Candy Crush Saga is the latest entry in King.com’s increasingly expansive “Saga” series of Facebook games. It’s a match-3 puzzler, but combines enough twists on the formula to make it worthy of note.

The basic mechanics of Candy Crush Saga will be immediately familiar to anyone who’s spent time with the match-3 genre. By swapping colored candies and making horizontal or vertical lines of three or more like-colored sweets, players may clear space for more candies to fall and score points. Matching more than three candies at once in different arrangements produces special sweets which have beneficial effects — some clear a whole line of the board, some explode and destroy all candies in the spaces around them and some destroy all candies of a specific color on the board.

So far so Bejeweled. Candy Crush Saga then adds a few twists on this well-worn basic formula. Firstly, the play area isn’t always square. Sometimes it is irregularly-shaped around the edges, meaning that candies can shift from one column to another as they fall; and sometimes there are holes in the middle, which candies can fall behind but the player may not swap sweets into.

The second twist comes in the form of various different level types. Rather than simply attempting to score as many points as possible, Candy Crush Saga provides several different objectives for players to complete. Sometimes they’ll have to beat point targets. Sometimes they’ll have to clear jelly from the board by matching candies on top of it. Sometimes they’ll have to cause specific “ingredient” items to drop to the bottom of the play area. There is usually a move limit for players to contend with, with players losing a life if they fail to complete the level’s objectives quickly enough. Lives restore over time or may be replenished by asking friends or spending Facebook Credits.

The game monetizes through the sale of various boosters and items which unlock as the player progresses through the levels. Items may be used during play to knock out troublesome candies or provide the player with extra moves, while boosters appear in the form of special gems which have beneficial effects on the player’s progress — for example, matching a colored fish in a group causes it to swim off and return with a group of friends who will destroy a series of random candies on the board. The main trouble with these boosts and items is that the game doesn’t explain them prominently enough — clicking on an item when the player has one simply uses it, and no tooltips pop up to inform the player what said item is for. An explanation does pop up when the player purchases new items, but since they will have already used them at least once by this point, that’s a little too late.

There are a few other little niggles like this throughout the game — “hints” are provided to the player during play, for example, highlighting matches which may be made, but there are two problems with this. Firstly, they pop up far too quickly while the player is searching for their own matches, causing unwelcome distraction; and secondly, they often simply don’t provide a particularly helpful move, particularly on the “jelly” levels where moves are at a premium.

Despite these few flaws — many of which could be easily rectified in future updates — Candy Crush Saga is a good game. It features a high degree of audio-visual polish (though the overly-short background music loop will likely be switched off by most users immediately); it uses an endearing “cardboard theater” aesthetic for its superfluous but entertaining “story” sequences; it’s well-paced and balanced; and its social and monetization features are kept subtle rather than thrust into the player’s face at every opportunity. If King.com’s past titles — particularly Bubble Witch Saga — are anything to go by, Candy Crush Saga has a bright future ahead of it.

Candy Crush Saga launched this week and currently has 30,000 monthly active users and 10,000 daily active users. Follow its progress with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

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While the underlying mechanics may be very conventional, Candy Crush Saga is an excellent quality game with a bright future ahead of it.

Superball is a casual pachinko-inspired puzzle game for Facebook from Korean social game developer CookApps. The game draws extremely heavy inspiration from PopCap’s popular Peggle series, which so far has not made it to Facebook in either its original form or a quick-fire “Blitz” format.

In Superball, players are armed with a ball-firing cannon at the top of the play area and tasked with ridding the screen of red pegs, which either come in small round or larger rectangular brick-like forms. The player scores higher by achieving “combos,” where a single shot hits many pegs before dropping off the bottom of the screen. A limited stock of balls is available to complete each level, though players may get an extra shot by landing the ball in a moving bin at the bottom of the play area rather than simply allowing it to “drain” off the screen.

Removing all the red pegs triggers “Fever Time,” when the player scores additional points for every peg hit before the ball falls into one of several bins at the bottom of the screen. This is accompanied by a piece of classical music — while Peggle used “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 during its equivalent “Extreme Fever” time, Superball uses the overture from Bizet’s opera Carmen. In a twist on Peggle’s format, filling a score target meter on the right of the screen before removing the last peg triggers “Max Fever Time,” which allows the players to gain significantly higher bonuses due to the appearance of multiple balls on screen.

The simple game format is given some extra complexity by the use of “magic balls,” which become available after completing a certain number of levels or acquiring a particular number of stars, up to three of which are awarded for breaking increasingly-difficult score thresholds in each level. As the game progresses, the player gains the ability to equip up to three of these magic balls, which cost soft currency each time they are used. This is another deviation from Peggle’s format, which allows players to select a character who has a single special ability triggered by hitting special green pegs.

Social features are limited to a leaderboard for each level, though there’s no means of seeing global rankings, only friends. Players also have the opportunity to share a Timeline post celebrating their achievements and offering free soft currency to any friends who use this link to try the game. Players earn extra soft currency for having more friends playing, but the game is rather pushy about getting players to recruit additional players. The first thing that happens before even the tutorial starts is the automatic appearance of an invitation popup addressed to 50 random friends from the player’s Facebook account, for example. This popup appears every time the game is started and also after periods of inactivity.

It’s hard to ignore the fact that Superball probably would not exist in its present form were it not for Peggle. Given the absence of PopCap’s well-known peg-busting title on Facebook, though, CookApps’ offering provides a decent social take on pachinko-style physics puzzling, and the variety of energy packs and boosters on offer mean that it’s likely to monetize well among fans of this style of game.

Superball, which launched in January of this year, was the 12th fastest-growing Facebook game by DAU this week. At the time of writing, it has 1,300,000 monthly active users and 310,000 daily active users. Follow its progress with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

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Peggle’s influence on the game may be a little too obvious, but given the absence of PopCap’s pachinko puzzler on Facebook, Superball is a solid substitute likely to enjoy some success.

Disney Playdom is taking its third foray into the popular hidden object game genre with its newest release Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers, an “edutainment” take on this particular style of puzzle adventure. Players will find themselves exploring African, Asian and American habitats in order to track down a variety of real creatures while learning facts about them.

Disney Playdom has previously enjoyed a great deal of success in this genre, with Gardens of Time being named Facebook’s number one title of 2011 and recent title Blackwood & Bell Mysteries picking up over 2 million monthly active users. Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers doesn’t deviate significantly from the format established by its predecessors — the tutorial follows the exact same sequence of events as in the other games, and the screen layout is identical — but the educational angle adds a welcome twist which makes the game particularly appropriate for parents and children to enjoy together.

As with most other hidden object titles on Facebook, gameplay alternates between the hidden object scenes themselves and decorating a personal space in order to earn enough points to unlock new levels. In the case of Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers, the player is building up a nature reserve and populating it with animals, trees, plants and tribal huts. All of the animals and trees are real species, and the quests which guide placement of them teach players about various creatures’ habitats and feeding habits. Visuals in this part of the game are rather cartoony and clash a little with the more realistic depictions seen in the hidden object scenes, though it does at least keep things clear. The isometric perspective occasionally causes problems, however, as it becomes impossible to click on completed building projects to unveil them if objects have been placed in front of them.

The hidden object scenes come in two distinct flavors — animal-spotting and story-based. The latter scenes present more traditional hidden object gameplay, with players searching through mountains of discarded junk in order to inexplicably locate a wrench, an African mask, a rainspout and a clock — though the story does often at least attempt to justify why players are searching through the garbage, which is more than some rival titles do. In one level, players might be cleaning up a village after a poacher invasion; in another, attempting to recover items of lost luggage. Players unlock powerups over the course of the game which help them locate tricky objects. These are useful, though the game is a little too hasty in nagging the player to use one, with a large and very distracting green arrow nudging them in the direction of the powerup panel after just a few seconds of inactivity.

It’s the animal-spotting hidden object scenes that are the highlight of Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers, however. Players are presented with a list of different animals to find in the scene, and are provided with additional hints on how to find them alongside the other powerups. Clicking on an animal’s specific hint option shows a picture of the animal as it appears in the scene and also provides the player with some trivia about the creature in question, thereby enabling them to learn as they play. The narrative context of the animal-spotting scenes is also educational — for example, in one early level, players are invited to witness a mass migration of animals following heavy rainfall on the African plain.

There is a lot of content in Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers already, with the game’s story unfolding across six chapters, each featuring five regular hidden object scenes and one “Premium” scene to unlock with hard  currency. Social features are a little underdeveloped, however, with visiting friends’ preserves being a largely non-interactive process that simply rewards players with soft currency and experience for turning up. There is a robust leaderboard system for each scene, however, encouraging friendly competition between players — though it would perhaps be nice to see some sort of global leaderboard as well as just for Facebook friends.

There’s very little that is new or innovative in Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers — it’s very clear that the game is pretty much a reskin of Gardens of Time and Blackwood & Bell Mysteries — but the educational angle gives the game a distinctive flavor and makes it particularly family-friendly. Its recognizable Disney Animal Kingdom branding will also ensures it finds some a loyal fanbase among those who have visited Florida’s giant zoo.

As a new Facebook game, Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers is not yet listed on our traffic tracking service AppData at the time of writing. Shortly you’ll be able to follow the progress of its monthly and daily active user counts along with audience estimations and other data, so check back soon for the latest analysis.

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While its core gameplay may be totally unoriginal, the educational content of Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers makes it worthy of note.

Fling a Thing, developed by Canadian company Big Blue Bubble, is a physics-based game that has previously seen some success on iOS and Android devices. Its Facebook incarnation is one of the first games to be released under 6waves’ new focus on publishing rather than development.

Fling a Thing says almost everything it needs to say about its gameplay with its title. Players have a Thing, which they must Fling — in this case, at floating, moving bubbles which seem to cause the Things some degree of offense. This is achieved by clicking and dragging on the Thing’s tail to pull it back and aim it in a particular direction, then releasing to fling it into the air and hopefully bring down some bubbles. The Thing will bounce off the sides of the screen but is also rather strongly affected by gravity. Each fling consumes a life, and when the player’s lives are depleted, the game is over, though completing a level rewards players with additional lives, as does collecting special “+1″ powerups that occasionally float onto the screen.

Every few levels, the gameplay changes slightly, and the Thing must be flung up a short series of platforms to reach the next set of levels. This is a nice change from the otherwise slightly repetitive task of bubble-popping. Further variety is also added by the gradual introduction of powerups which provide the Thing with special abilities — a magnet attracts nearby bubbles to it while it is still in the air, for example, while an egg releases several baby Things who will pop bubbles over a wide area. All powerups’ effectiveness may be upgraded by spending the game’s currency, Stars, which may be collected through gameplay, through a “feeding” minigame or purchased in bulk using Facebook Credits. These Stars may also be used to unlock additional characters and level packs.

Fling a Thing is a simple, well-presented game that works well on the Facebook platform — although it becomes obvious during play that its control scheme was designed more with a touchscreen than a mouse in mind. Its social features are limited to an in-game leaderboard that allows players to compare scores both against friends and global competitors, but there does not appear to be any viral promotion implemented into the game outside of the usual “invite” button. Players are, however, rewarded with a generous number of Stars for every player they invite who subsequently starts playing — a strong incentive to recruit opponents, since earning stars through gameplay is quite a slow process.

Fling a Thing has been available since last year on mobile devices, but this Facebook incarnation will likely help the various versions find a new audience, particularly as there is a link to the App Store (though, curiously, not Google Play or other Android app stores) on the game’s title page. The added marketing clout of 6waves will also help the game grow far beyond what Big Blue Bubble might have been able to achieve by themselves.

Fling a Thing currently has 30,000 monthly active users and 2,000 daily active users. Follow its progress with AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

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A simple, silly, fun game that will be an interesting test for 6waves’ new focus on publishing.

Mobile-social start-up Grand Cru unveiled its first game today with The Supernauts, a sandbox puzzle MMO inspired by PC indie hit Minecraft.

Grand Cru CEO Markus Pasula walked Inside Social Games through a hands-off demo at the Game Developers Conference earlier this month. The Supernauts is slated to launch on iOS (specifically optimized for the new iPad) sometime later this year, with versions for PC and Facebook to follow. Pasula couldn’t confirm  G+ and Android versions of the game, but he did say they were likely. The game will be free-to-play on all platforms.

The story in The Supernauts follows the adventures of a player’s superhero, who is part of a larger super-powered community working to save the day after the polar ice caps melt. As opposed to other iOS Minecraft-inspired titles that display blocky visuals in a first-person view, this game uses a third-person view to show off polished, colorful graphics. The goal of the game is to foster creativity; players can build whatever kinds of structures they can dream up in order to solve the game’s puzzles. Each superhero is armed with a ray gun that can destroy or create game environments, brick by brick. The puzzles we saw seemed based on either piecing together structures for platforming purposes or creating unique home bases players heroes can relax and operate out of. These home bases are intended to be the player’s “Fortress of Solitude,” according to Grand Cru.

The other Minecraft inspiration behind The Supernauts is content sharing. The game allows players to construct levels, puzzles and minigames, which can be shared with the game’s community. Supernauts also allows for real-time cooperative play, with friends joining forces in a co-op mode to solve puzzles together and create new structures. This multiplayer experience will work across all the game’s platforms, meaning players can team up no matter what device they’re playing on.

The Supernauts is an ambitious debut for Grand Cru. The company is backed by $3 million in funding from venture capitalist firm Idinvest Partners and from individual investors like Rick Thompson (co-founder of Playdom and Idle Games). Find out more about the Helsinki-based startup on its official website.

Retro World from Entertainment Games, Inc. is a well-produced Facebook game combining elements of point-and-click adventures, hidden object games and puzzle-based minigames with a healthy dose of  ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s nostalgia. The game has been available since mid-November, but has been gaining traction in recent weeks due to strong marketing efforts centering around the addition of new I Love Lucy-themed content.

Retro World is actually several games in one. The core experience is a series of TV show-like “episodes”. During each episode, the player interacts with characters, finds objects, solves puzzles and completes minigames. These sequences are all short, self-contained stories ostensibly based around one of several different fictional television shows. A tutorial episode known as “The Audition” sees a virtual Dick Clark introducing players to the game’s interface and some of the characters that the player will encounter in the episodes, though completing this is not mandatory. At the time of writing, there are three different episodes for players to challenge besides the tutorial — two in a ’60s spy thriller series reminiscent of shows such as The Saint, and one in a light suburban comedy called Kat the Brat.

Gameplay during these episodes involves hovering the mouse over hotspots on the screen and clicking to interact. Clicking on arrows that appear over exits allows the player to move from location to location; clicking on characters allows the player to start a conversation — often with multiple dialog choices — and clicking on objects allows the player to interact with them. The player also has an inventory of items collected throughout the course of that episode, and these items may also be used on items in a scene or characters to solve puzzles. Occasionally progression through a story is dependent on the completion of a simple minigame, though these may be skipped by using the game’s “Boost” resource. This recharges every 30 minutes, but may also be topped up immediately by spending Facebook Credits.

Aside from the adventure episodes, players may also play a variety of minigames in the “Arcade” section. These range from Mah Jong to a Tetris clone and a simple fishing game. Players are able to challenge their own high scores and brag about their achievements via their Wall, but there is no leaderboard facility to compete against friends at this time.

The game makes heavy use of Wall posts for viral promotion. Every time the player achieves something noteworthy or humorous in the adventure episodes, a Wall post popup automatically appears, inviting the player to share it with their friends. This is optional and there is no discernible benefit to the player for doing so, but the posts in question generally provide enough of a tease to intrigue readers who are not already Retro World players. Besides these regular Wall post nag screens, however, social features in the game are rather limited.

An exception to this is the specific asynchronous multiplayer mode dubbed Hide & Hunt, in which players challenge friends to locate objects they have hidden in a variety of retro-themed scenes. At the time of writing, this feature seemed to have some technical issues preventing it from starting a game, and the “Find a Random Opponent” facility is currently inactive as the team at Entertainment Games improves the matchmaking system.

Retro World is a well-produced game with a very distinctive aesthetic. During the adventure episodes, visuals are presented as photographic backdrops with digitized characters over the top. Clever use of the parallax scrolling animation technique and object “layering” provide scenes with a 3D effect and allow the camera to pan and zoom around according to the player’s actions. Characters each have several poses that are displayed according to what they are saying to the player at the time, helping enormously with the characterization — a key feature in ensuring user retention in a story-based game. Outside of the episodes, minigames tend to take the form of photographic characters combined with more cartoonish, hand-drawn backdrops. The art styles clash somewhat in these segments, but the game retains a distinctive aesthetic and steadfastly refuses to submit to the popular flat-shaded cartoon look of many social games.

Retro World’s long-term success will be dependent on a variety of factors: a steady stream of new content: the addition of further social features such as leaderboards in the Arcade games; a better implementation of Hide & Hunt’s matchmaking facility; and whether or not Entertainment Games are able to negotiate further nostalgic licenses besides I Love Lucy and the likenesses of Elvis and Dick Clark that currently appear in the game. From a monetization perspective, the game would also benefit from a wider variety of things for players to spend their in-game currency on. At this time, the only thing it appears possible to spend these “Retro Bucks” on is a series of custom photographic avatars — perhaps some form of virtual personal space which the player is able to decorate with purchased nostalgic memorabilia would be a good addition.

It’s too early to call whether or not Retro World will see long-term success, but in the meantime it is well worth playing to see a good example of how episodic, story-based gaming can be handled via the Facebook platform. The game currently has 100,000 monthly active users and 5,000 daily active users. To follow its progress, check out AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

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Retro World’s long-term success will be dependent on a steady flow of new content, but for now this is an interesting, noteworthy experiment in Facebook-based episodic adventure gaming.

Blackwood & Bell Mysteries is a new hidden object game for Facebook from Gardens of Time developer Disney Playdom. Following the success of the company’s previous hidden object smash hit, Playdom aims to give the genre an “edgier” feel with Blackwood & Bell Mysteries, toeing the line between realism and popular mythology such as vampires. Lead producerJoey Kline told Inside Social Games that he hoped the new game would “broaden the market” but also “overlap considerably with the Gardens of Time audience.”

In terms of basic mechanics, Blackwood & Bell Mysteries is almost identical to other popular hidden object games on Facebook. Players alternate between building up a patch of land — here referred to as an “Evidence Yard” — and visiting various locations to find hidden objects. In the building section, players acquire “reputation” for placing structures and decorations, with various reputation milestones needed to be met before unlocking further hidden object scenes. In the hidden object scenes, meanwhile, players score points for finding objects more quickly and in rapid succession, and over the course of several repeats of the same scene, earn “stars” to prove their mastery.

In the hidden object scenes, the objects in question remain in the same place every time a player visits, though the specific list of items which must be found varies. This means that achieving a high score is more a case of simply learning where the various objects are rather than being especially observant. The game does its best to distract the player with occasional, subtle animations, but the backdrops are otherwise static. The visuals are attractive, though some objects blend into the background a little too well, and in a problem endemic to the whole genre, it’s sometimes difficult to determine exactly what a particular object name refers to due to ambiguity or lack of clarity.

The game offers a slight twist on the usual formula by occasionally requiring players to locate “clue” items in the scene. These are presented in the same way as normal hidden objects, but are specially marked in the object list and have direct significance to the ongoing story. Sometimes quests specifically require players to locate this clue item, though occasionally it takes several playthroughs of the same scene for the item in question to show up in the object list — and without an appearance in the list, the quest cannot be completed.

An emphasis has been placed on story and characterization in the game. For once players are not searching for a missing uncle; instead, they are assisting the titular Blackwood & Bell, a pair of consulting detectives hailing from Britain and America respectively. Much of the game’s characterization comes from the “clash of cultures” between Blackwood & Bell, though the jokes about British versus American English can come across as somewhat anachronistic at times given the game’s otherwise traditional Victorian feel, obviously heavily inspired by Sherlock Holmes’ London.

In terms of social features, the game offers a number of things for players to do with their friends. Upon visiting a friend’s “Evidence Yard,” players are immediately provided with rewards without having to click on buildings to “help.” They are then able to leave a short text message for their friend which will appear the next time they log in. They are also able to issue a “Sleuth Challenge,” an asynchronous multiplayer showdown in which both participants must find as many hidden objects as possible in a specially-designed scene against a one-minute time limit.

The game monetizes through the sale of hard currency, which can be used for a variety of purposes ranging from refilling energy to rushing building projects and instantly constructing vanity items for the “Evidence Yard.” Said items tend to carry a significantly higher Reputation reward for purchasing, meaning that paying players can unlock subsequent hidden object scenes much more rapidly. At times this means that quests can be preemptively completed, but the game requires players to click on, view and accept the quest before it acknowledges its completion.

Blackwood & Bell Mysteries doesn’t do anything especially innovative in the hidden object genre. The Sleuth Challenges and clue items are a good addition, but don’t make a huge difference to the core gameplay, which is otherwise almost identical to other hidden object games on Facebook. That said, it is a competent title with good production values, and the effort that has been made to infuse the eponymous detective duo with a degree of personality and characterization helps encourage players to engage with the game world and its narrative. A likeable cast can be a strong contributing factor in encouraging players to return to a game after they have given it an initial “trial run,” and Disney Playdom is obviously counting on this fact to distinguish the game from its numerous rivals. Gardens of Time fans will likely flock to a new hidden object game as the genre remains popular on Facebook, though whether or not Kline’s hope that the game will “broaden the market” pays off remains to be seen.

Blackwood & Bell Mysteries was the fifth fastest-growing Facebook game by MAU this week. The game currently has 2,000,000 monthly active users and 490,000 daily active users. To follow its progress, check out AppData, our tracking service for social games and developers.

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A solid hidden object game with a likeable cast, but one which doesn’t take too many risks in deviating from the well-established formulae of the genre.

EA PopCap’s newest Facebook game, Solitaire Blitz, has been gradually expanding its closed beta audience for some time now, but the company has finally decided it’s time to throw open the doors and allow all of Facebook’s worldwide userbase to access the game. Like the other entries in PopCap’s Blitz series, Solitaire Blitz is a fast-paced, competitive game designed to be played alongside friends in short bursts. This time, though, instead of matching colored gems or rolling balls against the clock, players instead find themselves sorting playing cards in an underwater-themed setting.

The basic mechanic used in Solitaire Blitz is simple. Players must remove cards from stacks on the game board according to whether they are either one higher or lower in value than between one and three piles of cards at the top of the screen. Kings “wrap around” to Aces and vice versa, and suits are completely irrelevant. If there are no cards to match to the pile(s), the player refreshes them from a draw deck. When this deck is exhausted, the hand is over. The mechanic isn’t a new one — it’s been used by Big Fish Games’ Fairway Solitaire, which originally released back in 2007 and recently saw an iOS-based remake, and the mechanic is also implemented in the standalone PC game Faerie Solitaire by Subsoap, available via digital distribution service Steam.

Each of the games which makes use of this formula offers its own twist, however — Faerie Solitaire features a story and a pet-raising meta-game, Fairway Solitaire scores players in the style of golf according to how many cards are left on the board when they run out of possible moves, and Solitaire Blitz challenges players to score as many points as possible against a time limit so tight it’s unlikely that the entire board will be cleared on the majority of attempts.

Players start with a single pile to which they can match cards, but playing cards with a key marked on them unlock a second and third pile for use, making things a little easier. Meanwhile, reducing the stacks on the board below a marked line provides the player with time bonuses, allowing their game to continue a little longer. Playing cards in rapid succession without having to draw new ones to stock the piles builds up a combo, and the bigger the combo, the bigger the score multiplier the player gains. Acquiring a score multiplier also rewards the player with fish, which act as the game’s experience point system. Upon leveling up, players are able to select from several different card designs that are available that month. When the player has acquired all the available designs for a particular month, future level ups are rewarded with virtual currency.

At the end of a hand, regardless of whether or not the board was cleared, the player has the opportunity to recover treasures from beneath any completely cleared stacks. These treasures contain random amounts of virtual currency and occasionally provide the player with a rare item which is worth considerably more. Players have the opportunity to brag about the acquisition of these items along with new high scores, win streaks and other such achievements. Players also receive large score bonuses for win streaks — subsequent games in which they manage to clear the entire board before the time expires or the draw deck is exhausted.

The currency acquired from treasures may be used before a new hand to purchase powerups. The lineup of available powerups changes each week and varies from extra time to starting the game with a score multiplier already in place. Facebook Credits may be spent on more powerful powerups if the player so desires. Facebook Credits may also be used to acquire additional energy for more play sessions without waiting, to procure additional virtual currency for powerups, or on a variety of alternative card deck designs. Prices for purchases range from around $4 right up to nearly $200 in a single transaction.

As with most of PopCap’s games, however, there’s no need for players to spend any money to have an enjoyable experience with Solitaire Blitz. Presentation is slick and polished and the game performs well on most computers. The game has a distinctive visual character, though it’s doubtful whether a hand of cards will ever be as iconic as the instantly-recognizable Bejeweled board. As an attempt to infuse the dry subject matter with a touch of additional personality, a number of quirky cartoon characters put in an appearance throughout the course of the game, but these largely serve as a distraction more than anything else. As has always been the case with PopCap’s best titles, however, the gameplay is the true star here, and the simple, addictive nature of the card-matching mechanics coupled with the frustratingly tight time limit and the competitive leaderboard-chasing element makes for a social game that will keep players (and their friends) coming back time and time again. It’s good to see the developer back on form after the disappointment that was Lucky Gem Casino.

Solitaire Blitz currently has 40,000 monthly active users and 10,000 daily active users. You can follow its progress with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

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A welcome return to form for PopCap, and a game likely to enjoy widespread success with a broad audience.

Puzzle Treasure, a new Facebook game developed by Play-Bit Entertainment and published by 6waves Lolapps, is a puzzler that sets itself apart from other social brainteasers with a variety of game modes, a wide range of content and head-scratching gameplay. Based loosely around the theme of an Indiana Jones-like character attempting to uncover the world’s treasures, the game tasks players with filling a hole with a series of preselected shapes in a similar manner to traditional Chinese “tangram” puzzles. Sometimes players must fill the hole completely using the pieces provided to them while at other times, “locked” pieces have already been placed in the play area, requiring careful planning to solve the puzzle.

The game offers three main play modes, but these largely affect the overall game structure rather than the basic mechanics. Adventure Quest tasks players with solving a short series of puzzles in succession in order to acquire various archaeological artefacts, Puzzle Arcade challenges players to complete one-off puzzles and Time Attack gives players a set time limit in which to solve as many puzzles as they can.

Completing a puzzle rewards players with soft currency and experience points, with more of each on offer if the player beats the puzzle in a particularly quick time or if particularly challenging puzzles were attempted. The former may be spent on unlocking new levels and visual themes for the puzzle pieces, while the latter is used purely as a means of automatically replenishing the player’s energy upon leveling up. Strangely, there’s no facility for the player to purchase soft currency using Facebook Credits, meaning if they wish to progress to the more challenging later puzzles, they will have to earn their way there through normal gameplay. The game’s primary means of monetization comes via the sales of energy packs, though there is also a “Gold” visual theme for the puzzle pieces which may only be purchased with Facebook Credits.

Gameplay is simple to understand and explained well through the very brief tutorial during the first puzzle. Controls are a simple matter of clicking and dragging pieces into the play area, then clicking on them to rotate them if necessary. If the player chooses to restart a puzzle, they are charged a small energy cost but given a hint showing where some of the pieces must be placed in exchange. Players may also make use of one free hint per day, with additional ones available if the player wishes to pay for them.

The game is primarily a solitary experience but does feature a leaderboard showing how many puzzles the player’s Facebook friends have each managed to solve, along with the total number of coins earned and the experience level they have reached. Friends are able to send energy packs to one another, and these may also be acquired through Wall posts, assisting the game’s virality. This quickly becomes necessary for dedicated players, as more difficult puzzles require larger outlays of energy in order to attempt. With a base limit of 100 points of gradually-restoring energy on offer and harder challenges costing 20-40 energy each time, play sessions seem to get shorter as the player’s confidence develops, unless they are able to recruit friends or are willing to make the outlay for additional energy. This takes a little of the satisfaction out of solving a particularly demanding puzzle, as players who feel like they are “on a roll” may suddenly find themselves short of energy — potentially good for monetization, but also potentially a rough point of conversion for some players to make.

This issue aside, Puzzle Treasure is worth checking out purely for the fact it’s not another Match 3 puzzler or bubble-popper. The game offers a generous amount of content with more available for unlock through in-game currency, and the modular nature of the game’s structure mean that it can be easily extended over time with minimal production of new assets required. A little balancing of the energy system will help make the game a more satisfying experience for free players while still allowing for monetization.

Puzzle Treasure currently has 3,000 monthly active users and 1,000 daily active users. You can follow its progress with AppData, our tracking service for social games and developers.

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A good example of a different type of Facebook puzzle game that needs a little balancing.

The recently-launched Hidden Haunts from News Corporation’s social game developer Making Fun represents the company’s attempt to innovate in the hidden object genre. Its main hooks are the game’s photorealistic visuals and a modular city that grows along with the narrative rather than the usual freeform construction we see in other hidden object games.

It’s impossible to see a new hidden object game and not compare it to the more well-established big hitters in the genre such as Zynga’s Hidden Chronicles, Disney Playdom’s Gardens of Time and, to a lesser extent, Vostu’s World Mysteries. Making Fun president John Welch is well aware of the strong level of interest the genre is currently enjoying and cites Facebook’s naming of Gardens of Time as its number one title of 2011 as an inspiration for the development of this game. Speaking with us earlier this month, Welch noted that company “didn’t want to be left behind” by rival titles, so the decision was made to release the game early rather than its previously-intended March release date.

The game’s narrative focuses on a team of specialists with a “sixth sense” seeking to resolve ghost problems in the town of Lost Haven. It was originally intended to incorporate the cliched “missing uncle” narrative hook, but this was removed in order to distinguish the game from Hidden Chronicles and World Mysteries, both of which focus their plots around this fact. Instead, the player works their way through a series of episodes which focus on separate preset buildings around the town rather than a single mansion. The player is then able to construct their own houses and decorations around these fixed buildings, with the map expanding as the plot proceeds.

The supposedly photorealistic environments for the hidden object puzzles certainly look nice, but given the amount of post-processing applied to the picture — not to mention the bizarre objects strewn across the top of them — it’s actually difficult to see a huge difference between the visuals of this game and those of, say, Hidden Chronicles. If anything, using photographs for the settings rather than stylized hand-drawn or computer-generated visuals makes it frustratingly difficult to find the hidden objects in question at times, going beyond the usual fun of the genre into genuine annoyance at times. Mastering the various scenes becomes more a case of memorizing where the fairly limited number of possible objects are rather than having strong powers of observation.

This problem is compounded by the fact that after ticking off the list of objects to find, the player must then identify a final object using a picture which is covered in mist. When the objects are already muddy and shrouded in shadow in most cases, finding this final object is often best left to the Hint function. Offering some challenge to players potentially keeps them interested for longer, but it’s a fine line — dip into “frustrating” territory as this game frequently does and there’s a very strong risk of players giving up and not coming back.

Outside the hidden object scenes, the citybuilding gameplay is very conventional, with the construction of buildings contributing towards unlocking more scenes. Players are also able to visit friends’ villages, though the game does a very poor job of explaining exactly what players are supposed to do when there. Early in the game, the player is given a quest to “hunt a poltergeist” in the obligatory fake friend’s village, but is given no guidance on how to achieve this, leading to further frustration.

The citybuilding component’s visual style also clashes enormously with the photographic puzzle scenes. All game characters are presented as somewhat creepy doll-like personae with disproportionately large heads and don’t quite seem in keeping with the game’s desire to be more “realistic” than other examples of the genre. Similarly, the buildings that make up the city are obviously stylized pixel art rather than photographs or 3D models, giving the whole game a rather inconsistent visual style throughout.

Hidden Haunts has its good points — its production values are good, and players looking for a new challenge in their hidden object games may find things to like here. The game does, however, feel like an obvious attempt to capitalize on the genre’s popularity rather than an effort to genuinely innovate. The frustration factor of the photographic puzzles coupled with the inconsistent presentation makes this feel like a title that needs a bit more work before it can hope to compete with the giants of the genre in the long term.

Hidden Haunts currently has 220,000 monthly active users and 50,000 daily active users. You can follow its progress with AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

Wait

A hidden object game with some nice ideas that are overshadowed by frustrating, conventional gameplay and inconsistent presentation.

Correction: A previous draft of this story incorrectly stated Facebook named Hidden Chronicles its No.1 Facebook game of 2011.