Inside Social Games

In a time where the remakes of old games and films have received a great deal of limelight, the folks over at Gameloft have jumped on board with the reimagining of one of gaming’s oldest titles, The Oregon Trail… for the iPhone. More likely than not, most people have played, or at least heard of this game: In it, players lead their party of pixelated family members across one of America’s most treacherous journeys. Of course, the original game was in a floppy disk format and produced in decades ago… so this new version has seen quite the face lift, most notably via mini-games and Facebook Connect integration.

The Oregon Trail was originally developed as an educational tool intended to educate children about pioneer life in the 19th century. The MECC (Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium) published title has been hailed as one of the best-selling educational games of all time. So does this remake live up to its predecessor’s reputation?

Players start out with a basic tutorial as they make their way to the Kansas River. On the way there, they learn the ropes of pioneer life through random events and critical decisions. Throughout the trip, they are tasked with monitoring their party’s health, wagon durability, schedule, funds, and food supply. As they make their way westward, the touchscreen is used to set the pacing (fast, steady, or slow) with the faster settings becoming more hazardous to one’s health.

While traveling, the children and wife in the party tend to make quarky comments to lighten the mood, which, mixed with the cartoonish art style, really seem to fit in well. Of course, that doesn’t help much when someone dies of dysentery. Regardless, when someone isn’t sick, the time is passed by playing mini-games.

The primary mini-game is still hunting, where players move about a top-down view shooting animals that dart on and off screen. As with the original, anything you kill is used as food for your party. Furthermore, this isn’t the only mini-game either as players will also have the opportunity to fish, cross rivers, raft, repair the wagon, and more; all of which is done with touch control. Obviously, this is much more than the original game, and, frankly, it’s for the better as they do add a good deal of extra fun to this mobile title.

Despite the new mini-games, however, the core of The Oregon Trail is still, easily, decision-making. As you travel, you are constantly greeted with random events that could have either fantastic positive results or horrid negative ones. Is that drifter on the side of the road really a banker offering $20 or something worse? Do you pay for the ferry and lose time off your schedule  or risk forging the river? Everything has a risk to it, and there is never any knowing what a poor decision could mean.

Unfortunately, this is where one of the major complaints come into play. A lot of what happens is due to completely unstoppable random events. Perhaps the most obnoxious is the eagle that keeps getting the children…. Thankfully, version 1.6.5 of the iPhone has the option to shoot the stupid thing.

Luckily, the game does somewhat make up for this short-coming though its Facebook Connect integration. While it may not seem like much, it is pretty cool to be able to post your progress to your Facebook feed and share just how far along the trail you are. In addition to this you can also post achievements or send messages directly via email, and if you are playing at the same time as a friend, it is most amusing to boast when you pass them on the way west.

Overall, The Oregon Trail is a refreshing revisit to this classic game. The app is a ton of fun and the new mini-games add a great deal of enjoyment to the title. It could, perhaps, benefit from more of the educational element, but as a game, it does what it is supposed to: Entertain. Unfortunately, as fun as it is, it doesn’t quite feel like it is worth the $5 price tag unless you’re really nostalgic. Maybe it will see a price drop in the future? In the meantime, there’s the pared-down free version. See you on the trail!

For years, there has been a rivalry on many fronts between Microsoft and Apple. In the gaming market, the latest “win” goes to Apple, which has just poached Microsoft Xbox executive Richard Teversham.

With a 15-year history at Microsoft, Teversham most recently served as senior director of business, insights, and strategy for the Xbox home console. Before moving into that position, he served as director for platform and marketing from 2005 -2007.

Teversham didn’t just move companies; he changed his role significantly as well. From what is reported by MCV, Teversham accepted an “education-related role” at Apple’s European iPhone office. There, he will report to European VP of interactive entertainment, Chris Lewis.

Microsoft confirmed the change via a spokesman, who stated that “Richard Teversham, director of business, insights and strategy, has taken a new opportunity outside of Microsoft. A process is underway for recruiting his replacement.”

As a side note, Teversham was also on the Board of ISFE (Interactive Software Federation of Europe), a group responsible for PEGI age ratings. For now, it is unclear if he will continue those responsibilities while at Apple.

Remember when you first learned to type back in school, and the teacher would have you type repeating lines of sentences that didn’t always make sense? Well, a new game for Twitter, called Fast 140, is a somewhat social version of that same activity.

Fast 140 has you type a random tweet displayed at the top of the screen. The objective is to type the tweet as fast as you can. The more shorthand characters (especially symbols) presented, the harder it may be. As the player types, the letters of the tweet are highlighted to signify whether or not your text is accurate. Should you make a mistake, it won’t proceed until you correct the error. Your rank and the top high scores are displayed (and updated live) below the game’s main screen.

Once you finish typing a tweet, you can continue by clicking “New Game.” It will bring you to yet another random tweet. This process feels rather unintuitive, though. Because Fast 140 is a typing game — and the idea behind it is speed — most people would likely prefer to hit “Enter” rather than have to move their hands away from the keyboard and use the mouse.

The only other downside: Some tweets are rather vulgar, with no visible way to filter them out. While this won’t concern many users, parents should be aware of it as their kids use Twitter.

Despite those drawbacks, the game is surprisingly addictive. You not only compete against your own high scores, but the fastest Twitter tweet typers as well (the current #1 is an impressive 212.1 words per minute). You can view any active games currently in progress. The game has a well-constructed viral system that sends out a tweet whenever users play their first game.

Of course, like most Twitter games, Fast 140 is meant to fill up some spare time here and there. But the personal touch of typing other people’s tweets is a unique approach to something as (normally) drab as a typing game.

It was a big weekend for the social gaming world at SXSW, with the launch of Facebook Connect for iPhone. Several top developers launched Facebook Connect support in their iPhone games, including Tapulous, Zynga, and SGN, who released a new iPhone and iPod Touch title, Agency Wars, and integrated Facebook Connect with its hit Wii-like title iBowl.

Playfish also made a big launch announcement – Who Has The Biggest Brain? is now available on both the iPhone and iPod Touch. The company, one of the top social game developers on Facebook with over 26 million active monthly users across its portfolio, has kept the core dynamics of the game while optimizing for the iPhone interface.

These modifications take advantage of Apple‘s Multi-Touch user interface, but veterans of the game should find everything else to be quite familiar. It’s fully integrated with Facebook Connect, allowing friends to play together across platforms.

“Bringing Who Has The Biggest Brain? to iPhone and iPod touch is a natural extension of our mission to change the way the world plays games by creating experiences that are more social and connected,” says Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of Playfish. “In addition to Facebook and other social utilities, we believe iPhone and iPod touch represent the next generation of entertainment platforms.”

Players can currently purchase Who Has The Biggest Brain? For $4.99 at the Apple App Store.

Don’t let the name fool you. This game is nothing like what you might think. Sorry, but there no flying cars, no Jetsons, and no space bass. As misleading as it may seem, Facebook game FutureGame does technically deal with the future, just not the distant future. It’s more like 30 seconds from now.

Sufficiently confused? Not surprising. FutureGame is actually a stock market type game, which at first glance seems very drab. Typically, games like this are simulations that let you build a portfolio and try to earn virtual points based on actual stock market data. But while FutureGame does utilize real data, it is nothing like that. The game, believe it or not, is basically a gambling game with a touch of educational value.

Wait… what? Gambling and education in the same sentence?

Okay, the educational aspect isn’t a built in feature, but it is something that should be utilized by players. The game is basically a guessing game in which you predict whether a particular stock, currency, or commodity will go up or down in the next 30 seconds. That’s all the game is about, but here’s the catch: Whenever you make a correct prediction you begin a “streak” and the bigger the streak, the bigger the payout. Yes, payout.

You can actually win cash and prizes. The developers at FutureGame.com offer prizes both daily and monthly for top streaks. For example, this month’s prize is a MacBook, and in order to win, you need to have the highest streak by the end of the month (thus pitting you against both the market and other players). Beyond prizes, there is a fiscal payout for streaks as well (see the image below). Of course, this is where the hard part comes in. You have to physically press the “cash out” button to claim your reward and end your streak. So here is the ever important question: Do you stay all in, or quit while you’re ahead?

Regardless of your choice, you don’t risk anything, which is something that cannot be said about the real stock market at the moment. However, this is where the aforementioned educational value comes into play. While you do have a 50/50 chance of getting something right, playing extensively or learning from real stock market trends may give you a better prediction knowledge. Just as with anything else, the more you practice the more you improve, thus you will start to see patterns, trends, and make better educated assessments, which in turn, increases your winning potential. Of course, you can always rely on luck, but this extra bit of learning certainly couldn’t hurt.

Overall, the game is nothing extravagant, but neither are slot machines (unless you count all the shiny, blinking lights). The key difference here, is you don’t have to put those coins into FutureGame to get a payout. The game is incredibly simple to pick up and play, and terribly, terribly addicting. Granted, the addiction is due in part to the allure of a $10,000 pay out, but also the competitive aspect. Remember, you’re not only competing against the market, but against other people as well for those daily and monthly prizes. It’s like combining eBay with Las Vegas except you’re not losing all your money.

A word of caution however: If you do have people that get addicted to gambling, you may want to keep them away from this app lest they never leave their room again.

So you want a bigger brain, do you? With people scoring well over 5,000 or even 7,000, one has to wonder how they do it. How did they get so good? How can you get better?

As most of you know, the game is made up of various mini-games that are meant to test different aspects of your brain, and the scores from each make up your “brain size.” As such, in order to get better, you have to practice all these different games, but if you play the classic version, you get them at random, which leads to a very basic tip.

Most of the top scorers have the Pro version of Who Has The Biggest Brain?, which allows them to select the mini-games they are best at, thus automatically improving their score. Of course, it’s not quite that simple. There are, in fact specific tricks you can employ for each mini-game.

The first category is for analytical ability. One of the possible mini-games you might come across here is “scales.” In this game you have to identify which object is the heaviest in a group. It starts simple enough with only one scale, but that number begins to grow as the rounds pass. However, there are some basic rules you can follow to speed up you analysis. Spend little time in the first rounds, if the object is on the bottom of the scale or at equilibrium with multiple objects, it is heavier. That alone will get you to the later rounds in 10 or so seconds.

Once you get multiple scales, though, you have to look at the image as a whole and not each individual one. Scan over the objects on the screen using your peripheral vision and if you see two of the same one at the top, they are not the heaviest, but if you see two or more on the bottom, then they most certainly are. This should get you at least 600′ish points if you practice, but if you’re looking for 1000+, you’ll have to get faster at the end rounds, in which case you can follow one rule: While not 100% accurate, the heaviest item will either be the most common item on the bottom scales or the least common, with only one or two objects on the bottom.

After you’ve gotten past the analytical game, it’s time to calculate (ugh… math…). Sorry folks, but there aren’t many “rules” here that can help you get around math. However, there are a few tricks beyond simply memorizing your multiplication tables all over again. So one of the games is “missing number” in which you do basic math: First and foremost, use the number pad, don’t use the mouse. Not only is it faster, but there’s a neat little trick for the game.

You see, if you have the right answer, it will check off instantly, but if it is wrong, you have a second or so to fix it. If you use the number pad, you can type in a number, and if the check mark doesn’t appear, you can press “delete” to change the number until you get it right. For example, if you have “12×7=” (which is 84), you can type the ‘8′ then 1, hit delete, 2, hit delete, etc. until it checks as correct. If you are quick enough you won’t get it wrong. Nevertheless, spending too much time on this trick eats up precious seconds that you will need for your score. Also, most of the answers are fairly similar, but presented in different ways (i.e. 3×5 is the same as (2+1)x5) so once you recognize those patterns, you will get even faster.

Next up is memory, and this one can be tough. One game that you might come up against is “shape order” which consists of being shown an order of shapes, and then having to emulate said order from memory. Basic memory techniques are what most use here. Consider when you would study for tests in high school (assuming you did). Was it not easier to remember things you said aloud? The same concept applies to this game.

Your brain processes audio data far faster and efficiently than the visual counterpart, and this habit alone will do wonders for your score. Also consider short one-syllable words, or familiar phrases common to you. The average human brain cannot hold many things within its short term memory for long, but by shortening the words or relating them to something familiar, the chances of retention are exponentially greater. As for the later levels, you will need to do the same thing, but apply the idea to sets of two or three. Once you get used to it, you will find it is much faster to remember three sets of two than it is recalling six individual images.

Now that you’ve made it this far, its time for some fun visual processing. “Asteroids” is one of the cooler mini-games in this section, where the game play is simply removing asteroids from play based on the numbers or letters printed on them. The object is to remove them from the least value to the greatest value. It’s pretty simple to do this one: All you need to do is create groups in your mind.

For numbers, group negatives and group positives. For letters, break the alphabet into sections (i.e. A – L). This creates a hierarchy in your brain and gives your thoughts a clear path to follow automatically rather than you having to think about it. Remove the asteroids that fall into the lesser sections, then move to the next section. Also, a number of players on this Facebook discussion thread found it useful to zoom out while in this game, making it easier to see everything on the screen and allowing for less mouse movement and greater accuracy.

That should give you at least a little bit of ammunition for you next crack at Who Has The Biggest Brain? There are a total of 12 different mini-games, so there are a lot more tricks to be learned. Nevertheless, these tips won’t get you that high score right away. Those people that have the 7000cm brains have put in a lot of time and practice, but most of them have probably used methods like these to get better. Of course, is you want to learn a little more, you can always check out the WHTBB Discussion Board or this handy site and mingle amongst your fellow brains. Good luck.

It’s always an wonder how games can entice people to learn new things. Over the years, there have been a number of new types of games that assist in teaching everything from language to math. Unfortunately, good educational games are often a rare commodity due to the  fact that most of them come off as stagnant and users generally expect that they will not be very fun. Nonetheless, there are games out there that break through these preconceived notions.

Playfish just released a new title that fits the definition of an educational game and combines it with the social aspects they are known for. The game is called Geo Challenge, and while it will not let you earn a PhD in geography, it does help to recall some of the basic worldly knowledge most people tend to forget after passing that high school geography class.

The game is wonderfully presented with an easy to use interface, non-intrusive yet atmospheric music, and attractive graphics. As soon as users clicks play they are immediately able to comprehend the game play, and proceed through a series of matching-style mini-games. Players begin in the midst of a busy airport and start sorting tourist suitcases by matching country names to their corresponding flags.

After the first mini-game, players move forward to match country shapes, followed by placing pins on a world map to show the location of cities they need to find. Of course, none of these mini-games expects the user to be 100% right, so Playfish takes measures to narrow down the answers. For example, in the suitcase game, the wrong answers are slowly removed as time passes, so that even if players do not know the exact answer they can still make educated guesses from the reduced choices.

As one would expect from Playfish at this point, the game includes good social context. Geo Challenge allows users to invite friends and challenge their knowledge of the world against your own. The app also shows just the player’s friends, players within the same city, or a global leader board by week, month, or all time.

Players are also capable of earning and receiving trophies for display. These trophies are earned through specific achievements like, “Score over 10,000 points without making a mistake.” In addition, upon completion of the game, you’re given a title (i.e. “Bus Driver”) according to your score. You’re also given a horoscope-like blurb that describes your personality that is not only amusing to read, but in some cases frighteningly accurate.

Geo Challenge is a fun, educational, and great looking social game. Granted, the game is no Carmen Sandiego, but it is a big step in the right direction.