Spartacus: Vengeance tasks players with leading a slave revolt in ancient Roman lands. This is accomplished through several phases of gameplay: the fugitive slaves’ camp, travel through the Roman lands, and combat.

In camp, the player is able to equip, train, heal and purchase new items for their army of fighters. Starting the game with just a single character, the player’s roster will gradually grow as they progress through the game, with different types of fighter recruitable as the player progresses through the game’s missions. Players may purchase new equipment using hard and soft currency, increase fighters’ statistics by enrolling them in a several hour-long training program, or heal wounded warriors.

Missions are accessed by moving over an abstract grid-based map, with symbols representing different locations. Moving a square in any of the four cardinal directions costs an energy point, but there’s a slight inconsistency to the game mechanics here: when adjacent to a mission square, the player is able to move diagonally into the space to tackle the mission despite being limited to four-way movement at other times. Interface inconsistencies unfortunately don’t end there, either — the mission information dialog text that appears at the bottom of the screen is rather obtrusive in the amount of screen real estate it takes up, and is also afflicted with an “always on top” characteristic that means it blocks part of the in-game help text if the player needs to refer back to the game rules. There also does not appear to be a full-screen mode for the game to both get around this issue and provide the player with a greater degree of immersion.

Taking on a mission takes players into the combat part of the game. Here, the player’s party of fighters is paired up against a party of enemies, and they are then thrown into combat. This is resolved semi-automatically — the participating fighters take it in turns to swing at each other, inflicting damage according to their statistics. While combat is going on, stylized, silhouetted figures adorn the backdrop, hacking at each other and frequently splattering the screen with blood.

The player is able to boost their fighters’ performance in combat by rapidly clicking on a “Rage Mode” button — filling the Rage bar by doing this allows one of the participating fighters on the player’s team to unleash a very strong “critical” attack. There’s a catch, though: whether or not this actually happens is determined by whether or not the player is able to accurately click on a timing bar when a gyrating arrow hits a “sweet spot” in the middle. It’s a straightforward system that walks a fine line between a casual player-friendly “hands-off” role-playing game system and the player feeling like they are actively involved in the combat.

The game monetizes primarily through its hard currency, which can be used to purchase special equipment, new fighters and hurry the training of members of the player’s party — a process which normally takes several hours. At the time of writing, however, the facility to hurry training is not yet implemented, meaning players have no choice but to wait for their fighters to complete their program. As a compromise, however, the player is still able to take the fighters in question into combat while they are supposedly training.

Spartacus: Vengeance offers some solid gameplay that has the potential to monetize well — if 6waves and Large Animal Games keep up a regular flow of new content, equipment and new fighters for players to use. Being a TV series tie-in, it would make sense to offer characters and other content that are relevant to the show’s progression on TV as time goes on. At this time, however, the items on offer for sale are relatively limited, leaving relatively few opportunities for income. It is early days for the game as yet, however, and at least part of its success will be determined by how popular its source material proves to be. It will be one to watch carefully, particularly for those with an interest in using social games as promotional tools, but it’s too early to tell whether or not it is going to work in the long term.

Spartacus: Vengeance currently has 10,000 monthly active users and 6,000 daily active users. Want to track its progress? Check out AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

Wait

A slightly flawed but well put together licensed property that is yet to prove itself.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Margaritaville Online currently has 30,000 monthly active users and 20,000 daily active users.

Margaritaville is described as an “everyday escape to a virtual tropical paradise.” The game is inspired by the song “Margaritaville” from singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, and takes the form of a role-playing adventure game. Taking on the role of a custom avatar, players begin in a bookstore on a snowy night and find themselves sucked into the tropical paradise of Margaritaville after finding a dusty old book written by Jimmy Buffett. Once safely on the island, players are then given a series of quests to introduce them to the main gameplay elements — exploring and collecting items; completing tasks for the island’s residents; building up the player’s business, a bar known as The Oasis; and taking part in a variety of minigames.

Rather than taking the form of a 2D citybuilding game, Margaritaville Online takes place on a predefined map, rendered in 3D using the popular Unity game engine. The mobile version is also built in Unity, which a contributing factor in the near-simultaneous launch on Facebook and iPad. An iPhone companion app is soon to follow.

Players explore the game map by clicking or tapping, and can click on various items to interact with them. Progressing through the game’s quests rewards the player with additional tools, which allow them to interact with more diverse objects. Acquiring a hammer, for example, allows the player to break crates and barrels to retrieve the objects inside, while a machete allows for overgrown bamboo to be temporarily cleared, opening up new paths for exploration.

Many areas of the island are initially inaccessible, requiring the player to gather raw materials to rebuild bridges over rivers. As the player explores, they will find more items and characters to interact with, as well as a selection of minigames to play alongside the main exploration gameplay. These include a rhythm-based limbo game; a first-person shooter “pirate attack” game; a Bejeweled-style “match three” puzzler when resting in a hammock; and numerous appropriately-themed challenges. All actions cost Energy to perform, with playing a minigame costing three units at once.

A Facebook account is required to play, even on the iPad version, but this means that a player can start playing on their home computer then take their iPad with them to play on the go. In-game, players will see their friends’ characters wandering around their own Margaritaville island, and interacting with them grants a bonus of coins and items. Friends can also be hired into various positions in the player’s “Oasis” bar business, helping to increase income. There’s also the usual facility to send energy-restoring gifts to one another.

Monetization is largely handled through the sale of the game’s hard currency: Beach Bucks. These can be purchased on Facebook using Facebook Credits; earned using Facebook Offers; or purchased using in-app purchases on the iPad. Beach Bucks can be used for a variety of purposes — acquiring premium avatar customization items; purchasing energy restoration items; or gaining additional soft currency. THQ also offers a premium membership option for the game, known as becoming a “Parrothead,” which provides players with an increased energy limit, a cash bonus, special items and a variety of benefits promised in the future.

THQ’s plans for the future of the game are ambitious, with user acquisition strategies stretching far outside just Facebook and the App Store. Speaking with VentureBeat, THQ’s vice president of global brand management Michael Lustenberger said that the game would be promoted at Jimmy Buffett concerts; on the Las Vegas Strip; various restaurants and resorts; and also through the upcoming iPhone app, which encourages players to share real-world “Margaritaville Moments” in exchange for rewards in the game. A lot is riding on the success of the game for THQ, whose stock price has been plummeting recently thanks to disappointing sales of a number of its key titles in the console market.

You can follow Margaritaville Online’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Miscrits of Volcano Island currently has 930,000 monthly active users and 130,000 daily active users.

The Miscrits series takes its cues from Nintendo’s popular range of handheld Pokémon games. The player takes on the role of a Battlemaster, a character who roams the lands collecting teams of creatures (the titular Miscrits) and sending them into battle against one another. Structurally and graphically, the game is almost identical to Miscrits of Sunfall Kingdom, albeit with a different setting and different Miscrits to collect. If the player has started playing one game, their character will carry across to the other, though their team of Miscrits will not.

Gameplay has two main parts — exploring Volcano Island and battling Miscrits. Exploration is a simple cast of clicking wherever the player would like their customized hero to walk, and clicking on objects to search for hidden Miscrits. Upon successfully searching an object, the player will either be rewarded with currency and items or be thrown into a battle against a Miscrit.

Battles are resolved similar to most roleplaying games. Two Miscrits face off against each other and take it in turns to unleash their special abilities. Each Miscrit has a particular element associated with it, making it stronger or weaker against others — Fire-type Miscrits are particularly strong against Nature-type opponents, for example, dealing more damage and receiving less damage. A large part of the strategy of the game revolves around knowing which Miscrit to use for each situation.

New Miscrits can be captured by weakening them in combat, but not killing them. A “Capture” button then becomes available for the player to acquire and, if they desire, rename their new Miscrit. Unlike the Pokémon series, players don’t need a special item with which to capture the creatures. There are 22 Miscrits to capture in the wild, and each can be evolved into more powerful forms three times by leveling them up enough or by spending hard currency.

Like Pokémon, Miscrits is built for social play. Adding friends as “teammates” allows the player to duel their battle team of Miscrits, to send them gifts and visit their house. There is also a Battle Arena for players to pit their teams against other players from around the world, including a special Platinum Arena for high level players where hard currency can be won in large quantities by skilled Battlemasters.

Monetization is handled largely through the sales of the game’s hard and soft currencies — Platinum and Gold, respectively. Platinum can be earned through gameplay and through an offer wall or simply purchased via Facebook Credits. It is then used for a variety of purposes — leveling up Miscrits without having to battle them; evolving them without having to level them; and purchasing certain premium items. Meanwhile, Facebook Credits can be used directly to purchase certain items and even Miscrits from the in-game store, and is also used to restore the player’s “Virtue” statistic, ten points of which are spent any time a team of Miscrits is healed fully. Virtue restores to a maximum of ten points over time, but instant restoration items can be purchased from the store or sent by teammates. The Virtue statistic carries across between both Miscrits games.

The future of the game holds more Miscrits for players to uncover and additional areas to explore. Broken Bulb keeps players up to date via their official website and forums, and seems committed to communication and interaction with its player base.

You can follow Miscrits of Volcano Island’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Parallel Kingdom currently has 4,000 monthly active users and 200 daily active users.

Parallel Kingdom is a location-based massively multiplayer online RPG which overlays a virtual world on top of the Google Map of the player’s current location. Through planting flags on the map, players are able to claim territory, travel further afield, battle monsters, find treasures, wage war and build cities. It’s a complex game with a considerable amount of depth which was previously limited to GPS-enabled iOS and Android devices. On computers without GPS equipment, the Web and Facebook versions use coarse location tracking to determine a player’s approximate location using their network address rather than direct pinpointing of their location. The developer is keen to stress that although players can see each other’s avatars on the map, it doesn’t necessarily indicate exactly where a player is physically, since avatars are able to travel further afield in order to claim territory.

Players have a wide variety of options during gameplay. They can explore the land and attempt to claim as much as possible. They can collect resources through mining and hunting. They can collaborate with other players to build cities, which feature special buildings that are able to produce items. Or they can compete against other players and wage war against rival cities. Rather than the relatively linear structure of many massively multiplayer online RPGs, Parallel Kingdom is kept relatively freeform throughout. Players are assigned a human “mentor” upon entering the game, and this person will walk new players through the basics of the game if they so desire.

Players who have already been enjoying the mobile version are able to use their existing accounts to log into the Web and Facebook versions, though this process seemed to have a few glitches at the time of testing, with the game sometimes complaining that a “character does not exist on this world”. New players, conversely, are presented with a simple tutorial outlining the very basics of play before being thrust into the real world and introduced to their mentor.

The game is free to play but uses a resource known as Food as one of its currencies. Food is used for a variety of purposes — crafting, trading and leveling up — and can be earned through play, but can also be purchased for real money. Sales of Food provide the game’s main monetization strategy, but it’s not all about profit — in 2011 PerBlue collaborated with SOS Children to fund around 2,500 meal vouchers for children in Kenya through in-game purchases of Food.

“People want to play games in the environment they are most comfortable with, be that mobile, the Web, Kongregate, or Facebook,” said Justin Beck, co-founder and CEO of developer PerBlue, speaking with our affiliate blog, All Facebook, regarding the move from GPS-enabled smartphones to the Web and Facebook. ”We don’t want to make people jump over fences to enjoy Parallel Kingdom, and that means meeting our players where they are. Thousands of users have already joined during beta, and since launching on these new platforms, the community is growing quickly.”

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.

While it’s well known Disney Playdom is currently working games based on Disney’s core brands, Marvel: Avengers Alliance has been in development for more than a year. According to USA Today, Playdom and Marvel were already at work on the game before Disney’s 2010 acquisition of Playdom for $563 million put both companies under the same umbrella. Disney acquired Marvel in 2009 for more than $4.24 billion dollars.

Disney Interactive’s director of communications, Brian Nelson tells us the game isn’t the branded game Disney Playdom’s San Francisco-based Dream Castle began staffing for in November either, as Marvel: Avengers Alliance was developed by another Disney Playdom studio, Seattle-based Offbeat Creations.

The game will be a combat RPG set in the wake of “the Pulse”, a galaxy-wide disaster that has made New York the target of almost everyone in the entire pantheon of Marvel villains. Players will take on the role of a junior S.H.I.E.L.D agent, tasked with gathering the world’s superheroes together into teams to protect the city. Disney is hoping the game will balance between a casual audience and serious Marvel fans, so despite its source material, the game will not be a hardcore-player focused title. Nelson did not reveal if there would be any connection between the game and the upcoming Avengers movie.

Disney has not announced a release date for Marvel: Avengers Alliance yet, but the game will launch sometime in the first quarter. According to Nelson, there are several more Disney-branded social games on the way in 2012 and Disney Playdom’s Dream Castle is still working on what Nelson refers to as a more traditional Disney IP.

The game casts players in the role of their own customizable 3D avatar and throws them into live battle against both other players and computer controlled opponents. Gameplay takes the form of “simultaneous turn based strategy,” allowing players to take part in live conflicts while working around common latency and hardware limitations of social network users.

“Dueling Blades is not your usual social game,” explains Joseph Cooper, COO and lead programmer at developer HourBlast Games. “It is a ‘core’ game with a strong multiplayer experience, and we believe our game will grow organically with the viral marketing channels already present on Facebook.”

Cooper is also seeking relationships with key publishers to raise the profile of the game prior to its official launch in March, aiming for players to have “tons of opponents to battle at the initial launch.”

The game is built on the popular Unity3D game engine, meaning that the port to iOS and Android devices proposed for later in the year will be a relatively quick and straightforward process. Cooper notes that Google+ is not currently in the team’s release plan, but they are looking into the possibility for the future, and have also tested the game using Google Chrome Native Client, meaning the game may also see a release via the Chrome Web Store.

Dueling Blades will be monetized following the free to play model, with bonus items available via microtransaction. In the Facebook version, these will be handled directly using Facebook Credits, while the iOS and Android versions will use their respective platforms’ in-app purchase systems. Items on offer will initially include experience bonuses, boosters and vanity items, with the team working on additional monetization strategies for the game in the long term.

“We are not against analytics,” says Cooper, “but we still believe a well-developed game can monetize on social platforms. In a few weeks, we will be crowd funding through Kickstarter to support the launch of Dueling Blades. We have a lot of fun rewards to give out, such as creating a custom likeness of a supporter to be used as a non-playable character in our game.”

The rewards won’t stop after the Kickstarter funding period is over, either — Cooper is proposing that real-world rewards will be on offer for player victory in tournaments.

“Weekly rankings and a dynamic league system will provide the simplicity of core game concepts for all gamers alike to enjoy the diverse fighting system in Dueling Blades,” explains Cooper. “We hope Dueling Blades will be at the forefront of competitive fighting games on social and mobile platforms. As social gamers, we see a void in the social gaming platform; the creation of Dueling Blades is the first step to filling it.”

Dueling Blades is set to launch on Facebook in March 2012. The Kickstarter funding drive is set to begin in the next few weeks.

Note: For the purposes of this report, “successful” is defined by games with over 100,000 monthly active users and current retention rates (daily active users as a percent of monthly active users) of 20% or higher. Because many Facebook games (especially those from top publishers) enjoy artificially high usage rates in their first three months, this list only includes games that were launched and reviewed by Inside Social Games between January and September 2011.

1) Arcade — 14.2 million MAU
Three games with the fast casual action of the arcade genre gained strong traffic in 2011: Wooga’s Diamond Dash (11,600,000 MAU), PlayQ’s HotShot (1.4 Million MAU), and GameHouse’s Collapse! Blast (1.2 million MAU). Notably, all three have similar gameplay of matching (or destroying) three like objects for points.

2) Word — 13.8 million MAU
Since launching in July, Words With Friends, Zynga’s Scrabble-like board game, has enjoyed consistently strong growth and engagement rates. It’s the only 2011 game in this genre to reach extremely large user numbers.

Words With Friends’ success is probably due both to its heavy resemblance to Scrabble and its cross-platform feature, which allows Facebook users to play with others both on desktop and mobile. Because Scrabble-type games typically focus on asynchronous play with simple graphics, they’re well-suited to the Facebook platform. Indeed, Electronic Arts’ official Scrabble game for Facebook attracts heavy engagement (if less users, with just 1 million MAU), as does Lexulous, an independently-produced Facebook game once called “Scrabulous” before Scrabble rights owners demanded a name change.

3) Casino — 13.24 million MAU
Led by Playtika’s Slotomania (5.5 million MAU), DoubleDown Interactive’s DoubleDown Casino (4.5 million MAU), and Buffalo Studios’ Bingo Blitz (2.8 million MAU), the gambling-themed casino genre games of 2011 attracted high traffic and heavy engagement. Notably, each of these games currently has very high DAU/MAU rates of over 30%. While the top spot in this genre remains Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker, Slotomania and DoubleDown now hold the second and third positions, supplanting other slot machine and card games with a gambling aspect.

4) Hidden Object — 10 million MAU
Disney Playdom’s time travel-themed Gardens of Time (8.3 million MAU) leads this genre, in which players must find valuable game objects cleverly hidden within a graphically dense image. Also gaining heavy traffic is Mystery Manor (1.7 million MAU), developed by Game Insight and published by 6waves Lolapps. Both were launched during March/April, reached a peak of users in September (17 million MAU and 3.75 million MAU, respectively), and have shed users since then, while still maintaining strong DAU/MAU rates. Gardens of Time and Mystery Manor both arrived on iPad this month, but it appears as thoughonly Gardens of Time features Facebook Connect — which could lead to an increase in traffic for the parent game as mobile logins are counted toward its MAU and DAU. Despite the early success of these two games, it’s notable that these were the only 2011 entries in the genre tracked by Inside Social Games throughout this year.

5) City-Building — 4.3 million MAU
A genre in which players get to customize, develop, and manage the economy, infrastructure, and social aspects of their own unique city, 2011 saw the successful launch of Wooga’s Magic Land (2.7 million MAU) followed by Disney Playdom’s Gnome Town 1.6 million MAU). It’s interesting that both games merge city building with a fantasy theme, as do two games launched after September — Zynga’s CastleVille and 6waves Lolapps’ Ravenskye City. This represents a new trend in city-building games, as compared to market leader Zynga’s CityVille (launched in 2010), which has a realistic, modern day city theme.

6) Role-Playing Games — 2.5 million MAU
In a role-playing game (RPG), players customize and enhance their own unique game character, and use it to progress through a series of game challenges and objectives, in a variety of environments and themes. Led by Digital Chocolate’s undead-themed Zombie Lane, the RPG genre added a number of new entries in 2011. The Vampire Diaries: Get Sucked In — based on the TV show of the same name — has 300,000 MAU, while the dungeon crawler-type Hello Adventure has about 100,000 MAU. This year saw the launch of over three dozen RPG games, most of which have lower traffic or engagement rates than these three. For instance, Zygna’s Mafia Wars 2 still has 6.1 million MAU, but less than 10% DAU/MAU, and EA Playfish’s The Sims Social, has 27.2 million MAU but less than 20% DAU/MAU (and trending downward), as does Coco Girl, a fashion-themed RPG (3 million MAU) launched in October. Zynga’s CastleVille, which launched late in 2011, has both strong city building elements (see above) and RPG features.

7) Strategy & Combat — 1.86 million MAU
Three entries in the military and battle-themed genre of strategy & combat maintain high engagement rates: Kixeye’s Battle Pirates (720,000 MAU) and War Commander (530,000 MAU), with Kabam’s Edgeworld between both with 610,000 MAU. Zynga’s Empires & Allies still maintains a large base of players (15.6 million MAU), as does Social Point’s Social Empires (4.9 million MAU), but have seen engagement rates fall below 20% DAU/MAU in December. Their overall size should also be considered as an indicator of the genre’s popularity, however, and we anticipate seeing more entries in strategy & combat throughout the end of the year and into 2012.

8) Game Show — 1.06 million MAU
Led by Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader (650,000 MAU) and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (410,000 MAU), game show-themed trivia games have over a million players on Facebook. Both are licensed from popular TV game show franchises. New entries in 2011 like Jeopardy! have gained smaller, but very engaged audiences. Three other 2011 game show games — Deal or No Deal, $100,000 Pyramid, and 1 vs 100 — have not done as well, however, which leads us to question just how easily a game show’s TV audience is translated to Facebook.

Going into 2012, we expect to see more entries in the casino, arcade, and strategy-combat categories as new developers experiment with the genres. Hidden object games may also see some growth in the new year as Zynga attempts to replicate the success of Garndes of Time with its own entry, Hidden Chronicles. In contrast, the city-building and RPG genres seem to be saturated, though it’s possible that a hybrid of the two genres — say, Zynga’s CastleVille — may still have room to grow.

Early Growth Slowing Down

Though CastleVille took off like a shot in the first 10 days of launch, we observed at the time that several of Zynga’s more recent launches have “burnt out” after only a short period of growth on the platform. In some cases, we’re beginning to see signs of recovery — such as a recent resurgence in monthly active users for Adventure World — but most of the games launched from Empires & Allies onward have experienced loss of users after about a month. This doesn’t necessarily mean that these titles have “failed,” as we know that games tend to see higher average revenue per users after early (non-paying) adopters drop out. A consistent decline in traffic across multiple new games, however, could indicate that Zynga is struggling to attract new users while longtime users continue to lapse.

According to our AppData traffic tracking service, CastleVille’s growth is slowing down. In its first 10 days, the game reached nearly 10 million monthly active users and almost 6 million daily active users. For the next 10, it grew 120% in MAU to around 22 million MAU and a more modest 26% in DAU to 7.6 million. For the 10 days after that period, growth slowed to 50% in MAU and just under 12% in DAU. In the last eight days, CastleVille has grown 15% in MAU and has lost 1% of DAU.

Gameplay Gives Players Lots to Do Early On

At launch, CastleVille provided players with a larger landscape that any other Zynga game (save perhaps for Adventure World) with familiar gameplay mechanics to get them started on opening up new areas of the playable map. There are 81 sections of land on a 9×9 grid that the player can only unlock by first having a minimum “castle level” (determined by what structures the player has built in their town), then by having a certain number of Exploration Crystals (which are crafted by gifted materials after the player has built a workshop), and lastly by spending a fixed amount of coins. Some sections of land contain bonus items like free structures or animals, a few have new non-playable characters that provide players with new quests, while others contain only new resources to be harvested.

Cast in the role of a medieval settler, players begin the game by meeting two non-playable characters that provide them with their first quests that involve clearing land and building structures. As players complete these quests and unlock new areas of the map, a main storyline guides them toward a search for the source of “Beastie” enemies that periodically show up as the player is completing everyday game tasks (e.g. harvesting crops or collecting money from structures). Certain “coming soon” structures discovered on the map (see below) imply that the player will be able to leave their map to explore some other terrain — much like the new gameplay mode Pioneer Trail expansion introduced to FrontierVille.

Where CastleVille differs from other social games is primarily in presentation and the amount of virtual items available at launch. The game has a rich art style and very high graphics quality and a soundtrack provided by a full orchestra. Aside from those features, most of the game’s core elements — farming, building, visiting friends, crafting, character and building customization — had previously been implemented in other Zynga Facebook games. CastleVille notably ditches the Collections system introduced first in FrontierVille, instead incorporating the collection element into the crafting system.

Scaling the Walls with New Features and Cross-Promotion

In the 40 days since launch, the developer has added decoration content packs and some minor tools to make the game more manageable (e.g. adjusting the crafting menu to display the last page the player viewed rather than starting at the very top of the list). It’s also now possible to sell most items in a player’s inventory, although the game still hasn’t introduced the item trading feature highlighted during CastleVille previews. Special holiday-themed quests and content have also appeared in the game within the last two weeks as we move closer to December 25th.

In general, we do not see decoration content packs kickstarting growth rates among games — particularly those that are still in their first three months on Facebook. Holiday content also doesn’t generate much growth as most players take a break from social games for at least a few days of the holiday season, which can bring down overall growth. More complex content updates that add new modes, however, may show traffic increases — and Zynga has been able to spike growth for some of its titles using cross-promotion between games.

The issue here is that the strongest cross-promotion comes from similar games and CastleVille could be missing out on that. For example, a CityVille cross-promotion in Mafia Wars did trigger a sharp climb in MAU and DAU for the latter — but nearly all the new DAU in Mafia Wars disappeared within the week likely because CityVille players found the text-based crime sim to be too different from city-building. In contrast, promoting Empires & Allies within CityVille in the first month of the former’s launch helped drive in early users as the games feature identical city-building mechanics. CastleVille is enough like FrontierVille to where one game could support the other with cross-promotion, but FrontierVille has suffered a serious decline after the launch of its Pioneer Trail expansion failed to migrate all FrontierVille users to the new app.

Storming the Castle in 2012

Based on the behavior we’ve seen from social game players on Facebook in the 2010 holiday season, we expect to see slowed growth or decline in traffic across most games in the last week of December continuing possibly into the first week of January 2012. A notable exception to this behavior is CityVille, which beat out the holiday slump in 2010 to become the largest Facebook app of all time in early January 2011. At this point, with growth slowing as it is, we do not expect CastleVille avoid this sluggish period. The game could, however, bounce back in early 2012 depending on Zynga’s cross-promotion strategy and on any major content updates the developer might make to CastleVille. New game releases — such as the upcoming Hidden Chronicles — could also trigger growth if those games are successful in attracting users new to Zynga games.

As for whether or not CastleVille will pass CityVille on our AppData traffic tracking leaderboards, we can only say it is possible — as the latter game continues to decline — but not likely to occur for another month or so.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Wonder Cruise currently has 8,000 monthly active users and 2,000 daily active users.

Similar to Perfect World’s ailing Perfect Getaway, Wonder Cruise, players are in charge of operating a luxury cruise ship and tending to the needs of their passengers. They do this by stocking up on supplies, building attractions, and directing their passengers to them. These, in turn, pay out coins, the game’s soft currency. Supplies for the attractions become depleted and must be re-stocked. If players run out of supplies, more can be purchased. They’re also able to take their ships to new ports of call, and earn coins and experience for doing so.

The deck of the cruise ship serves as the building platform for various attractions, including food vendors, swimming pools, basketball courts, and games of chance. There are also “Wonders,” fanciful attractions such as butterfly gardens and animal habitats that can be won during gameplay or purchased using Facebook Credits. The more elaborate the attraction, the more it costs, but also the more it pays out in terms of coins. Players are also able to buy new deco items to enhance the appearance of their ships.

Helping out passengers with their needs rewards players with experience points. As they gain more, they level up and have access to more attractions and decoration items. Actions require energy, which replenishes over time or can be purchased. In addition to pointing them towards attractions, players can help their passengers in need of socializing and partying, and will see when they have passengers who’re looking to find a type of attraction they don’t yet have on their ship.

Wonder Cruise includes a standard set of social features, such as posting of accomplishments on their Walls, asking for help on the friends’ Walls, sending/receiving gifts, and adding friends in the game in order to visit their ships for bonuses.

Nexon is monetizing Wonder Cruise by offering energy, supplies, and coins in exchange for Facebook Credits. Players can also spend Credits on premium attractions, decoration items, and Wonders.

Given the game’s similarities to Perfect Getaway and Ravenwood Fair, it’ll be interesting to see if Nexon makes use of any branding or art design to make Wonder Cruise unique. So far, the South Korean MMO developer has developed or co-developed three games for Facebook and invested in two established social game developers.

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