Pocket God to dominate Facebook thanks to Frima Studio

Pocket God
Soon enough, you'll be able to dominate hapless island villagers both at the desk and on the go. The hit iPhone game Pocket God will soon be on Facebook through Quebec-based Frima Studio's efforts later this fall. (I hope Frima knows that fall is nearly over.) Original developed by Bolt Creative in San Francisco, Pocket God instills the power of a god into players, allowing them to do nearly whatever they please to a growing group of island pygmies.

On Facebook, however, a breadth of social features and episodic content has been promised by Frima Studio. Not to mention that "a host of hilarious ways to both dispose of and resurrect the immortal pygmies of each island" will be added to the Facebook game, according to Frima Studio.

Steve Couture, CEO of Frima Studio, says, "Everything fans have grown to love about this game and its characters has been happily fed to the sharks and tossed into the volcano, only to be resurrected onto Facebook in a way that fans are truly going to love." Pocket God will enter a closed beta phase later this year, according to Frima Studio, with access granted only to the game's "rabid fanbase." Players interested in playing god on Facebook early can soon find out how over on the Pocket God Blog.

Facebook is down: FarmVille & FrontierVille down, sorry social gamers!

If you're experiencing the same issues we are, Facebook is currently down completely. That's right--kaput. We're unsure as to why exactly the website is down, but we're on to one possible lead. Users have reported that their profiles have been forcibly switched to the new Facebook profile on the fly, which could have caused the crash.

And that means all of your favorite social games, including FarmVille and FrontierVille, are also down. Stay tuned for updates and hopefully an explanation as to why Facebook bit the dust.

Update: Facebook is back for us here at Games.com as well as FarmVille and FrontierVille. However, search is still unavailable. Keep your eyes peeled for more updates.

Update #2: Facebook seems to be up and running for everyone, which includes all applications and search. Enjoy your return to [insert name of social game here]. According to All Facebook, the downtime was intentional to fix some glitches related to launching several of the website's brand new features at once.

Call of Duty veterans set crosshairs for 'first-person social game'

Call of Duty
That sounds a helluva lot like "first-person shooter game," no? Well, these folks are best known for their contributions to hardcore games like Call of Duty. VentureBeat reports that Activision veterans Dusty Welch and Chris Archer have founded their own social game studio, U4iA. Pronounced "euphoria" (that's cute), the Bellevue, Wash.-based studio aims to bring core games to Facebook in a big way.

Welch (CEO) and Archer (CCO) aim to set the quality bar even higher on Facebook and mobile with a "first-person social game" that matches the caliber of recent free-to-play games like League of Legends, according to VentureBeat. At least from what the U4iA heads see, the future of social games is the arrival of traditional gamers.

"We're making core games for a social audience." Welch told VentureBeat, "We think the hardcore gamers are going to start looking for the core games on the social and mobile networks now." Well, with companies like Kixeye and Kabam gunning for the same audience, at least they're not alone.

"We think we're at the spearhead of a lot of cool things," Welch said to VentureBeat. Since the guy is credited with creating the Call of Duty series--the best-selling game franchise ever--we can't really contest that. This first-person shooter social game will be created for both Facebook and mobile devices using the Unity Player. With expertise like that, we're sure the game will be a technological marvel, but will the audience be there to bear witness?

Nexon races KartRider onto Facebook later this year

Yeah, yeah, so you've already heard that Nexon is bringing its KartRider franchise to iOS and Android devices later this month. (Don't forget about MapleStory on Facebook!) However, Inside Social Games (ISG) found out from Nexon VP of Social Games Operations, Soo Min Park, that KartRider will also be released on Facebook through the Unity Engine. Players will be able to race as the game downloads thanks to this emergent technology in the social games space. Micro-transactions have also been confirmed, while KartRider is scheduled for an extremely vague release date: "later this year." In related news, ISG also discovered that mulitplayer in MapleStory Adventures will be asynchronous (dammit, Nexon!).

[Image Credit: ISG]

Will you try KartRider out on Facebook once it launches? What do you think of Nexon's first two moves into social games?

Tiny Speck puts Facebook MMO Glitch into closed beta next week

Glitch in action
Things are going without a ... hitch for Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield's newest project, Glitch, after his company, Tiny Speck, closed its second round of funding with a sweet $10.7 million, Inside Social Games reports. This second round of funding was led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and some help from Accel Partners. With $10 million in hand, Tiny Speck plans for Glitch to enter closed beta next week, which you can sign up for right here. Glitch plans to provide "something you've not seen before" with action-oriented gameplay, detailed artwork and an original story. The game, which has been in development for 18 months, will allow its players to take its weird, unique artwork and use it in other mediums. It's an exciting idea, but we're just waiting for someone to create a competitor with the same artwork--the gall!

[Image Credit: Tiny Speck]

Are you excited to try Glitch? How do you think it will do against the competition?

Get your booze on in Malibu Rum's Beach Club on Facebook

If developers can make Facebook games in which you grow and sell a certain controversial plant and not hear "boo," I guess a game revolving around the firewater can slide. Because the sales of Malibu Rum tend to dip ... a lot in the colder months, Pernod Ricard, the company behind Malibu Rum, created a Facebook game to promote the awareness of its brand.

The game, which launched today, is known simply as Beach Club, and frankly, it's a pretty impressive branded Facebook game. (Look, more and more companies are going to be up to this in the future, and the games are only becoming more detailed, elaborate and visually impressive.) The game, which has Malibu Rum branding aplenty, tasks players with running their very own beach island.

Beach Club, developed by Aegis Media Group's Isobar, is said to block underage Facebook users from playing by relying on both the birth dates in their profiles and an age verification immediately after installing the app. They're not exactly airtight methods of keeping the kiddies out, but do more to keep the game in front of 21 to 35-year-olds than other Facebook games surrounding questionable topics.

According to AdAge, Malibu made a conscious effort to keep the game geared toward adults through more than just age verification. The game makes liberal use of more mature-looking artwork than other games aimed at the same crowd. "In our game the drawing of the avatars are more mature, they are clearly adults walking around this beach," Malibu senior brand manager AnnaMarie Battiloro told AdAge.
Beach Club overview
Oddly enough, the game isn't governed by an energy system or much of anything that limits your play time, unlike most games. While the game is available globally on Facebook, U.S. players earn points that go toward a vacation to Barbados, the rum's birthplace, that Malibu is giving away through Beach Club.

You'll earn these valuable points by keeping the guests of your resort happy through landscaping and adding new attractions to your tropical getaway. The most notable of which is a beach-side bar. Guests will approach the bar, and clicking on it unveils a mini game of sorts in which players have to bartend a series of Malibu Rum-themed drinks. You'll take guests' orders and have to fill them accordingly and quickly by clicking and dragging various ingredients.
Beach Club bartending
And it's all done to the sound of a 30-minute long club soundtrack with some of this past summer's most popular original tracks. Battiloro told AdAge that Malibu doesn't want Beach Club to be "overtly tied to the brand." "We actually are not trying to earn fans from this at all, Battiloro said. "We are trying to earn more brand loyalty, recognition and association."

But when a beach comber drives past our beach resort, leaving the Malibu Rum logo in its wake, we seriously doubt that. But you know what, this is one of the more full-featured, smoothly-animated branded games we've seen in awhile on Facebook. And if this is the direction brands will go when making games on Facebook, I'm not sure I mind that much.

Click here to play Beach Club on Facebook Now >

After hopping into the game, what do you think of Beach Club so far? What do you think of branded games on Facebook? Could they ever reach the quality of original Facebook games?

Jurassic Park to (hopefully) bring Mr. DNA to mobile, Facebook in 2012

It's just not Jurassic Park without the little guy. Ludia, the Vancouver-based creator of branded Facebook and mobile games like Family Feud and Who Wants to be a Millionaire, has announced that it will bring a Jurassic Park social game to mobile devices in 2012. This deal with Universal Studios marks the company's move into the movie industry through branded games.

"This exciting license is our gateway to the movie industry and reinforces our strategy of turning high-profile brands into successful interactive entertainment experiences," Ludia CEO Alex Thabet said in a release, according to Inside Social Games. But it sounds as if the game will be far less about dinosaurs wreaking havoc than about keeping dinosaurs in check.

In other words, it's going to be another property management game. (Ugh.) Ludia will throw players onto the ill-fated island shortly after the events of the first movie, and they'll be able to help rebuild Jurassic Park into a thriving, money printing machine. What sounds most interesting is the ability to breed dinosaurs using new DNA strands discovered in pieces of amber. See? There's no way Ludia can leave out Mr. DNA now.

Of course, players will need to seek the help of their Facebook friends to keep dino-related disasters from happening and more tourists forking over the cash. The game has yet to receive an official title, and will release on mobile devices before hitting social networks like Facebook.

Are you excited to see Jurassic Park become a social game? What are your thoughts on branded mobile and social games?

Ultima creator Richard Garriott runs social game studio with ... a robot?

At this point, with a guy who flew into space and once ran the craziest haunted house in the nation within his house, I guess you should expect these things. The Huffington Post reports that Richard Garriott, creator of the famed Ultima PC game series and co-founder of social game studio Portalarium, manages his Austin, Texas-based studio remotely ... with a robot. Seriously.

Since July of this year, Garriott has conversed with Portalarium's 25 employees in meetings and casually (the robot is a mobile, remote-controlled machine equipped with cameras and microphones) from his New York home. According to The Huffington Post, all he needs is a broadband connection, his laptop, a microphone and two cameras to make it work.

"When I'm up north, I log in in the morning and can meander over to anyone's desk and really be a part of the casual conversations that are so essential to our work," Garriott told The Huffington Post. "Sometimes I feel like a spy, but fundamentally it feels like I am really there." But the game industry veteran didn't buy the $15,000 Anybot QB solely for this job.

When Garriott married his wife earlier this year in the spring, he purchased the robot to ensure that his mother could participate in the ceremony and reception, which took place in Paris. The game designer strapped a cardboard cut-out of his elderly mother to the robot, gave her the controls from her Las Vegas home and it was as if she was there. Hey, at least we now know how dedicated Garriott is to Portalarium's upcoming crown jewel, Lord British's New Britannia (and his mum).

[Via Kotaku]

[Image Credit: Beef and Pie Productions]

What do you expect will come of Garriott's reportedly ambitious social game? Do you think the designer can strike gold here like he did back in the '80s and '90s on PCs?

Other Games, News Add Comment Sumon is Tetris-meets-math class on Facebook, Chrome and mobile

If there is one game genre that will likely survive them all, it's puzzlers. San Francisco-based Ludei claims to be one of the first social game developers to launch a game on Facebook, Chrome, HTML5, iOS and Android. The game is called Sumon, a puzzle game that evokes feelings of Tetris, but with math-centric gameplay that's said to serve well as a mind sharpening tool.

The game combines simple math problems through addition with spatial reasoning. Players are presented with a series of blocks, each with specific numbers on them, and a goal number. It's up to players to string blocks together to reach that goal number. Of course, the game sets players against the clock, adding numbered blocks until each level is cleared.

"Sumon is the first in a series of titles that is going to take advantage of bleeding edge innovation in mobile entertainment as we plan for a bigger footprint in the U.S. and worldwide," Ludei CEO Eneko Knorr said in a release. "By launching on HTML5, iOS and Android, we're able to bring Sumon to the largest possible audience, a sentiment that is often discussed but rarely executed-until now."

It's certainly a novel strategy in the social games world where the pressure to go multiplatform or go home is increasing. There are three modes of play in Sumon: classic, progressive and respawn. But generally, the more numbered blocks you use to reach a given goal number, the higher your score will go. But really, we're just digging the paper mache art style--so pretty.

Click here to play Sumon on Facebook Now >

Is there room for another puzzle game in the social games space? Do you like a little bit of brain teasing in your social games?

Socialspiel reels in untapped social game genre in Tight Lines Fishing

Well, the fishing genre on Facebook certainly hasn't been ... over-fished. (We're here all night, try the veal.) Vienna, Austria-based Socialspiel has formally announced Tight Lines Fishing on Facebook. This game is an attempt at bringing the excitement of popular fishing games on consoles to Facebook. However, the motion controls simulating actual fishing were left for another day.

In the ongoing competition to catch the biggest fish, Tight Lines Fishing players will train as well as customize and equip new gear to catch bigger fish in a storybook world around them. The game's art style is almost reminiscent of children's books, and as you explore you'll come across new characters with quests for you and fisherman's stories to tell.

"With Tight Lines Fishing we've created new ways to connect with friends around the world and bring out the angler in all of us," Socialspiel CEO and co-founder Helmut Hutterer said in a release. "In doing so, we continue our history of creating unique social games with high quality production values and appealing experiences for players and their friends to enjoy. Until today more than 1.5 Million fish have been caught."
Tight Lines Fishing gameplay
The fishing mechanic in the game, while not quite on par with literally making the motions, is actually skill-based. Players must cast a bobber into nearby waters and time when they reel in exactly as a fish bites the line. There are a number of things to upgrade and customize about your character, so we imagine there are plenty of fish to catch. This is a major departure for Socialspiel, which before this released Push, an equally-charming puzzle game on Facebook.

Click here to play Tight Lines Fishing on Facebook Now >

Have you tried any fishing games on Facebook before? Do you think this is a sub genre that could do well on the platform, and what other themes would you like to see in social games?

Put your sports smarts to the test in AccuScore's SKL on Facebook

At least one football game viewing party has ended in heated debate that results in beers thrown and tables flipped. (Just me?) Now, it's time to settle the score of "who knows the most" with SKL, a new sports trivia game for Facebook. Well, at least it sounds like it could settle scores on paper--it might just make things worse.

Sports forecasting company AccuScore's first Facebook game, SKL will have players sign in-game contracts and advance through the ranks of sports know-how in both American college football, the NFL and the English Premier League. These tests of knowledge take place in three unique mini games like Buzzer Beater, which has players answer as many stat-based questions about their favorite teams correctly.

Another game, 4Cast, sees players use in-game currency to buy cards that represent predictions in statistics beyond just winning and losing. Finally, Challenge Mode pits up to five friends against one another in a trivia race against the clock. Of course, SKL features leaderboards to track friends' progress compared to your own--it is a contest for the top spot, after all.
SKL Buzzer Beater
However, there is also a global leaderboard to consider, and players will get to make predictions on upcoming games in their football of choice. As players progress, they'll gain power-ups to help in trivia games and predictions. Think of the Predictor feature in games like Madden NFL Superstars and World Series Superstars by EA, but blown up into an entire game. For the folks who actually buy the Sports Almanacs annually, this game could be for you.

Click here to play SKL on Facebook Now >

Do you plan on putting your sports to the test in this new social game? What do you think of sports-based Facebook games, and trivia games in general?

Microsoft Research releases Facebook game for 'research'

Sure you are, guys--we're onto you. The Research division at Microsoft has released its first Facebook games, Project Waterloo, in order to find out how people interact and negotiate with one another across social networks. The game is a turn-based combat simulator in which players allocate 100 generic troops across five locations. In a way, Project Waterloo works a lot like Zynga's Words With Friends.

Of course, we're referring to the one-on-one, turn-based gameplay, not the words. Players challenge friends with allocations of 100 troops either using a slider or directly entering a number in each location on the battlefield. Said friends can then respond with their own strategic positioning using 100 troops, and if they don't currently play the game, they will be invited prior to responding.

So, it might help to think of Project Waterloo as a cross between games like Words With Friends and the classic board game Battleship. Players can also start games with random players, regardless of whether they're Facebook friends. Project Waterloo, according to a post on the Microsoft Research website, is the start of the "Facebook Game Theory Lab." This will serve as a platform through which Microsoft Research explores concepts of strategic human interaction within "resource allocation and negotiation games." The team of four researchers wrote:

    The goal of the project is to test the behaviour of real people in game theoretic interactions, and especially those that take place in social networks. Some example questions are: how do people negotiate with one another? How does such negotiation take place in social networks? How can we aggregate opinions of individuals to arrive at high quality decisions? In what ways do people reciprocate other people's actions?

Project Waterloo in action
While it doesn't appear that Project Waterloo will be a source of revenue for Microsoft Research's parent company, the team does use words like "viral marketing" to explain how it will reach new players. Ultimately, we don't see a game like this taking off commercially, but it is another step in that direction, as Microsoft has already expressed interest in entering the space. Just recently, the company began to offer support to developers through its Windows Azure service. Perhaps Project Waterloo and the Facebook Game Theory Lab represent Microsoft further testing the waters.

Click here to play Project Waterloo on Facebook Now >

[Via ZDNet]

What do you think of Microsoft's very scientific foray into Facebook games? Do you think the company would ever dive into the industry like Google or Facebook has? Sound off in the comments. 2 Comments

Clarins looks to beautify Facebook with Spa Life, its first social game

Is it only a matter time now before mom pants get their own Facebook game? Clarins, a well-known French brand of beauty products, recently released its own Facebook game, Spa Life. The game doesn't stray far away from games like Cafe World or Restaurant City, but applies the same principles to managing a spa rather than an eatery. Developed by Freshplanet, Spa Life has players managing an influx of customers looking for everything from a "mani-pedi" to facials and more.

Of course, just like its inspirations, players can decorate, upgrade and add new services to their spa. But players can only do this if they serve their terribly impatient customers in time to make the most cash from them. And in true Facebook game fashion, players can always buy their way out of waiting for the next upgrade with Facebook Credits.

According to Mashable, Clarins's North American CEO Jonathan Zrihen saw Facebook as a golden opportunity to reach its audience. And considering we all know by now that the average Facebook gamer is a middle-aged mother, he's probably right on the money. "I knew about the craziness of Zynga games, but I didn't realize the demographic was so much in line with the demographics of our products," Zrihen told Mashable. "I was also impressed by the level of engagement these games create."

Yes, this is yet another branded game, though it's odd that players aren't inundated with the brand until much later in the game. Another interesting nod is that Spa Life attempts to use your friends' names as customers to add more social awareness to the game. Building off of that, you'll need plenty more friends to run your various services, just like you need them to staff buildings in CityVille.
Spa Life in action
Branded games are exploding on Facebook. In fact, studios like Ecko|Code are focusing all of their efforts on creating games for brands such as Showtime shows like Weeds and Dexter. Facebook game developers like Zynga and Playdom have integrated brands into their games for awhile through promotions, it's only recently that they've begun to build games around a single brand.

For instance, it looks as if Adventure World will become Zynga's first game to completely embrace a brand. In October, the game will become "Adventure World: An Indiana Jones Game" with the help of Lucasfilm. Sure, original games will continue to release, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see less of them moving forward.

Click here to Play Spa Life on Facebook Now >

Are you a Clarins fan--enough to check out this Facebook game? What do you think of branded games on Facebook and the fact that they're growing? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment

Kabam study suggests hardcore gamers are flocking to Facebook

hardcore gamers
Have the tables finally turned? Not quite just yet, but slowly and surely they are, a study released by Kabam suggests. The Redwood City-Calif.-based creator of Facebook games like Dragons of Atlantis and Edgeworld recently commissioned a survey of 1,412 "hardcore" gamers to find just how their behavior has changed since the dawn of Facebook games.

Dubbed the "Social Gamer Study," Kabam found that the demographics of the average social game fan are slowly changing--more young to middle-aged men are playing Facebook games. And a whopping 82 percent of them come from the console game space, which is terribly important. This is because 27 percent of those surveyed report playing console games less often.

And perhaps more importantly to those looking to make cash from hardcore games, those surveyed reported spending 50 percent less on console games. Of course, Kabam threw in that players of its games are even more dedicated to Facebook games than console games: 55 percent reported playing console games less and spending 65 percent on the games.
Social Gamer Study findings
According to the study conducted by Information Solutions Group, 72 percent of these hardcore social gamers are playing two or more games at once, and 47 percent are playing three or more. If you've ever played a game like Kingdoms of Camelot or Kixeye's Backyard Monsters, you know that this is quite a lot to keep up with--much more so than, say, FarmVille.

Not to mention that this growing sub culture of Facebook gamers plays far longer game sessions than the 30 minutes or so your average Bejeweled Blitz player sits down for on lunch break. A massive 68 percent reported playing social strategy games for three hours or longer a day, and 30 percent said they play for longer than an hour per session.

Of course, it's important to keep in mind who commissioned this study: a developer and publisher of hardcore Facebook games. Vested interests aside, it's undeniable that a new breed of Facebook game fan is emerging, and fast. And you have to assume, with advances like download-free 3D gaming on the horizon, these numbers will only grow. Check out the study in full here.

Are you part of this growing portion of Facebook gamers? Do you think social game creators like Zynga, EA and wooga have anything to worry about? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment

3 Blokes launches strategic assault on Facebook with Galactic Allies

Galactic Allies on Facebook
We can almost hear the 3 Blokes team in Australia screaming "Fire everything!" as they hit the proverbial "Launch" button on its first Facebook game under publisher RockYou, Galactic Allies. (It would be most appropriate, no?) Real-time strategy fans can jump in on the thrill of space-faring, asynchronous player vs player combat, complete with 3D visuals.

Essentially, Galactic Allies is RockYou and 3 Blokes's answer to the growing trend of hardcore strategy games on Facebook. However, the duo make a point of mentioning that this is a more casual approach to the burgeoning sub genre, and that the game features a heavy focus on an episodic storyline. And in keeping with current trends sparked by developers like Kixeye in War Commander, players can control units individually.
Gallery: Galactic Allies on Facebook
This means you'll likely be able to maneuver your starships around enemy fire, adding another layer of strategy to combat in the game. "Galactic Allies alters expectations for what a Facebook game can be," said 3 Blokes VP and GM George Fidler in a release. "It's a deep and compelling strategy game, but with the accessibility of a browser game." (It also looks like it takes the general idea behind Galactic Trader, one of 3 Blokes's first games, and blows it wide open using some familiar art assets.)

Hopefully this accessible approach will apply to the litany of upgrades players will accumulate across various missions and episodes. Judging from these early screen shots, it looks like Galactic Allies will focus heavily on dialog, but more importantly: Battles will take place both on the surface of alien planets and far above them in the infinite void. In other words, there will be plenty of things high and low to make go boom in Galactic Allies.

Click here to learn more about Galactic Allies on Facebook >

Are you a fan of strategy games on Facebook? How do you think Galactic Allies might size up against its competition? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment