Inside Social Games

Gambling card games are easily one of the oldest forms of social games on Facebook, or on the internet in general. They’re easy to make, not very complex, and many people who would be interested in the first place already know the rules. It’s no wonder that Zynga’s TexasHold’Em Poker (now Zynga Poker) was one of the top social games for so long.

However, Zynga Poker is a bit dated and not everyone likes to play synchronously against others (especially when they are learning how to play), and so, the social developer has released Poker Blitz, a Facebook game that adds a little bit of that Las Vegas flare to an old genre.

We took a quick look when we spotted it live last night. Now, here’s our full review.

There are two key difference between Poker Blitz and the older title: The game doesn’t have all human players sitting around a table; and, it isn’t quite the same game format as the many Hold’Em games circulating various social networks. Essentially, players get two cards and the House gets two cards. If you make a bet, you get five more, and if you like the hand you have, make a second (or fold if your cards are bad). After the second bet, the game announces who won, the player or the House, and its on to the next hand.

Each round consists of 60 seconds to earn as many chips as possible; hence the name “Blitz.” However, it is all done so in this highly satirized collection of levels that represent Las Vegas, Jersey Beach, and even, well, Antarctica. Each level, however, is gated based on the user’s level, so the more you play, the more stages become available.

Of course, unlocking new places to play is for more than just aesthetics, as each stage has its own set of rules. For example, in the earlier areas, players have a tutorial help element that displays the percent chance to win and what sort of hand they hold, while later ones do not. In addition to less hand holding, the later, unlocked stages, also tend to have higher stakes per hand, and a few even remove cards from the deck.

As one can imagine, it gets very difficult to play at these later points, and thus harder to earn chips. Currently, however, the individual earning of chips doesn’t seem to mean much. You get to customize an avatar (and eventually a house, that is “coming soon”), but none of it costs anything yet. Nonetheless, your earnings do count towards your Team’s total value.

In addition to leaderboards made up of Facebook friends that play, there’s a weekly challenge. By adding people to your team, the game tallies how many chips everyone has cummulatively. Unfortunately, it’s not 100% clear what the challenge is — the game has been out less than a week — but the current challenge appears to be reaching a tally of 1 million chips, between all your teammates. Certainly, this is a daunting challenge, as you can only bet up to 500 chips at a time at the ealier levels (higher level stages allow for bigger bets, though we haven’t unlocked them yet).

Of course, there wouldn’t be much incentive if it was just a random number. Teams that reach the 1 million mark will become eligible to win an iPod Touch, but they only have five more days to do so after winning. Of course, this number becomes increasingly difficult to attain as players can only play so many rounds until they are out of “tokens” – which basically acts like energy in Mafia Wars - and have to wait an hour or so for them to recharge.

That’s okay though, because the game actually does have some good ways to make the most out of the rounds you have available. Poker Blitz actually incorporates two unorthodox elements to poker games. These are the “Mystery Box” and the concept of power-ups. The former is basically something that you win during play that could contain thousands of chips, or a random power-up. Now don’t think that one is better than the other, because the latter can completely change the tide of a hand, granting players the ability to make their hand “luckier,” swap cards with the house, double the pot, or even view one card in the House’s hand.

Honestly, though, the last power-up doesn’t seem all that useful, because it gives you no real gist of what they hold. That said, there are a number of things one can’t do in games like this. Poker is a strategy game of knowing when to fold, when to bluff, and when and how much to bet. Obviously, you can’t do all of this (especially forms of bluffing) on a game like this where you’re facing computer opponents. To that end, Zynga Poker still seems like the better choice of apps.

Nonetheless, Poker Blitz is still fun, for what it is, and is something a non-poker player would probably love. To that end, there is nothing wrong with gameplay, but there is a bit of a complaint in starting the game up. In fact, this is a complaint for most new social games lately: First of all, Poker Blitz requires you to let them email you with offers and updates in order to play. [Update: Apps can require email sign-ups, but Facebook won't provide emails except through the API. In this case, Zynga directs users through the Facebook API once they click on its interface.] Normally if a player wants updates or offers, they will go to the game and click the offers button. Frankly, this is just a recipe for unwanted spam. That isn’t to say Zynga will do this, but if all Facebook games start making this requirement…. Well, you get the picture.

The other issue, is it feels like a lot of social games are taking advantage of the fact that most Facebook users are not “gamers.” At the top of the last half a dozen games reviewed, there is a nifty little “setup progress” bar. This bar, has nothing to do with being able to play a game, but only consists of steps such as allowing emails, becoming a fan, bookmarking, allowing automatic feed posts (sometimes), and giving a 5-Star review. The reason for doing this is understandable, but always asking players for a 5-Star review defeats the purpose of “reviews,” doesn’t it?

That aside, Poker Blitz is still a wonderful little card game app that most non-poker players will probably enjoy. Considering the level of cross-promotion Zynga games get and the millions of players on its other titles, this is a game that will probably grow very quickly. Whether or not it will get up there with other titles from the developer is yet to be determined, but expect to see Poker Blitz’s AppData page rise in some of our Top 20 charts in the near future.

Well, it looks like yet another big name developer is getting in on Facebook. This time around it is Sony Online Entertainment, as the game developer brings its popular turn-based strategy game, PoxNora, with a stated 2.5 million registered accounts, to the social network.

Despite a few hang-ups trying to use the game in Internet Explorer (text wouldn’t display properly), we were thankfully able to take a look using Firefox.The game actually proved to be extremely fun.

Okay, it’s fun once you get through the tutorial — which is terribly boring, by the way. Essentially, there are two players on a map, each with their own shrine. The objective of the game is to destroy that target. Of course, it’s hardly that simple. Each turn, the user is granted a resource called “Nora” – a sort of magic – which determines what they can deploy.

The deployed items cost X amount Nora, based on their power; as the game goes on, more powerful units become available, and are dubbed “runes.” These runes range from basic champions, to spells, to relics, and so on. Each has its own special abilities, and there are a lot of different runes, so the game gets strategic, fast. Some champions can only attack – some melee, some ranged – others can block incoming attacks, others heal, and so on.

The spells and relics also cost Nora but obviously do not always remain on the battle field. Relics, as an example, might give your champions extra health or damage so long as it survives, while a spell might heal, do area of effect damage, or hinder enemy movement.

This is where the next level of strategy appears. Each rune can only be deployed near your shrine – sans spells which can also be deployed near any friendly unit – or near a Nora Font. Each unit gains a set number of action points each turn and can move a certain distance on a grid based on those points. One grid space is one action point. However, these points are also needed to perform most attacks and special abilities a champion has, so budgeting them becomes very wise.

The Nora Fonts, or fountains, around the map are controlled by having only your faction adjacent to them. If there are no enemies near it, it will provided the controlling player extra Nora per turn. So, these are highly strategic locations to control.

Of course, PoxNora wouldn’t be much of a Facebook game without social capabilities. The game does allow for automatic feed postings, but it is actually turned off by default — an unusual move for an app. Furthermore, it doesn’t spam the player with “post this,” “share this,” etc. Actually, most of the social elements are within the game world itself.

Players are actually able to play synchronous multiplayer with one another. Even better than this, they can play in ranked ladder matches, unranked casual matches, unranked casual matches for those ranked under level 25, or just chat in “The Bazaar.” Moreover, if they just want to hone their skills, they can just play single player campaigns as well.

One issue, however, is that most of the biggest social games rely on asynchronous features. The point isn’t to have an immersive experience, but to do something simple — like watering a strawberry patch in FarmVille — a couple times a day, and communicate about it with friends. Many social game players don’t even think of themselves as playing a “game,” per se.

Regardless, virtual goods do a good job of complementing other features. In addition to just social play, users can also log on to the “Rune Trader,” and make requests to trade for runes they want or need. Consider it virtual card trading.

As a matter of fact, the game is even more like trading cards in that you can actually purchase packs of runes for Sony’s Station Cash (SC) virtual currency. The currency can be used to buy entire boxes of runes (around 3000 SC), new avatars, single player campaigns, and so on.

Artistically, PoxNora is a pretty nice treat as well. The artwork on the runes is fantastic and everything looks crisp and clean. That said, however, the movement and attacks of the champions in the actually battlefield look a bit uninspired by comparison. Nonetheless, this is just picking nits at this point.

PoxNora is certainly an in depth game, and one of the most strategic strategy game on Facebook that we have seen. It looks good, it plays good, and if you like strategy – and especially competition – then this is a game you will most certainly love. Additionally, Sony say that this title is only the first of many it has planned for the social network.

The Christmas traffic decline has melted away, and a number of games saw significant growth in February — more so than January, anyway. However, for each significant gain, there were some loses as well, as roughly one-third of the list dropped in monthly active users, and a few of those drops are highly popular titles such as FishVille and Happy Aquarium.

On the lighter side of things, Zynga’s FarmVille continues to hold on to top honors with new records in monthly users once again, while competitor CrowdStar attempts to increase its popularity even further. Also, RockYou makes its move back to its former glory from the early days of Facebook with heavily increased MAUs for both Birthday Cards and Zoo World. Another game, Hero World, also made its debut this month.

February was a potentially big month for games, because Facebook introduced a home page redesign at the beginning of the month that moved applications from a bottom toolbar into the left-hand navigation column, and moved notifications from the toolbar to the top navigation bar. Facebook also added what it calls a Games Dashboard — basically, a home page filter that lets users see a page of the Facebook games they and their friends have been playing. So far, the impact does not look to be negative for social games overall. The full impact of the redesign will only be felt this month, though, as Facebook is removing application notifications from the new notifications bar.

Here are the highlights for the top 25 Facebook Games for February, 2010:

• Zynga’s FarmVille shatters its old records once again, gaining over 7.5 million new monthly active users, bringing the game’s total monthly players up to a whopping 83,004,461.
• At a distant second comes RockYou’s Birthday Cards with just over 47 million MAUs, having gained over 7 million new users as well — this gift-giving app isn’t really a game, although it contains a virtual currency. Rather, it has included a window for RockYou’s game Zoo World (more on that in a moment).
• Surprisingly, the virtual aquarium games did not do too well through February as Happy Aquarium from CrowdStar lost over 1.5 million users, with Texas Hold’Em Poker moving past it to #4. Zynga’s FishVille also dropped from #5 to #7 with roughly a 850,000 MAU loss. Furthermore, Fish World, from Tall Tree Games, has completely fallen off the charts.
• Though aquariums aren’t doing too well, zoo keeping seems to be growing as RockYou’s Zoo World gains an impressive 4.1 million monthly active users, showing that simple mechanics and cute animals — and however else the app is growing — can go quite far. It comes in at #8, up from #10.
• After a long game of cat and mouse, Playfish’s Pet Society finally loses out to PetVille by a difference of less than 300,000 users. They come in at #10 and #9 respectively.
• While CrowdStar’s long popular fish game dropped, the cold winter nights have proven lucrative for its tropical Happy Island app, as this warming title moves up from  #17 to #14 with almost a 2 million MAU gain. Unfortunately, Happy Pets still staggered slightly, losing 566,909 users, and dropping one ranking, to #17.
• In regards to tropical games, Island Paradise, from Meteor Games also sees minor growth, moving up one rank to #19, with just over 7.6 million monthly active users, and just behind it comes RockYou’s Hero World. The super hero RPG earns 7,033,749 MAUs for the month of February.
• Little farming app (Lil) Farm Life reappears on the list, coming in with about 5.9 million MAUs and landing at #22.
• Lastly, the boom that was Shikha’s Pillow Fight seems to have died out, as the app has lost more than 8.4 million users, dropping from #14 to #25.

While drastic fluctuations in users have never been the mark of MySpace applications, the coming core changes to the social network – including analytics – might provide some better insight into the site. MySpace applications may not be as big as Facebook’s, but developers have often reported higher revenue from them.

Nevertheless, the current method of tracking still showed some minor changes over January’s charts, with almost no games earning a negative monthly change. Of course, that doesn’t mean that a handful of titles didn’t shift about in February. In fact, even a newcomer appeared at the tail end of this month’s list.

On another note, many games on the MySpace list can often be classified as merely fun applications as opposed to “games” by traditional definitions. We track some of these applications because they have significant social game-like features.

Here are the highlights for the Top 25 MySpace Games for February, 2010:

• Unsurprisingly, the two mafia role playing games of Playdom’s Mobsters and Zynga’s Mafia Wars appear at #1 and #2 respectively. The two titles earn over 14.4 and 13.1 million installations.
• The simple concepts of Bumper Stickers and Own Your Friends from Playdom, continue to show that simplicity is the predominant preference for users on MySpace as each earn over 12.5 and 10.2 million installs.
• Another simple app, Tag Me from BitRhymes moves up from #9 to #8 to pass RockYou’s Super Pets (now dubbed RockYou Pets in the app gallery), with almost a 500,00 installation gain.
• BitRhymes app, Cheers!! also moves up one ranking to #10 to beat out the Zynga RPG, Vampires. It earns just shy of 5 million installs, but again, does not appear in the app gallery. More likely than not, this issue, that we have noted numerous times, is almost certainly hindering its growth.
• Same as January, Playdom controls ranks #13-#16 with Kiss Me (4,059,001), Sorority Life (3,566,896), Poker Palace (3,386,269), and Overdrive (2,626,783).
• Another simple app from Oxylabs Networks, PhotoBuzz sees an impressive jump, moving up from #23 to #21 with a gain of 152,316 new users. It now totals over 1.9 million installations.
• In fact, newly added to the list is another app from Oxylabs, What is your Street Reputation, which garners over 1.7 million installs. The game appears at #24 ousting Green Spot form the Top 25 and was added due to its similarity to What’s my Impression on friends from BitRhymes.

With the unveiling of the iPad, the cottage iPad speculation industry that had grown up around it has… kept going. Having seen and, in some cases, actually used the iPad, blogs and magazines are continuing a non-stop torrent of ideas and predictions for the upcoming Apple slate.

A particularly popular subject so far has been games. So we’ve taken some of the better lists out there and combined them — not to pick out specific games (for the most part), but to point out the concepts and game mechanics that are getting the most attention ahead of the iPad’s launch.

For this list, we looked at CNET’s top 30 picks, TechRadar’s top 20, Touch Arcade’s iPhone games to port, and Techland’s 5 games to make ASAP. Here’s what we came up with after melding them all together:

Civilization — This game is a top pick for pretty much everyone. Sid Meier’s classic has always been at least partially about seeing the sprawling extent of your empire, and smaller screens like the iPhone haven’t quite done it justice. Along the same lines, SimCity; and, for the real-time fans, Command & Conquer is a popular choice.

Board games — Another no-brainer, perhaps due to the close resemblance of the iPad to a real-life board. You you can take your pick: Scrabble, Settlers of Catan, Chutes & Ladders or pretty much anything else would work. Several of the lists pick Monopoly, but we’d have to disagree, unless there’s a major breakthrough in battery life.

FarmVille — Maybe it’s just this game’s unending popularity on Facebook, but FarmVille seems to be a consistent pick for any iPad wish-list. There’s certainly a synergy between the intended audiences, although the gameplay might have to be modified for longer play-times.

Line-drawing – CNET wants DrawRace, in which you draw out your car’s intended course, while Touch Arcade wants Boom Brigade, which is a bit like real-time, directed tower defense. The idea is the same in either case: lots of contact between your finger and the screen.

Nintendo games — Techland’s top two picks are both Nintendo games: Scribblenauts and Boom Blox. The latter seems like a good pick; a potential mechanic could involve first touching your target on the screen, then twitching the iPad for an accelerometer “throw”.

Point n’ click adventure — TechRadar suggests Beneath a Steel Sky; our own vote goes to King’s Quest. It’s the ability to tap the screen to achieve any action (this style of game interprets your click to perform the action on its own) that would make these games work.

Physics games — Draw objects with your finger, tilt the iPad to move them around. Crayon Physics, for example, was excellent on the computer, and would probably do even better on an iPad. There’s also World of Goo to consider.

Tower defense — The only question is which tower defense games will do best on the iPad. Fieldrunners would probably do well, as would Plants vs Zombies, which we reviewed earlier tonight. Our own vote is for a graphically amped-up version of Gemcraft, which blends in RPG concepts.

Bright lights, flashing colors — This isn’t a genre, exactly, but extremely visual games seem to be a thematic undercurrent in many of the lists. Pinball, Missile Defense, Geometry Wars — the idea is that the iPad will be bright, beautiful and perfect for some hand-twitching, seizure-inducing action.

Wooden labyrinth — Props to CNET for coming up with this one. This isn’t a computer game, of course. It’s an actual wooden labyrinth in which you guide a stainless-steel ball bearing with physical knobs. The iPad’s accelerometer and flat shape could pull it off perfectly.

Looking through these lists, it might seem that pretty much everything is being fingered as an iPad potential. But we can think of at least a few games that wouldn’t work at all. For example: Whac-a-Mole, played with real hammers. Or, more seriously, any full-on FPS like Quake or Medal of Honor. Without an external controller of any kind, some games will simply be awkward.

Finally, our own pick: Bubble Ghost. Sure, it’s an old game, and one that was never really revived during the console era. But the idea of navigating a bubble through a spiky maze is perfect for some intense iPad gaming, and the internet connection could even make use of some cooperative ghost-play. Just think it over.

As far as casual developers go, PopCap is one that stands out in people’s minds. Having poked their nose into social gaming more than once with games such as Bejeweled Blitz, and adding Facebook Connect to old titles such as Zuma, the port of another popular PopCap web game, Plants vs. Zombies, to the iPhone gave us some high expectations.

For those unfamiliar with the web version, the title is best described as the personification of “depth over breadth.” Ambiguities aside, it is a tower defense-style game in which zombies are marching toward your house and its up to you to defend it with some rather feisty flora.

Zombies approach on a grid, five spaces tall, and gradually work their way to your front door. The idea is to place – via tapping – different types of plants in their way to fend them off. Frankly, this is quite possibly the most amusing concept we’ve seen in a while, and truly shows what a designer can do with a little style.

Each plant is sort of a pun on existing plants and include defenses such as a basic peashooter, to a cherry “bomb,” to a potato “mine.” Of course, not all the style comes in the form of plant life either as zombies have a bit of that je ne sais quoi as well, with epic traffic cone helmet defenses, pole vaulting track stars, and newspaper shielded businessmen (with no pants).

The undead assault starts gradually early on, as players build up their defenses using the sole resource of sunlight. Periodically, little suns appear on-screen that must be picked up via a simple tap. However, in order to garner more sun, players must build a resource-producing plant – Sunflowers. Obviously, this will cost sunlight as well, so the game quickly becomes a challenge in determining what to build, where, and when. Moreover, there are only so many places plants can be put, thus deepening choices further (eventually you can dig them up and replace them). This is further topped off with the fact that decisions need to be both quick and thoughtful, because the zombie waves ramp up very quickly and it is very easy for your plants to be eaten and overrun.

Visually, the style of this app is just as fantastic as its creative character designs with each plant holding a vicious, yet cute, Mario-like art style, while zombies have this perfect, dimwitted, yet try-hard attitude about them. Heck, even the help menu is an amusing letter written in zombie’ish handwriting stating the player wins by letting the zombies reach their house. Even the sound effects compliment themselves perfectly to this zany, cartoon style.

Unfortunately, there is one significant letdown. Despite the fact that Plants vs. Zombies exemplify what an iPhone game should be, it easily falls on our list of games that should have Facebook Connect. Granted, the game does have extremely amusing achievements built into it, such as “Don’t Pea in the Pool,” but it’s just not the same without being able to post it to a feed. With the massive amount of potential strategies, layouts, and mini-games (i.e. bowling for zombies with Crazy Dave), this is an app that screams for social features.

Nonetheless, the franchise is not without some social hope as fans of the game can at least go onto the Plants vs. Zombies website and create a nifty Zombatar (a zombie avatar) for use on their various social networking accounts. Facebook, Twitter, and scaring your mother are what comes recommended.

Of course, the lack of Facebook Connect is hardly enough to keep us from playing Plants vs. Zombies. In fact, it’s hardly been enough to keep over 300,000 from playing. Just today, PopCap actually announced, that within the first nine days of availability, Plants vs. Zombies has sold over 300,000 units (at $2.99). The game reached #1 in the App Store within 24 hours and has since grossed over $1 million. This has made the launch the top-grossing iPhone launch ever in its history. To top it off, it is now #1 in over 20 countries, including Canada, China, Russia, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and Norway.

In the end, Plants vs. Zombies is a very wise $3 investment for any iPhone or iPod Touch owner. That said, we look forward to seeing more from the folks over at PopCap Games, and hopefully, a Facebook Connect announcement in the future of this already excellent game.

FarmVille Wins Major Award – In only a few years, social games have changed the video game industry as a whole. However, now that change has been officially recognized as this past week hosted the Interactive Achievement Awards in Las Vegas. At the event, the first-ever award for excellence in social gaming was given out by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. The winner was Zynga’s ever popular FarmVille who was granted the title of social game of the year. Currently, the social game has over 80 million monthly active users.

Vegas, the Dating Market, and Making Serious Business a Success — Siqi Chen talks about founding and growing his social gaming company, coming up with the idea behind its formative social game, “Friends for Sale,” moving to Silicon Valley, and much more in this in-depth interview with Kim Ngo of Intimate Math. Chen’s company sold to Zynga for an undisclosed amount in a deal announced last week — his story includes a lot of good advice for entrepreneurs building Facebook games. Check out the video below for more:

World of Warcraft Partially Resumes in China – Having been in censorship battles for over a year, NetEase has obtained a license to operate World of Warcraft in China; the last expansion, anyway. While The Burning Crusade is now reactivated in the country, word on the most recent expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, has yet to be heard.

Pandaren Pet Sales Raise $1.1 Million for the Make-A-Wish Foundation – In other Warcraft related news, Blizzard’s first major use of virtual goods, a pair of digital pets for World of Warcraft, raised a nice bit of money for a good cause. Of the two pets, the Pandaren Monk, had 50% of its sales donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation between November and December of last year. The benevolent little critter’s sales led to a donation of over $1.1 million to the charity.

Apple Gets Strict on Sexual Content – While sex does sell, it would seem like it’s going to sell a little bit less often in the App Store. According to reports from TechCrunch earlier this week, a number of sexually oriented applications have been removed from iTunes completely. Based on an email to Jon Atherton, the developer of Wobble iBoobs, his app (and, likely, many others) was removed due to “overtly sexual content.” Oddly enough, some similar apps, such as Sexy Girls Uncovered, still work, leaving the that “overtly sexual” line a bit obscure.

Rixty Announces 13 & Under Payment Service – Payment service provider Rixty says it can now safely and anonymously provide payment services for children under the age of 13. In adherence to the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) and with the help of Coinstar, Rixty users under 13 can sign up without having to give out any personally identifiable information. All that is required is a username, password, birth date, gender, zip code, and a parent’s email address. Upon the latter’s entering, the parent will receive immediate notification with the options to delete the account or to be notified whenever the child tries to make a purchase.

Ultimate Game Card Expands – Popular prepaid card, the Ultimate Game Card (UGC), from PlaySpan is expanding. Earlier in the week, the card was made available in the regions of Taiwan, South Africa, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. With the expansion, the UGC is now available in over 70,000 retail locations around the world and can be used to purchase virtual goods and premium services in over 300 online games, and over 700 social, Facebook and MySpace games.

Topps Forgives Mom With One Major League Virtual Good (But Don’t Keep This One Virtual) - With the slogan, “We’re giving you back the cards your mom threw out,” trading card company Topps announced its Million Card Giveaway. For every sixth pack of Topps trading cards, there will be special cards with a nine-digit code redeemable at toppsmillion.com. The digital code will then reveal either an ordinary card from last year, or a vintage 1952 card that can be delivered, kept in online Topps accounts to trade, or used in sweepstakes.

Of course, of all the possible cards to get, the company states there are at least three Mickey Mantle rookie cards up for grabs.

Android Gets Flash Support - The Android has, unfortunately, taken a back seat to the iPhone in times past; especially in the realm of gaming. However, expect some changes in the future in how developers create their mobile Android games and apps as Adobe officially announced at the Mobile World Congress that both Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR are now supported on Android.

Richard Garriot Launches Portalarium – Creator of the Ultima game series, game designer Richard Garriot has launched a new social games company by the name of Portalarium. By the looks of things, the company will be creating a social games platform that will support games of higher quality than the current Flash standard and will make use of a plugin called the “Portalarium Player.” Already, the company is getting under way with the development of a social suite of casino games, starting with Sweet @$! Poker.

Gas Powered Games Gives Behind-the-Scenes Looks – Game designer Chris Taylor announced the latest game coming out of studio Gas Powered Games this week. The new real time strategy game will be dubbed Kings and Castles will be coming out on the PC and “next-gen consoles,” but the real treat for fans is that Taylor will be making use of kingsandcastles.com, Twitter @DeathBot9, and Facebook let show the development of the title until its release.

It seems that ever since there were online games, there have been tower defense titles. It’s understandable, really, as there is a gratification found in their simplicity and the carnage that is unleashed as lemming-like enemies march, single-file, through a gauntlet of defensive structures. And so, simple little Facebook app, with about 72,000 monthly active users, that put a slightly new spin on the genre recently came to our attention; an app dubbed Battle Defenders from Japanese developer Dango.

Players compete with one another in fairly standard tower defense rule set: Enemies move from Flag A to Flag B and the defender sets up defensives that automatically attack them as they pass by. As expected, different defenses have different damage, health, and range, so it becomes a strategic challenge to decide which defenses to build where in order to prevent too many enemies from reaching your flag and defeating you.

In the case of Battle Defenders, these defenses are actually human villagers, and the goal is to fend off attacking orcs; driving them back to wherever orcs come from. What is different about this app, however, is that “driving them back” consists of more than just standing around as they do their single-file attack pattern. Each battle consists of two parts: The already explained Defense, and Offense.

While on the offense, players first place X amount of units on their flag(s), then the units march along a set path to the enemy. Now, early on in the game, this isn’t exactly strategic — only one flag to set units on — but as players play more often, and in turn, earn more experience and gold, new maps open up with more and more flags to defend and attack.

As one could surmise, each map is gated by the both the amount of gold the player has and their level. While experience is earned regardless of skirmish outcomes, gold is spent and earned primarily through betting. You see, each battle is actually a challenge towards another Facebook user (who plays, anyway). Before each battle, you make a wager and the winner takes that amount out of the loser’s wallet.

Evidently, this is rather important, because while each battle can earn you some coin, they also cost a fair amount too. War is expensive, after all. Each unit costs X amount of money to place, with more powerful ones, obviously, costing more.

Does this mean the person with the most cash on hand will win? Actually, no. There is an interesting mechanic called “Rage” in Battle Defenders. Units lost during offense, killed during defense (yes, they will take damage to the random units trailing toward your flag), or health lost from your flag (when enemies reach it) will increase a player’s Rage. As this stat increases, then, and only then, will new and more powerful units unlock for purchase during the present battle.

Not only does this create a creative balancing mechanic against those with deep pockets, but also adds a bit of depth to strategy – as well as risk – goading players into deciding just what they can sacrifice to build a winning battle plan.

Socially, Battle Defenders has a decent idea, but this leads some major complaints. There feels to be complete disconnect between the people involved in the battle. It’s not actually the player that is challenged that fights back, but the computer’s orcs. Granted, synchronous play on Facebook has never been very huge, but at least in other asynchronous battle systems, some portion of that user’s army, or stats, or items, or something, played a part in determining the outcome. This does not seem to be the case for this application, and if it is, it isn’t exactly noticeable.

Beyond this shortcoming, the other major complaint is with the game’s visuals. In the long run, graphics mean nothing compared to game play (and it is decently fun), but while the user interface looks crisp and clean, the actual game is oversimplified and pixilated. It’s roughly the quality of late Super Nintendo or, maybe, early PlayStation. Frankly, it does take away from the overall experience.

Honestly, everything else after these two issues are merely picking nits, but for the sake of feedback, it would be nice to have more information regarding what units do and possible to have the option to play as the orcs.

Despite complaints, Battle Defenders is a pretty entertaining app for Facebook users. It’s familiar enough to win over traditional tower defense enthusiasts yet different enough to give the genre some new flavor. Could it benefit for some changes and updates? Absolutely. Then again, who couldn’t? Regardless, it’s a good time waster and one that many people will probably, at least, play through until they’ve completed all the available maps.

Cards, strategy, role-playing — each of these genres have very distinct features to them, and while games have often used elements from two out of three, it is rare that all of them get thrown into one melting pot. But they have been, in BitRhymes‘ Facebook app, The Warlords. Though it is a game that starts out virtually identical to card strategy titles like Warstorm, this little creation had a few unexpected surprises in store.

Also notable: BitRhymes is one of the larger developers on MySpace but so far hasn’t had much of a presence on Facebook.

The Warlords really did feel like an identical clone to Warstorm when starting out. Players select a hero card to lead a squad and five normal cards to fill it. They then proceed into an automatic bought where their choices are put to the test, performing based on stats such as speed, attack, and health (which is printed on the card). Truth be told, if you played Warstorm, then you’ve played this part of the game, but upon finishing the initial tutorial, The Warlords turned into something else most familiar.

This app actually plays like most Facebook RPGs (complete with Energy and Stamina to perform actions) rather than just a strategy card game. Players are able to jump into four different sets of quests. The core set is dubbed “The Chronicles of Fergon,” and make up the central storyline of the game. Players proceed through them using the squads they have formed and battle opposing decks automatically. As they complete such quests, they are rewarded with experience, coins, and the occasional new card.

Beyond the Chronicles, players can also engage in Treasure Quests, The Oracle’s Temple, and Monster Quests. The first is your typical Facebook RPG quest that requires X,Y, and Z item to begin and is completed merely by clicking “Do Quest” (assuming you have enough Energy). As for the other two: The Oracle’s Temple seems to be a simple quiz type of deal where players help out a “new warlord” by helping them pick out the proper cards (i.e. choosing the card with the highest attack power), while Monster Quests are quests that require card battles and multiple completions within a limited span of time (i.e. 48 hours).

As a matter of fact, Monster Quests, makes for one of the most interesting features. Doing the quest one time takes a decent amount of energy and only completes it by a small percentage. However, you can ask your allies to help you reach 100% completion with experience and gold earned based on the amount contributed.

Of course, Warlords comes with your standard RPG elements as well. This includes Battles against other players, Properties that can be bought for steady income, and the Oracle for earning and using virtual currency through offers.

Now, as far as the card strategy itself goes, it does seem to have some decent depth. As with Warstorm, most cards have special attributes to them such as “attacks a random enemy” or “deals double damage to cavalry,” thus building your deck carefully becomes very important. Furthermore, Warlords also has a few special cards that affect all others in play, such as the Log Barrier, that have no attack but reduce the damage taken by friendly units by one.

Yet Warlords feels like it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. As part RPG and part card strategy, there is a clash in pacing. This isn’t helped by the high energy cost to do quests, but even without it, players only get to see a few battles and a few units before they have to wait for energy or stamina to recharge.

Understandably, most social games are only meant to have a few minutes of game play, but for a strategic card game, it is better to allow them to see more of what they can do. Also, as a card game, collection is a big deal too, but because of the slow speed of progression, the only way to get more cards is via purchase, but even then you are limited to only one or two per standard play period. In short, there isn’t enough reward to keep the player going and keep them going.

In the end, BitRhymes is trying to fit the concepts of card collection and strategy into a traditional RPG rule set, and so far it doesn’t feel like it’s working. With just under a million monthly active users, the game is doing okay, but the cards just don’t feel as important as the RPG element, and that likely isn’t the goal the developers had in mind. RPGs are usually slow, yes, but why does this one have to be? True, Facebook users shy away from the very new, but is it not possible to make something feel the same, but still play different?

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!