The iPhone is a breeding ground for simple games and applications. However, simple does not mean low quality. To prove this point, stuffed animal creator Shawnimals and Venan Entertainment have teamed up to create a simple, vertical platforming game on the Apple device called Ninjatown: Trees Of Doom!

At first glance, some might dismiss this game as another Doodle Jump clone, but Ninjatown takes a more strategic approach than the twitch reactions of that older title. To be fair, the term “strategic” is most relevant in the way that Mario games are strategic. Most of the time, the platforming in such games is done at the player’s pace with only occasional moments of fast-paced twitchiness. The only difference between the classic plumber and our new ninja friend is that is that while one runs across plains of bricks and warps down pipes, the other is climbing a pair of (evidently) evil trees in an easy to learn, yet often unforgiving environment.

The aim behind Ninjatown is simple enough: Defeat “Mr. Demon.” Players start at the base of two impossibly tall trees and begin their ascent to do so. The controls are simple and intuitive, as a player merely taps on the tree to jump to it, alternating sides for quicker ascents. Should you press and hold, you jump slightly higher, and if you touch the tree your ninja is clinging to, you simply climb up that side normally.

Of course, that wouldn’t be too much fun, so shortly after beginning, users get introduced to a handful of elements to use and/or avoid, forcing them to jump back and forth between the two trunks. As far as hazards go, these tend to range from bat-like flying demons to some sort of purple goo. Obviously, they’re not things you want to touch, so to help you get around them, players can use tree branches to sling themselves extra high on a manually-aimed trajectory or use rubbery mushrooms to bounce themselves extra, extra high.

Between just this handful of features, Ninjatown is already pretty interesting, but the developers don’t stop there. To incorporate even greater levels of difficulty, there are many reaction-based elements tossed in. The best example of this is bark stripped areas of the trees. These cannot be climbed normally, and, in fact, you can slowly slide off the screen if you linger. The only way to proceed is to hop back and forth between the two massive trees. It’s not all that hard, really…. Well, at least not at first.

As users proceed higher, the difficulty begins to ramp up quite a bit. The higher one goes, the more enemies appear, and the more they move about. All enemies move in repetitive, predictable patterns, but more often than not, precision becomes a necessity. This is further enhanced by the fact that the many barkless areas grant little time to think. Couple this with increasing levels of purple goo, and you have yourself a pretty hard game.

Thankfully, Ninjatown doesn’t get too difficult until very deep into it, so it won’t go scaring away your typical casual player. That said, the penalty for failure does feel a bit high. One hit, most of the time, and you’re dead, forcing you to restart all the way back at the bottom. Because this is a bit of a slower paced game, it does feel very costly, especially without checkpoints.

To mitigate the problem to some degree, there are various power ups that can be picked up to help the user out. These include things like defensive shields, smoke bombs, and a sort of Superman cape that rockets you upward as “Super Ninja.” As a matter of fact, all of these power ups are pretty cool, and certainly warrant the mention of this title’s fantastic visual style.

It’s a style saturated into every aspect of Ninjatown. With its warm colors, highly cartoony and simplistic characters, and pleasant sounding music, it’s a title that’s hard to get frustrated with.

And the more challenging aspects are also sort of the point. The social integration for this game is done primarily through the Plus+ network, and while there are any number of achievements to unlock and share through said platform, the biggest accomplishments are rising through the leaderboards. As a challenging platformer, these accomplishments are all the more rewarding. That said, even if you don’t find competing with strangers all that interesting, you can always post your scores and new heights to both Facebook and Twitter as well.

All in all, and despite later difficulty, Ninjatown: Trees Of Doom! is a fantastic app to have for the iPhone. It costs $1, but feels more than worth it. It’s a game that is easily picked up and played for a few minutes here and there, yet is challenging enough to be played significantly longer. Ninjatown is well worth the time and cost. Unless you hate ninjas; but let’s face it, “Piratetown” just wouldn’t sound right, now would it?

Rather than go the typical route of either (a) cloning the popular app Doodle Jump or (b) attempting to emulate directional-pad or arcade buttons on the touch screen, a French developer by the name of Bulky Pix has created a quality new platform-style game together with Artik Entertainment and Fishing Cactus.

The recently-launched and very original OpenFeint-enabled game is called RollOut, and it takes a more Lemmings-like approach and replaces virtually all avatar control with a more innovative scheme.

The player avatar Wabba, a lovable mixture of Pac-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog, begins by rolling continuously from left to right, with the level looping when he reaches the end. However, in a unique twist, there are a myriad of scrolling (right to left) icons on the screen that can control his movements, and it is these that the player moves to influence Wabba’s path. As simple as it sounds, this easy-to-learn game comes off as refreshingly new, with just the right touch of puzzle-solving.

Each level is a simple layout of platforms, scrolling icons, other environmental “hazards,” plus a psychedelic-looking exit portal. The goal is to guide Wabba from his entrance point to the exit portal located somewhere on the higher platforms.

The icon “controls” represent movement mechanics. If they point up, and Wabba touches them, he will jump up; if they point right (the direction he is rolling), they will make him move faster. There are other icons that add to the depth, including the ability to slow down and even stop. Here’s the catch: all of these control icons scroll at precise and slow intervals, so the player must touch the screen and move the icons into Wabba’s path in order to allow him to reach higher platforms. This creates a tremendous challenge in regards to both timing and planning.

It’s also worth noting that while the controls are being moved, it’s not possible for Wabba to interact with them, so choices must be made quickly and accurately. Any mistakes, and you may find yourself back at the bottom of the level.

To add an additional challenge, there are also a number of environmental “hazards”. Not all of these elements are negative, but each has its own unique role to play in the course of each level. They include moving elevators that stop Wabba’s movement completely when he rolls atop them (at least until it has taken him up to a higher platform), platforms that only appear when Wabba is going a certain speed, and areas that disable all icons while Wabba is inside them.

The challenge added by this icon disabling zones is fantastic. It adds a level of difficulty that requires true finesse to accomplish. However, it can also lead to frustration, as sometimes the jumps are so precise make it nearly impossible to get Wabba to hit an icon as he traverses a tiny gap between two disabling zones; additionally, the game does not always appear to recognize that he is, indeed, in the right place during the time allotted. It’s not an enormous issue, and it can be worked around, but it does get annoying from time to time.

But even this negative, in an odd way, can work in the player’s favor. RollOut is actually very forgiving when it comes to making jumps. So long as Wabba is even remotely on the edge of the platform and above it, he will roll his way onto it.

Despite a few minor irritants, RollOut’s gameplay is a great deal of fun, creating a fine marriage between thoughtful puzzle solving and twitchy platforming reactions. Moreover, as the game has no way to actually die – if you fall, you merely try again within the endlessly repeating level – it is a great app for your average iPhone user.

The final layer to RollOut is its OpenFeint integration, which adds social mechanics to the game. Like many mobile, social platform-enabled titles, RollOut’s integration consists of mere achievements that you can share amongst your OpenFeint friends. It’s simple, yes, but it works for the game concept. Honestly, if there were any major social disappointment, it’s that the game notes Facebook and Twitter compatibility, but does not yet appear to be integrated anywhere (unless you count OpenFeint’s prompt to search for Twitter and Facebook friends). Future platformers would do benefit from spending more time on social features.

Overall, RollOut is a fantastically creative game that feels deceptively simple. Its combination of platform based mechanics and its slower paced, puzzle solving elements make it well worth the $0.99 price tag. Frankly, it’s a perfect title to kill some time when you’re on the go or just looking to procrastinate a little. Granted, it does fall a little short presentation-wise, and the social elements were a tad disappointing based on what the app’s page states as a feature — but all in all, compared to the excellent game play, these points are all things easily forgiven.

Location-based iPhone exercise application Skimble, from the developer of the same name, is taking some of the competitive elements from gaming and applying them as a means to get people up, out, and active.

Taking a similar approach to the game Booyah Society, where players could “level up in life,” earning achievements for real-world activities, Skimble grants players some fairly in-depth means to motivate themselves into being active and getting healthy, through points, contests, leaderboards, and more.

However, as interesting as all of it is, as a location-based app, its full potential depends partially on people using the app in your area. Not only this, but there is also the concern that Booyah Society did go the way of the dodo, until it was replaced with the successful MyTown.

So what exactly is Skimble? In short, it’s an app that can track up to 45 different physical activities, but it attempts to give users added motivation to push themselves and to get healthy through game-like and social mechanics. The latter element is the most “primal” of game elements, and it is the aspect of competition and high scores. For each activity a player completes, they earn one point and are tracked via global, friend, and regional (near where your iPhone’s GPS signal is) leaderboards.

As for the activities themselves, there is easily something for everyone: Cardio, running, weights, martial arts, surfing, horseback, and even BASE jumping. Depending on the type of activity, users will track how long they do it for, and if there is distance involved, they can input the number of miles, feet, kilometers, and so on. Additionally, other activities, such as aerobics, will allow you to input the type and level of difficulty of the workout.

There’s more to add about a good number of these activities too, and this is where some of the geo-location comes into play. For any exercise that requires you to be outside (running, skating, biking, etc.), you can use the GPS system to track where you go on an interactive Google Map. Then, you can name and save that path for you to either use later when offline or for other nearby users to try.

Skimble also has some other nice social features to account for as well. Whenever you finish an activity, you can post it to Twitter and Facebook, and since you can create a Skimble account with your Facebook account, that process is all the more simple. However, this is all just touting your accomplishments (and maybe trying to guilt friends into working out too), but exercise is all about motivation, and that’s something Skimble does not overlook.

True, the earning of scores and points is great, and the leaderboards are great motivators for competitive players, but incentives don’t stop there. Skimble actually has some nice contests for its users. Currently, every day that a user tracks at least one activity, they earn a contest entry for some random, monthly drawing. The prize at the moment is a set of gear from Mountain Hardwear. Beyond this, the app tracks all of the users’ progress based on when they exercise, what they’re doing, and how long they do it for, and let‘s them know when and by how much they improve by. Moreover, when you look at user updates from everyone using the app, that helps you get off your butt too.

Last but not least, users can even upload photographs, taken with their iPhone, of their activities as well. Unfortunately, you need to have an internet connection to do so, lest you have to pay for a “Pro” account which costs a monthly fee.

Truthfully, the biggest downside to Skimble is the volume of users within your area. It’s great that you can see what people are doing nearby, share paths, and even try to connect with people doing activities you love, but if no one in your region uses the app, the potential for Skimble is limited. That said, this was an early issue for Gowalla, Foursquare, and MyTown too at first, and look at how they took off.

Of course, Skimble is also very much like Booyah Society, a game that rewarded players for getting out and actually living life. The app, apparently, never did all that well, and got pulled from the App Store. Perhaps people just didn’t like the idea; perhaps it was the game itself; or perhaps physical activity is scary. Either way, it didn’t last. Nevertheless, Skimble is targeting athletes and highly active individuals, so with that targeted audience, things might work out differently.

Overall, Skimble is a fantastic application to have for anyone that likes to exercise. There is something for everyone, and the more you play around with it, the more cool nuances you discover you can track.

It’s been some time since we looked at Aurora Feint games directly. More often than not, it seems that all the news revolves around the OpenFeint platform for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Nevertheless, Aurora Feint does, in fact, have a game that it is known for: The, well, Aurora Feint series. The last time we really looked at the franchise it was back when Aurora Feint II: The Arena was around. Nevertheless, with the new Apple iPad, a new title in the collection of Feint games came about: The match-three puzzler, Aurora Feint 3.

With the increased processing and graphical capabilities (not to mention the significantly larger screen size) Aurora Feint 3 is certainly the best looking of the Feint series. Using the familiar fantasy setting, players are whisked into a forest filled with Bejeweled-like puzzles and a band of very… unkind mercenaries and thieves.

The game is simple enough, combining Aurora Feint’s Tower Puzzles game mechanics with other match-three titles. Essentially, a number of different blocks with varying icons slowly move upward towards the top of the puzzle box. The main gimmick, however, is that the player can only move the blocks horizontally. In this new title, they can move them as far horizontal as they like (unlike other match-three games that only let you swap icons if it will make a series of three or greater). The real trick is to turn the iPad and change the game’s gravity.

Like in Tower Puzzles, anything that doesn’t have another block, say, to the right of it, will fall to the bottom of the screen when you turn your device to the right (obviously, this rule applies to all directions). This changes up the field and allows you to move different sets of blocks horizontally. Granted, it is a bit more cumbersome to do on an iPad rather than an iPhone, but it’s not that big of a deal.

As the player gets a handle on this basic mechanic and starts making matches, they will start generating health. This is the next major game feature. For each match you make, the more health you regenerate, with greater combos or strings larger than three granting more. Conversely, should you ever let the blocks reach the top of the puzzle box (which also changes as you rotate the iPad), you lose health. Not to worry though, as the blocks move extraordinarily slowly and players will often find themselves manually speeding them onto the screen by touching them with two fingers and dragging them across the puzzle-field.

After you have played this basic match-three for a while, you will encounter your first “boss” fight. Introduced in a quasi-epic fashion, this enemy, reminiscent of an evil rabbit or bird thing, will attack you. Once this occurs, the playing field turns from happy, peaceful forest, into dark scary woods and the baddie will periodically take chunks out of your health itself. In order to defeat him, the player must make matches to inflict damage, with greater combos and such doing more.

This part of the game also has a social element to it as well. Players can actually search their Facebook, Twitter, and OpenFeint friends and find those that have Aurora Feint 3 as well. Once you have collected a few, you can issue a “Call to Arms,” in which you sort of summon your friends’ usernames to attack whatever enemy is trying to kill you for heavy damage.

Unfortunately, this is the limit in which Aurora Feint 3 utilizes your friends. Frankly, it feels like a downgrade to Aurora Feint 2 where you could challenge friends in arena battles. That isn’t to say the Call to Arms feature is bad, we just hoped for more from the third installment.

Thankfully, the lacking is made up for slightly for the obvious OpenFeint integration. At the very least, you can still compete through a number of leaderboards ranging from overall win streaks, damage dealt, and so on. Additionally, the game also has a pretty hefty amount of achievements to unlock as well.

The real issue with this application, however, isn’t the blasé social mechanics, but the epic repetitiveness. Granted, this game looks beautiful and sounds great, but it constantly switches between a tranquil forest scene to regenerate health and a dark forest scene where you fight bad guys. Eventually, the enemies do get a bit harder, but it takes a while for any real challenge to rear its head. For the record, however, some of the more difficult ones really do require some strategy and setting up combos before hand. It’s just a bit mind-numbing getting there. Of course, even if you do reach these challenges, if you’re willing to spend a little cash, you can simply buy extra lives (not that you’ll really need them) to make it easier.

Evidentially, there is a story of some sort as well; something about crystals according to the Aurora Feint 3 website, but nothing seems to happen in game to keep player interest. At least not frequently enough.

Overall, Aurora Feint 3 is an okay title for the iPad, and considering it’s free, something that isn’t a bad time killer for at least a few minutes. Sadly, its level of repetition gets very old, very quick, and after those few minutes, many will probably not pick it up again. Honestly, it almost feels like a downgrade to past titles. The player lacks a purpose or reason for continuing. Tower Puzzles had real puzzles to solve and tangible levels. Arena let you uniquely challenge other friends with a “ghost competitor” feature. Aurora Feint 3… It just leaves something to be desired.

If there is one type of game that seems to circulate more often than any other around the web and mobile devices, it’s tower defense. For the most part, these games are a dime a dozen, but every once and a while, a developer does something interesting with this tired genre. This time, it is a quirky, $0.99, iPhone app called Tweet Defense from the Promethium Marketing Group and GrinLock Limited.

As far as tower defense games go, Tweet Defense is still fairly standard. Players choose from 10 different maps and construct various towers to try to take down enemies before they get from Point A to Point B. As expected, towers vary in strength, abilities, and cost: Some are cheap with high rates of fire, some do area of effect, some are short range, but powerful, and others boost whatever defenses you have currently up. However, each tower has a unique, garage-built look that adds a bit of flare to this basic gameplay.

Conversely, the enemies, in this case, zombies, come in their own odd shapes and forms. This includes the basic Sneakie zombie that attacks in hordes, the hard to kill, and overweight Blubberbie zombie, and borderline uncouth Mombie that spits out two baby zombies (called Zuppies) when she dies. Unfortunately, there are only five types of zombies, but with a zany, cartoon style, they are all amusing to watch.

Beyond visual style, Tweet Defense also increases the difficulty of the game through the maps themselves. Most of the time, these types of games have a set path that the player can easily see, with towers placed around it. In this app, harder maps have no such luxury, and towers can be placed anywhere. Normally, this might not mean anything, but in Tweet Defense, should a tower be in a zombies way, they’ll just plow right through, destroying it in the process.

Quickly, the app becomes a game of strategic placement and money management. In regards to the latter, it works like virtually any other tower defense title. Towers can be upgraded or scrapped, and money is earned for each enemy slain. And don’t think upgrades are optional, as even though the game starts off easy, things can quickly get out of hand and the player even more quickly overrun.

With all this talk of the game design itself, it is easy to forget the main gimmick of Tweet Defense. Per its title, the game is actually connected directly to Twitter. No, this isn’t about tweeting achievements, but rather, a user’s social activity on the network itself, influencing gameplay. Once a user logs into their Twitter account, Tweet Defense actually picks up on your friends, followers, and the number of tweets you have made in order to grant users significant bonuses in the game.

To break it down, the more friends you have, the faster rate of fire your towers get. More followers will give you greater range. And the total number of tweets increases damage. In addition to this, there is a daily Booster that will grant random bonuses such as cheaper towers.

As unique as this use of Twitter is, Tweet Defense also incorporates the social platform OpenFeint to improve longevity with standard leaderboard rankings, and a fairly sizable list of achievements for players to earn and boast about.

Without a doubt, this iPhone app has one of the most curious and unique social integrations we have seen to date. Moreover, the game is actually fun and more than just a gimmick. Could Tweet Defense do more as a tower defense title as a whole? Absolutely. Even a little more variety in the zombies would by prudent in improving overall quality; especially considering the game’s visual style. Nonetheless, this is an app that show that, in game design, just looking at something in a different way can lead to more creativity.

Here’s one for the ladies. Well, the little ladies anyway (or just anyone feeling nostalgic). Remember playing those silly prediction games as kids? Games where you pick a name, a number, or a color and it was supposed to tell you important life facts like where you’ll live, who you’ll marry and so on? Apparently, these games are back with a simple iPhone app called Emily’s Girl Talk from indie developer, Broken Thumb Apps.

The game is actually a compilation of four other smaller titles that are essentially digital remakes of games many girls probably played during their childhood: MASH, Lemon, Cootie Catcher, and Love.

Each game, more or less, plays the same way. Seeing as how it’s the first game on the list, MASH is probably the best place to start. All the game really does is take input information and composes it together into an amusing story. Users submit up to five picks for your crushes, cars, cities, jobs, wedding dress colors, and numbers. They can either type it in themselves, choose from a list, or simply touch “Emily’s Picks” for random choices in all. Then, you pick the “magic number” to start making the story, and after a few moments, an amusing tale of your future is displayed regarding who you’ll marry, where you’re honeymoon will be, and what you’ll drive.

As if that wasn’t amusing enough, the story can then be shared via email, Facebook, or Twitter. In fact, it also gets saved to an in-game journal and can be pulled up again at anytime, which means it can be shared again at anytime too.

As for the other games, Lemon focuses on names, body parts, cities, and things you can do with a lemon to make funny statements such as “Vanessa will heat Luis’s ankle in Budapest.” Cootie Catcher is a virtual version of those paper fortune telling toys that will answer a yes or no question based on what numbers and colors (typically written on the toy itself) are picked. And Love is a simple mini-game that asks for your name and your crush’s name and “calculates” your percent chance for love.

Visually, the game fits very well with its target demographic of young girls. It’s full of overly cute drawings saturated in an almost storybook color scheme (not to mention the palette is mostly pinks, violets, and soft yellows). To further the appeal to this audience, Emily’s Girl Talk even allows users to earn stickers (sort of like trophies) just by playing the game.

Frankly, for what it is, and for those it is made for, Emily’s Girl Talk is a great app to have at only $0.99. A lot more has been spent on a lot less. That said, however, it doesn’t come very recommended for girls that have nosy little brothers, as unlike a diary, this app doesn’t have a lock.

While many iPhone games come with social features like leaderboards, achievements, and occasional challenges help, via third-parties, the games quite often aren’t social in their own right. A creative take on pictionary, by the name of Charadium, from On5, challenges that generalization.

The game uses ngmoco’s Plus+ platform, but while that feature plays a strong role in the game’s social prowess, it is hardly the focal point. Best described as an online, multiplayer marriage of charades and pictionary, Charadium is a social app all on its own.

Using either WiFi or 3G, players connect with other app users (this can also be limited to just friends) and play against one another in full games of 15 rounds (don’t worry, there is an option for quick games too). One person will draw, and the others guess. If you’re on the guessing end, the makeshift artist will begin to draw something, pictionary-style, based on a mystery word that only they know. Given the standard iPhone keyboard, players will type their guesses until someone gets it right, earning them points.

Obviously, ease of guessing the right word often depends on the artistic prowess of the person drawing, so the game does try to help out as needed, eventually displaying how many letters are in the word, filling in letters, and auto-correcting misspelled words.

At the end of a round, a new artist is selected. In this case, the mystery word is presented to them and could be something as simple as “tea,” or more ambiguous like “emptiness.” From here, the player uses the touch screen to draw and a basic palette to change their pen color. Granted, it’s not Photoshop, but it’s enough to get the job done. Moreover, points are awarded to the person drawing based on how quickly their work is deciphered.

The Plus+ integration include in-game achievements to add further longevity (though since its multiplayer, it already has a hefty lifespan), as well as leaderboards. The game’s results can be shared with others via email, Twitter, and Facebook. You can also view game log results and your drawings at Charadium.com using a “room code” granted at the end of each game.

Frankly, the game is a ton of fun and a great adaptation on classic analog games. In fact, the only complaint to be had doesn’t even come from the design side at all. As with most online games that give any sort of user control (even something as simple as chat), there are the random, immature morons that have to come in and draw offensive and obscene content. Thankfully, you can boot them out of games, but it is still very obnoxious.

Iif you’re looking for a simple, yet extremely fun and addictive game, Charadium comes highly recommended at $0.99.

Gowalla and Loopt Use Check-Ins to Help Haiti – Last week, the roundup mentioned Loopt and its desire to promote check-ins for its location-based, mobile social network in the form of deals at real world locations. Now, every check in at Chipotle, Panera Bread, or Whole Foods will lead to a donation of $1 to the American Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders to help in the Haiti earthquake relief.

In line with Loopt’s charitably, another location-based app, Gowalla has also launched a check-in charity campaign dubbed “Hearts for Haiti.” The event will take place on Monday, February 8th in the San Francisco Bay Area, and whenever someone checks-in at one of three specific locations (noted below), at specific times, Gowalla will donate $50 to the American Red Cross in that person’s name. The goal is to raise $20,000.

• 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Emeryville at 5959 Shellmound Street, Suite 85
• 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Mill Valley at 88 Throckmorton Avenue
• 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Barenaked Ladies concert at Infusion Lounge

AppFund To Seed iPad Apps – CNET and E! Online co-founder, Kevin Wendle has partnered with MusicNation to form the AppFund, with the sole goal to help fund entrepreneurs and startups that wish to launch applications on the new Apple iPad (or any other tablet, for that matter). The investment amount will range anywhere from $5000 to $500,000 depending on the complexity of the app. However, proposals for funding are encouraged to be made immediately in order to be part of the first wave of iPad applications this summer.

[via TechCrunch]

Celebrate Valentine’s with Wizard101 – The free-to-play MMO, Wizard101 will be bringing some special Valentine’s virtual goods to the wizarding world this month. The goods will be purchased via the game’s virtual currency from a non-player character, Valentina Heartsong, but as a special promotion, the developers will be hosting a special contest that will give away some of said items for free.

All players have to do is follow @Wizard101 on Twitter, and each weekday, until the 12th, a random follower will be contacted through the social network to claim their free virtual gift.

Civilization on Facebook – Though it was announced in October, Sid Meier’s Civilization isn’t quite ready for Facebook yet. Publisher, Take Two, told Variety that it’s going to still be a little while until the popular franchise makes its way onto the social network. But fear not, as they also said that the game’s open beta ought to be “sometime in June.”

Star Trek Online Virtual Goods – The highly anticipated MMO, Star Trek Online launched with an interesting surprise: Apparently, developer Cryptic Studios and publisher Atari are bringing some very hefty virtual goods to the table. Currently, players can purchase two special races from the game’s in-game “C-Store” using the virtual currency, Cryptic Points. For 240 Cryptic Points – $3.00 – players can purchase the Federation Klingons race, and for 80 Cryptic Points – $1.00 – the Federation Ferengi race. Currently, however, the virtual currency can only be purchased in increments of 500, or $6.25.

TrialPay Gets in on Valentine’s Day – Offers company TrialPay is running a little something special for Valentine’s Day as well. Currently, the company is offering new and existing partners a $250 Amazon.com gift card. In order to qualify, new partners must complete 30 transactions via TrialPayduring the month of February, while existing partners must launch a new Valentine’s Day Campaign and complete 50 transactions.

Assassin’s Creed II Multiplayer Coming to the iPhone – While an iPhone rendition of Assassin’s Creed II has been noted to come out in early February, word is that Ubisoft is to release another, online version, Assassin’s Creed II: Multiplayer. Soon, players will be able to use Wi-Fi to compete with up to three other players in a deadly game of hide-and-go-seek as each assassin tries to kill the others before being killed themselves. What is most interesting, however, is that the game will feature not only a built-in friend’s list but Facebook integration as well that will allow the posting of up to 24 achievements to their social networking feed.

[via Kotaku]

For a year now, game developer Ohai has been working on a Flash-based massively multiplayer online game called City of Eternals. After having gone into testing last fall, it has just gotten an upgrade and gone into public beta. Here’s a closer look.

This well-designed, Flash-based game is especially notable for pushing boundaries between social and traditional online gaming. It not only tasks players with the MMO-style goal of bringing order to a chaotic vampire-run city, it also has players doing less intense activities, like building and caring for their avatars, and decorating a living space.

To begin, just go to the game site and click play. You’ll be asked to log in using Facebook Connect. This means you don’t need to go through a separate, cumbersome sign-up process. This is the first of many ways that the game uses Connect.

Each player starts out as a new vampire in a city called New Valencia. You and a friend have just been attacked and killed  by a group of vampires while walking through “Central Park.” You’re immediately asked a multiple choice question that will determine which of five themed vampires houses you will become a part of. Like many other role-playing games, each theme provides you a different set of options throughout the game.

Once past this introduction, you begin the game: you crawl out of your freshly made grave and are promptly greeted by a vampire quest giver that teaches you the basics of combat and gives you the task of slaying a zombie.

Combat is simple enough with a mere point and click interface. The avatar transforms into a fiercer-looking creature and a combat menu with various abilities appears. As players fight, they use basic attacks until bigger and better ones become available (i.e. after the player does three bites they might be able to drain blood), and as they level up, they unlock more advanced techniques for later encounters.

As far as progression goes, it follows the standard World of Warcraft format of choose quest, do quest, deliver quest to garner experience; also like Warcraft and other MMORPGs, players can eventually level up various professions such as anatomy, gathering, and so on to make items for use.

Early on, most of the quests are tasks that merely have you talking to objects and people to learn the premise of the story and how to use various basic features. This is wonderful on many levels, because it not only lets the user ease into the game world, but there is a lot of lore going on in New Valencia. If you’re interested in knowing more, you can always look at Ohai’s lore and backstory pages, but in a nutshell, over the ages in which New Valencia has existed, various bloodlines have formed, eventually turning into the modern day houses that the player joins. The issue, however, is that for the longest time, the vampires lived off of “hema,” or artificial human blood, and now, this tradition of not feeding off of humans is fading (hence the introduction), and the city faces civil war.

Like virtually all MMOGs, this game has equipment that can be used to better your character’s performance in battle. However, you can also purchase clothing simple for aesthetic expression, and as an added bonus, your friends will see what you buy as well.

Beyond clothing, City of Eternals even gives you the option to fully redecorate the house you are given at the start of the game. This isnt’ to be confused with the “Vampire House” (your chosen faction), but is actually a virtual space that you can not only customize, but your friends can visit as well. In fact, this is yet another pleasant addition since our first play. Perhaps it hadn’t been added yet, or it had a level requirement, but early renditions did not seem to allow redecoration (or at least not in a manor we could decipher).

Items are purchased in one of two ways, either using an in-game currency called Rubies or a purchased virtual currency called Ohais.

The city is pretty sizable, so it does take some time to find the vendors you’re looking for. Note that there’s an instant teleport to the housing vendor, part of the new update to the game that the company rolled out recently. Most items costing Rubies require an abundance of them, while those costing Ohais are relatively cheap. Useful items such as health potions and bags for inventory space also follow this rule, coaxing players to advance themselves faster at the cost of real money.

The last major feature worth mention is yet another social one: Minions. Yes, you can employ your Facebook friends as your personal minions. What sort of jobs can they do? Oh this is good: Why, they can be your accountant, a bodyguard, or oh yes, a concubine or boy-toy. Once hired, your minions can then go out and do little missions for you at the cost of Rubies. Each mission will take X amount of hours to complete but will earn you special items and double the money back or more. As you play and level up, more minion slots open up for further jobs, which is good, because they are then placed in what’s called the “Tower of Tribute.” In short, as they play, they earn you points that are put towards special rewards that you can use yourself.

This Minion feature, too, is new and improved. In our previous look, it was significantly simplified to just drop lists and basic menus (sort of like a basic Mafia Wars-type of game). Furthermore, the Tower of Tribute did not exist (which really is a great addition). Unfortunately, it did look like the best minion job had been removed: We could no longer make our Facebook friends succubi. Luckily, our disappointment was short lived when we were informed that it was merely just moved to a level four minion job.

With no downloads, no accounts, and personalized Facebook integration, there really is nothing to complain about with City of Eternals on the game play end. For a free MMOG, it is actually a lot of fun and got in the way of finishing this review. Honestly, the only gripe that can be had is that the visuals are a little simplistic. The animations are a little stiff and awkward looking, and more visual variety within the city would be more than warranted.

In the end, City of Eternals is a lot of fun and very deep for a free – not to mention social – MMO. Whether you play through networking, combat, or through crafts, this is something to feed everyone’s social dark side.

April 20 | San Francisco

2007 was the year social applications were born. With the launch of the Facebook Platform, and soon after similar platforms from MySpace and other social networks, developers worldwide could leverage the social graph to create new kinds of social experiences never before possible. Three years later, what started out as sheep throwing and vampire biting has quickly become a profitable billion-dollar industry.

Now, in 2010, social games monetizing through virtual goods have quickly become one of the hottest sectors of technology and entertainment, both in the US and around the world. Where are social apps going, and who is leading the way?

Inside Social Apps 2010 – April 20th in San Francisco

Inside Network is proud to announce our first conference on the future of monetization on social platforms: Inside Social Apps 2010, happening April 20th in San Francisco, is bringing together the world’s leading entrepreneurs all in one place to discuss the future of social applications and games monetizing through virtual goods.

This will be an in-depth one day event geared toward developers on Facebook, MySpace, and the iPhone, senior executives, and investors. At Inside Social Apps 2010, founders and CEOs of the top social gaming, mobile social gaming, payments, and virtual goods infrastructure companies will be tackling the key issues facing the industry. We’re hosting it one day before Facebook’s “f8″ event in San Francisco, so this will be an excellent opportunity to learn about the key issues facing the future of the Facebook Platform and beyond before Facebook’s official event.

Who Is Speaking?

We’re excited and honored to announce the following initial set of 20 confirmed speakers at Inside Social Apps 2010:

• Atul Bagga, VP Equity Research, Games, ThinkEquity
• Adam Caplan, VP Virtual Currency, Super Rewards / Adknowledge
  
• Renata Dionello, Chief of Staff to the CEO, eBay, and former Director of Consumer Business Development, PayPal
• Eric Eldon, Editor, Inside Facebook & Inside Social Games
• George Garrick, CEO, Offerpal Media
• Vikas Gupta, CEO, Jambool
• Sebastien de Halleux, Founder and COO, Playfish
• Nick Lawler, Managing Director, Maverick Capital
• Vish Makhijani, COO, Zynga
• David Marcus, CEO, Zong
• Dave McClure, Investor, Founders Fund Angel and fbFund Incubator
• Rex Ng, Co-founder and CEO, 6waves
• Jason Oberfest, VP Social Applications, ngmoco
• Mark Pincus, Founder and CEO, Zynga
• Shervin Pishevar, Founder and Executive Chairman, SGN
• John Pleasants, CEO, Playdom
• Keith Rabois, VP Strategy and Business Development, Slide
• Peter Relan, Executive Chairman, CrowdStar
• Justin Smith, Founder, Inside Network
• Kavin Stewart, CEO, Lolapps
• Jay Weintraub, Founder, LeadsCon

More speakers and a full agenda will be announced shortly. Keep an eye on InsideSocialApps.com for more information.

Register Now

A limited set of 20 “early announcement” tickets is now available at a special announcement price of $149. This price will change when these first 20 tickets are sold out. Space will be very limited, so we encourage you to register early.

From all of us at Inside Network, we hope to see you on April 20th in San Francisco!