earlier this week.

There are two main parts to Risk: Factions — base building and missions. Base building plays out similarly to established games in the same genre with an important distinction: many buildings have a practical game function beyond simply providing the player with an income stream. Specifically, many buildings train troops over time, which are the resource the player needs to complete the second part of the game: the missions. Without troops, a player won’t be able to play until their base has produced more, so in some senses, they act similarly to an energy bar.

Missions play out similarly to the board game version of Risk. Taking place on one of several maps, players take it in turns to deploy troops to various territories and then use them to attack enemy-held areas. Combat is resolved through dice throws, so there’s an element of random chance, though brute-forcing your way through with a large force gives a greater chance of success in the long term. Control of larger numbers of territories means the player has more troops to deploy at the start of their turn, and players can also collect cards to allow them to make use of special weapons.

Social features for the game include the ability to add friends as allies, allowing you to visit their base and “boost” a building’s production; compete against friends and random strangers in multiplayer matches; and send gifts to allies. Players also earn Skill Points by winning matches, which enables them to upgrade their faction’s technologies — and further factions can be unlocked through leveling up.

The game’s monetization is handled through the hard currency of Stars. These are purchased using Facebook Credits and offer walls. Stars can be used to purchase the special weapons used in a match — though these weapons still require the collection of cards to use — as well as special buildings for bases. There are also a number of booster items on offer, including the facility to immediately purchase extra troops for the “supply” from which a player’s forces are drawn during play. Production of troops from a base’s buildings can also be “rushed” using Stars, enabling quick production of troops for the player’s stockpile.

Risk: Factions is already a complete and satisfying game, offering some genuinely strategic gameplay alongside the more casual, light base building elements. Over time, the game will offer more maps on which players can battle — at this time, only three of the five factions’ worlds are represented, with only three out of what looks like a proposed five individual maps per world on offer for players to clash over. Further game modes, many of which are designed for quicker play, are also in the works. The game will also offer more in the way of premium items and special weapons to purchase over time, as the offerings in the store are currently quite limited.

You’ll be able to track Risk: Factions’ progress with AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

EA’s follow-up to runaway Facebook hit The Sims Social, Risk: Factions, launches today on the social network. The game faces a two-front battle in trying capture a dedicated niche audience while also keeping up EA’s momentum in the social games space.

Despite being named after a board game like EA’s Monopoly Millionaires, Risk: Factions actually has more in common with The Sims Social as it’s based on an existing video game franchise. The original Risk: Factions is a downloadable title for Xbox Live and PlayStation Network where players choose one of several “factions” and play against other players or computer-controlled opponents in the classic turn-based strategy game of Risk, which has players attempting to take over an entire world map.

In making the jump to social, EA has adapted the title for speedier play and more engaging multiplayer. Aside from the usual social game “hooks,” such as harvesting resources or matching games for bonus items, the developer has also added features and factions to create what amounts to an entirely new game experience under the same franchise. EA Producer and Risk: Factions designer Spencer Brooks walks us through what’s different and how the game’s older social siblings influenced development.

Inside Social Games: Fill us in on the background of the original Risk: Factions on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. Was the game a success on those platforms?

Spencer Brooks: It was definitely a success in every measure. It riffed off of some of the changes Hasbro made in the 2008 rules and we used that as a springboard and added a bunch of our features to that. Brand expectations, gameplay, just everything — that game raised the bar for [Risk].

So in 2008, [Hasbro] re-released the game and it wasn’t just world conquest, it was objective-based rules. You could take over the map and you win, but if you played with objectives, it’s better because you start with eight or six [players] and the first one who gets three [objectives] wins the game. It did two things — it sped up the game enormously and it allowed everybody to stay in the game even at the end. You could all be playing the game and then there would be a winner. It codified the need for the game [to go faster and keep people playing].

[The social game] is more or less a hybrid of the XBLA version. We made the factions play differently while in the XBLA and PSN version, the factions were basically a skin. For the social game, we’ve got the concept of special weapon, [where] each faction has its own sort of power up that you can put on the map and they give each faction a different play style. We have multiple maps like we did in the original — we’re launching with nine maps and we’ll release more every so often. We haven’t added all the features [of the original], but we’ve created new ones.

ISG: Like the Headquarters area? It seems a lot like the farm or the homestead setting in other social games where you go to collect resources…

Brooks: The headquarters is meant to do a few things. Yes, I think there’s an appointment mechanic going on in the headquarters right now because you need to check back and harvest your troops and collect your special weapons. But headquarters is almost meant to show a persistence and progression of you leveling up, then unlocking new factions and leveling each of those up. It’s your main resource generator and a progression indicator.

ISG: We notice that in the closed beta version of the game, you also implemented an energy meter that limited the number of games we could play per day. Now that the game is live, it looks like you’ve subtracted that feature. Energy meters are pretty standard for most social games — what made you decide to leave it out?

Brooks: This gets into a religious debate among designers and producers and product managers. My personal preference is that I like to play and play and play. There’s a monetization component to all these games, but I wanted to see — just over the holidays — what the feedback was of the players if we just took off the energy cap. Both from a data standpoint and a qualitative player feedback point-of-view, did that make the game better? It’s something we’re still evaluating.

What I really like about this game and what I tried to deliver on is that I wanted a game that had a [player versus player] element with a winner and a loser. There are no big strategy games out there that have a winner and a loser. It’s risky because it’s instance-based PvP, but there’s something about Risk that is very competitive; if you can’t rub your friend’s nose in a humiliating defeat, then we didn’t do the game justice. You get surprisingly addicted to it — you want your player rating to go up and every win is much more emotional because if you fail, it’s really you. It’s not like you’re playing an abstraction of a person, you’re playing a person. I don’t think social games do enough of that. We’re all hoping that that’s received well, especially by more core gamers used to more competitive experiences.

ISG: It sounds like rankings will be an important social hook, then. What sort of tools will you use to sort player rankings and organize matches? Is it just going to be a big free-for-all, or can we only challenge our Facebook friends?

Brooks: We’re using a modified true skill system. Everybody has a numeric rating between 0 and 10000. We factor in the delta between players to determine rank change and there are diminishing returns [for attacking low-level players]. That’s a gross exaggeration of the math, but you get the basics.

Initially, for the first few weeks, everyone can play each other because we have to feed the [leaderboards]. Once we have enough spread among players, we’re going to do it a little more intelligently than that. One is level of engagement — players who play a lot, very active players will play very active players. Initially by engagement and frequency. After that, you’re put in other buckets — like how close are you [in player level]. We will do some intelligent matchmaking [between similar level and similar engagement].

ISG: Speaking of competition, how much pressure do you feel having to follow on the heels of The Sims Social? Yes, it’s like comparing apples to oranges in terms of game type and intended audience, but even so, it’s a tough act to follow.

Brooks: I want to steer away from comparing Risk: Factions to The Sims Social because they’re very different games that will attract very different players. For the audience we are attracting — which is more male and more competitive and they like strategy — it’s going to do very well.

ISG: Now that the game is live, what are you plans for future content expansions?

Brooks: There will be many more factions following after launch. We’ll have new gameplay modes as well; we’ve already designed several modes that make the game go faster than it does. We wanted to keep classic world conquest because there’s the expectation of that — but the game will be evolving and we’ve got two other factions that we’re finished with and some new mechanics as well as more maps and more modes that are pretty slick. We wanted to get the initial one out and gauge user feedback and make sure we have everything prioritized correctly.

The under-served Facebook crossword puzzle genre gets a huge addition today with Crosswords from new social game developer PuzzleSocial. Through licensing agreements, the developer has secured many of the top crossword puzzle constructors in the United States to supply the game with new content daily.

Speaking to Inside Social Games, PuzzleSocial founder and crossword enthusiast Jeb Balise explains that though there are 50 million people in the U.S. that solve at least one crossword puzzle per week, only about 50 to 60 people are responsible for creating that content (we call them “constructors”). Fourteen months ago, he founded PuzzleSocial with the intent to create a crossword puzzle social game; in the last six months, he’s been able to secure the rights to constructors’ puzzles that appear in nearly all the major newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post. Incidentally, Balise says that many of the constructors and top competitive players featured in the 2006 documentary film “Wordplay” are also featured in the game. Bios for each of the puzzle constructors are available from the game’s main menu.

Crosswords is launching with two game types, two game modes, and four types of crossword puzzle that are updated daily. The game types are Singles or Doubles, where players complete the puzzle alone or with a friend. The modes are “for fun” or “for stats” where players can choose whether or not to rank their performance in solving a puzzle (speed, accuracy, etc.). Lastly, the puzzle types are divided by Newsday (the puzzles that appear in daily newspapers), A.V. Onion Club (which appear in the humor publication), CrosSynergy (which runs in the Washington Post), and a proprietary type called Celebrity where each of the daily puzzles is relevant to a piece of celebrity news gossip circulated that week. Each type gets new puzzles daily.

While playing Singles or Doubles in any of the daily puzzles, players can choose to receive word hints, reveal solutions for individual words, toggle a red-text “wrong” hint that shows players when a letter is incorrect, or reveal the entire board solution. All of these tools are provided for free, and players can even print PDFs of the puzzles to play with more traditional pen-and-paper. In Doubles, players are both playing the same puzzle in real time with each filling in words in their own time with no tracked score (although statistics will be counted if playing Doubles in stats mode).

Crosswords also features tournament and head-to-head competition play, which is one of the ways in which Crosswords monetizes. Players are given a certain number of “puzzle tokens” to spend on entering tourneys or creating head-to-head matches; additional tokens can be purchased with Facebook Credits. While in tourney mode or a head-to-head match, players are graded on speed and accuracy and do not have access to some of the puzzle-assisting tools available in the non-competitive modes. Head-to-head does lock correct words in place so that players cannot write over another player’s correct answer.

Scores also fluctuate in the competitive modes consistent with real life crossword competitions, where a correct answer is 1 point and an incorrect answer is -1 point. Taking a hint from Tetris Battle, Crosswords features a changeable level system where player can move up or down levels depending on their performance in tourneys or head-to-head. This determines which tourneys a player can enter, although in the future, head-to-head mode will allow players to challenge their friends at any difficulty level.

The second key way in which Crosswords monetizes is through ads. An integration with MediaBrix‘s ad platform allows the game to show players display or video ads just after completing a puzzle, similar to what Zynga is doing in Words With Friends. Viral mechanics include earning puzzle tokens for inviting friends to the game, and an “Add Friend” button that allows players to add strangers that they meet in tournaments or head-to-head mode to their Facebook friends list.

Crosswords launches on Facebook today. Developer PuzzleSocial currently has around 10 people on staff and is in the process of raising a first round of funding.

Now that The Sims Social has reached maturity on Facebook, EA Playfish can move on to the next game in its release schedule — Risk: Factions. The developer is also still finding its footing in mobile and planning for a Sims Social expansion in the near future.

Risk: Factions was originally planned for a fall release, but it was delayed while EA Playfish experimented with adding new features. Akiko Abe, public relations manager, tells us that the game could be held back until after the Christmas holiday if EA believes that fewer people will be playing social games during the break. The game differs from EA Playfish’s previous board game adaptation, Monopoly Millionaires, in that it’s an adaptation of an Xbox Live/PlayStation Network/Steam download property. This means that Risk: Factions’ design will likely come down somewhere between the menu-driven interface of Monopoly Millionaires and the vibrant animation of The Sims Social. Depending on how the actual board game itself is translated into the gameplay, the potential audience for Risk: Factions could be more niche than the broad spread of players attracted to The Sims Social.

Meanwhile on mobile, EA Playfish had a hit and miss experience in bringing two of its established Facebook brands to iOS this year. The hit was Restaurant City, where the one-to-one translation of restaurant management adapted well to the mobile interface in Restaurant City: Gourmet Edition. The game is currently one of EA’s top 10 most popular iOS apps across all 100 of its games, and it ranks at No.168 in the App Store’s Top Free Apps. The miss is Pet Society: Vacation, which will shut down in December due to a lack of players. As Abe says and the farewell post alludes to, the Pet Society audience on Facebook just didn’t carry over to iOS in this case. Even so, Abe tells us that EA Playfish will continue to find its footing in mobile.

Lastly, EA Playfish is mindful of extending the life of The Sims Social on Facebook through expansions. Far from holiday content updates or light gameplay tweaks available through new purchasable items, EA Playfish is aware that Sims fans are expecting almost completely new gameplay additions on the order of those we see in the PC franchise — pets, romance, new locations, etc. Abe tells us the developer isn’t ready to talk specifics yet but that we can expect to see Sims Social getting its first expansion “very soon.”

German board game maker Ravensburger has just released its second Facebook title, Puzzle Adventures. The game combines conventional jigsaw puzzle concepts with power-ups and timed challenges for determining high scores.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Puzzle Adventures currently has 60 monthly active users and 30 daily active users.

Puzzle Adventures sees players solving a series of progressively more difficult jigsaw puzzles, while competing against their friends to score as many points as possible on each. The act of placing puzzle pieces is adapted for a click-and-drag interface, with additional clicks used to rotate puzzle pieces. Scoring is based on how quickly players can complete a given puzzle and can be increased by successively combining individual pieces to create point combos before a timer bar runs out. The puzzles themselves are comprised of actual photos and increase in complexity as players move from one themed world, such as an island setting, to the next.

A number of power-ups are available, with players having the option to assign and use up to five per puzzle. These include items that automatically rotate all of the pieces so that they’re right-side-up; one that displays an outline of the pieces in the finished puzzle on the screen; another that joins together random pieces for the player at the outset; as well as those that extend the timer, freeze it, and so on. In order to aid players in solving the puzzles, the game displays an image of the finished result in the bottom corner of the play field at all times.

Each time the player wishes to attempt a puzzle, one heart is removed from their stockpile. When all of the hearts are exhausted, players must wait for at least one to refill in order to play again (each requires around 10 minutes to be restored) or purchase refills. These are sold at the rate of one heart for five coins. Coins are also used to purchase power-ups before attempting a puzzle. Players receive coins based on their performance, as well as experience points that count towards players leveling up. Leveling up provides players with coins, heart refills, and keys. Keys are required to unlock some puzzles and can be purchased with coins.

Players can add their friends in Puzzle Adventures in order to compared high scores. The game also supports posting announcements regarding players setting new high scores, leveling up, and so on to their Facebook Walls and those of their friends.

Puzzle Adventures is monetized via the purchase of additional coins, used to but keys, power-ups, and additional hearts, using Facebook Credits.

You can follow Puzzle Adventures’ progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

[Editor's Note: Each week, we roundup the games our editors and contributors have played during the week. Quite apart from our standard reviews format and our weekly AppData rankings charts, this post is intended to share an opinion-based viewpoint of the games we play with scores out of a 10-point scale assigned for emphasis.]

CastleVille — Zynga’s newest Facebook game feels like FrontierVille, plays like CityVille, and has some of the best music we’ve ever heard in any game — social or console. Like Ravenskye City, the game started off a bit stingy with the energy gauge, which limits gameplay sessions to maybe 20 minutes once per day. It looks like Zynga has tweaked the amount of energy a player can earn by performing tasks like chopping down trees or constructing buildings, however, meaning we can now potentially play more times per day without getting out our wallets. The PvE could use some work as we waste a lot of the energy gauge beating on wolves and rats even after crafting special items that ostensibly kill them off more quickly.
Score: 8
Here’s the app.

Coco Girl — Metrogames second fashion title for Facebook puts a lot of emphasis on the daily outfits players choose for their avatars. It also features several mini-games that are incorporated into the daily quests that players complete to earn more virtual currency to spend on items. We’ve had more fun playing these mini-games, which include a hidden object game and a pipes puzzle, than we have had shopping for clothes in Coco Girl. Maybe if there weren’t so many restrictions on which types of clothes players could buy (Heart type, actual price, Facebook Credits-only, etc.), we’d pay more attention to the shopping part.
Score: 6
Here’s the app.

The Sims Social — EA’s Facebook version of its Sims series started off as a 10 in our minds, but now that the game is three months old, it’s lost some of that newness that lent the game such a broad appeal. Lately, our gameplay sessions consist of clicking through requests in our inbox and looking for new stuff to buy in the store, since we’ve maxed out both our skill levels on a variety of objects and our trait levels. Unless EA Playfish adds a significant game-changer in the next week or so (pets, the ability to have babies, group lots we can visit to do other stuff besides shop), we’ll probably shelve this to focus on newer games.
Score: 6
Here’s the app.

Triviador — While waiting around for EA Playfish to launch Risk: Factions, we tried out another Risk-style board game for Facebook called Triviador. This title turned out to be more like a game show because of the trivia emphasis, but the conquer-the-map gameplay is still very compelling especially with the grave-sounding voice over and rousing battle music. Though most of the trivia questions are based on number answers (e.g. “What year did X happen?” “How many X in a Y?” etc.), Triviador has a pretty transparent system for determining which player wins ties or wins in the case where both answered the question incorrectly.
Score: 7
Here’s the app.

Woodland Heroes from rookie Facebook developer Row Sham Bow combines cutesy anthropomorphic animals with a strategy game akin to the classic Battleship board game. The game officially launched late last month.

According to our traffic tracking service, AppData, Woodland Heroes currently enjoys 130,000 monthly active users and 10,000 daily active users.

Woodland Heroes casts players in the role of a male or female raccoon person that must do battle with the evil Bear King’s army to make the forest safe again for all animals. The core gameplay loop has players building combat units out of a workshop and then leading these units into turn-based battles to earn resources to spend on building more combat units. New unit types unlock as the player levels up and the difficultly of battles increases as the player progresses through the main story toward a boss fight with the Bear King. An energy gauge restricts gameplay sessions by depleting each time the player moves a unit across the world map or each time the player attacks an enemy during the combat phase.

Combat is carried out between machines places along grids of squares with each machine occupying more than one square in various configurations of squares. The player can see where they’ve placed their own units, but cannot see where on the opposing grid the enemy has placed theirs. In order to find and destroy units, players select squares of the grid to target with their machines at the beginning of their turn.

If the player has successfully targeted a square containing an enemy unit, that square reveals some battle damage, hinting at the machine’s actual location. Once the player has struck a majority of squares that contain an enemy unit, the entire unit is revealed and can be destroyed once all of its squares are hit. An additional “hint” element comes in the form of a enemy unit list that the player can view to determine how many and what configuration of squares on which the enemy units are placed. Players can repair their own units that take damage during combat using either Facebook Credits or coins, the game’s soft currency. Once destroyed, a player completely loses that unit and must rebuilt it from the workshop during the non-combat phase of the game.

Social features include the standard gifting and Wall-posting functions of most social games. The most compelling feature, however, is the Visit ability where players can fight any of their friends’ impending battles with the Bear King’s armies. The catch is, the guest player can only use one unit to take out the enemy — but the combat doesn’t cost the guest player any energy. If successful, the player can choose to take a reward of in-game currency or leave behind a marker that gives their friend a combat advantage for that battle when they choose to play it. There is no player versus player mode planned for the game that we know of.

Woodland Heroes monetizes primarily through the sale of energy — which can only be gifted by friends or bought with Facebook Credits. Special combat units can also be purchased with Credits and certain units can only be repaired during the combat phase using Credits while other units can be repaired using coins, the game’s soft currency.

Speaking to Inside Social Games, Row Sham Bow CEO Phil Holt says the game isn’t finished “by a long stretch.”

“We launched with a small set of features expecting to deal with initial performance problems that most new games face,” he tells us. “This team has a lot of experience with supporting live features and live games, so I think we were well prepared for launch. We’re continuing to address the first-time user experience flow to optimize for retention. This is our current area of focus.”

Row Sham Bow formed in Orlando, Florida from a team of ex-EA Tiburon developers. The studio secured a $3 million first round of funding from Intersouth Partners.

You can follow Woodland Heroes’ progress on Facebook using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

Developed by Hungarian studio THX Games PLC, Triviador is a unique mix of strategy and trivia game presented like the classic board game Risk. It supports up to three simultaneous players in real-time matches.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Triviador currently has 110,000 monthly active users and 20,000 daily active users.

In Triviador, three live players compete to take over the world, one country at a time. It begins with a conquest phase, for which the game asks all three players a series of four trivia questions. These are used to divide up the four soldiers available for that round. The questions are based around amounts and years, allowing players to enter their own answers. Once time’s up, all three players’ answers are shown, and the soldiers up for grabs are divided based on who’s answer was closest to the correct one.

Once the soldiers are assigned, players are given the opportunity to place theirs on the map, one per country, until all have been used. At this point, war mode begins. In this mode, players are asked to choose the soldier or castle belonging to an opponent in a space adjacent to their own soldiers or castle. When a target is selected, a battle begins. The fighting takes the form of a multiple choice trivia question. The player with the correct answer wins the country. If both players answer correctly, another question is asked. Players not involved in battle are allowed to rate the quality of the questions. If a player chooses to attack another’s castle, the defender has three chances to answer correctly. If they should fail, they’re counted out of the game and can watch as the two other players finish. A real-time chat feature is present during gameplay but can be disabled.

A variety of power-ups, which eliminate a certain number of incorrect answers, and so on, are available for use in the war mode. These must be unlocked via leveling up. Players level up by winning, and by completing missions, the more basic of which involve simply using the requested power-up once, or winning a certain number of games. Players also receive achievements for performing well, along with gold, the game’s soft currency.

Players can add their friends and play with them in private matches. Other social features include a global leaderboard, friend leaderboard, and a scoreboard displaying the current point total for all participating countries. Players are able to set their home country from the game’s menu in order to participate in this ranking. Bragging about wins via viral channels is also supported.

Triviador is monetized through the purchase of soft currency, which players can spend on power-ups. More adventures (plays of the game) can also be purchased, although they are automatically regenerated every day.

THX Games PLC has discussed a number of planned improvements to the game on its Wall, including a feature that will allow players to submit their own trivia questions for consideration and more detailed player statistics. The developer has also pledged to regularly add its own new trivia to a database which currently includes more than 10,000 questions.

You can follow Triviador’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

iWin, publisher of Facebook versions of popular game shows including 1 vs. 100, Family Feud, and Deal or No Deal, has added another to its lineup: the $100,000 Pyramid. This version of the TV show, which premiered in 1973, launched in beta on September 1.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, $100,000 Pyramid currently has 360,000 monthly active users and 90,000 daily active users.

Pyramid is a single-player game where players have to answer three rounds of six questions, each round following a specific theme. If they’re able to do that, they progress to the Winners Circle, which contains three additional questions, worth higher values. The questions are set up such that the answers are single words: people, places, or things. Players are given two clues as to what each word is, and are able to purchase an extra clue using Clue Coins. There’s a timer that counts down over the course of all six questions in a round, adding urgency to the player’s responses. The game also requires that players answer a minimum number of questions in the three main rounds correctly in order to enter the Winners Circle.

The cash that players win can be used to purchase items for over two dozen collections, each containing five items. The first item in each collection must be won by playing the game. Some of the items are priced at over $1 million in in-game cash. Playing the game itself costs one episode token; players are given five to begin with, and earn one additional episode every 12 hours. More episodes can be purchased, or earn by completing collections.

Social features of $100,000 Pyramid include friend invites, which earn players additional cash once accepted, and sharing when players level up via viral channels. The game also features a real-time leaderboard that compares players’ scores against their friends.$100,000 Pyramid is monetized in two ways. The first is through the use of Facebook Credits to purchase additional Clue Coins. These come in bundles costing 5, 10, 30, 50, and 100 Credits. The second way is by players purchasing extra episodes, also using Facebook Credits. They’re available in groups of three to 100 episode tokens, ranging from 20 to 400 Credits.

You can follow $100,000 Pyramid’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.