Zynga reveals mobile MOBA game Solstice Arena

solsticearena

Zynga today revealed its newest core game title, Solstice Arena, a multiplayer online battle arena game for mobile devices from the A Bit Lucky team.

A Bit Lucky is the developer behind games like Lucky Train and Lucky Space, which were shut down on Facebook in September 2012 while the studio continued to work on Solstice Arena. When Zynga acquired the studio, also in September 2012, A Bit Lucky’s employees became a part of Zynga San Francisco and continued to work on Solstice Arena, though little was known about the game at the time.

Today we finally learned that Solstice Arena is a MOBA game, a genre that originated with the popular mod Defense of the Ancients (DotA) for Blizzard’s PC and Mac strategy game Warcraft 3.

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Ubisoft, Toys “R” Us partner for Toys “R” Us Towers Facebook game with in-store discounts

 

Ubisoft and Toys “R” Us today announced the release of a free-to-play toy store simulation Facebook game where players earn coupons to be redeemed at the toy retailer’s website and brick-and-mortar locations. The game is due out on mobile devices in the coming months.

Developed by Ubisoft Quebec, Toys “R” Us Towers has players managing a Toys “R” Us store by building and designing a variety of toy departments and attractions. For example, players can create a science toy department or a giant Ferris wheel like the one at the retailer’s flagship store in Times Square. As they gain experience, players work their way up from trainee to store manager and finally CEO.

Like most business sim casual games, Toys “R” Us Towers incentivizes players to get their Facebook friends involved and purchase premium currency, which can in turn be spent on additional energy, premium toy departments and other bonuses. Toys “R” Us Towers’ special hook is that it will also allow players to earn coupons for discounts redeemable at Toys “R” Us stores nationwide and Toysrus.com. The press release we received claims that users can earn a coupon for 15 percent off their next in-store or online store purchase within the first hour of the game.

We’ve seen social games offer real-world rewards before, with Race 4 My Place’s cash prizes being a recent example. Toys “R” Us Towers’ has several advantages over previous attempts, however, due to Ubisoft’s Facebook and game-making expertise (although it has seen mixed results in the former) and Toys “R” Us’s easily recognizable branding. The partnership also seems to make a lot of sense on paper since both companies court the attention of young audiences, especially around the holiday season when kids are asking their parents for toys and video games. The discounts earned in-game may well push consumers to shop for presents at Toys “R” Us as opposed to other big box or online stores.

You can find Toys “R” Us Towers here. Look forward to our review.

Meet The Ville, the newest member of Zynga’s “Ville” family

Zynga today unveiled The Ville, its latest “Ville” game at its Zynga Unleashed press event. The game is a lifestyle sim that bears many similarities to titles like EA’s The Sims Social, which we won’t discuss here.

The concept of The Ville is for players to build their dream house, hang out with their friends in the game and build in-game relationships. Players initially receive a small home that they gradually decorate and expand to manor-like proportions. Along the way, they unlock new areas of their yard to expand their home onto.

As players unlock new blocks of yard, they gain whatever items happen to be resting there. During a hands-off demo, we saw a yard with several locked squares containing a rock garden, a tree house and a koi pond.

Meanwhile, players can also use their yards to plant gardens they can then harvest items from to craft consumable items with. The example we saw of this in action involved a player collecting ingredients for a blueberry pie that, when eaten, temporarily shrank the player characters down to roughly half their size.

The Ville includes social features that have become standard in many Zynga games, like being able to visit other players’ homes and establishing relationships with their in-game characters; relationships can become romantic and we even got to see players score a “happiness home run,” represented by them jumping onto a bed and being surrounded by a cloud of hearts. Interacting with other characters earns hearts and happiness. Hearts increase the strength of a relationship between characters, while happiness allows players to perform jobs in the game. Jobs, in turn, provide soft currency coins, which can allow players to purchase new decorations and expansions for their home.

Zynga’s launching two new social features in The Ville. First, players can check their Facebook friends’ statuses and leave comments on their news feeds from within The Ville. Players are also able to share entertaining in-game moments by snapping photos and posting them to their news feeds for friends to see.

The Ville is set to debut June 27, on Facebook. It will come to Zynga.com soon after.

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