From the category archives:

Facebook Games

NASA’s Space Race Blast Off Facebook Game Walkthrough

January 31, 2012

NASA’s latest launch isn’t something into the space, but something right at your face, with the launch of a multiplayer Facebook game called Space Race Blast Off.

The game was created by Scott Hanger, Todd Powell and Jamie Noguchi of NASA’s Internet Services Group in the Office of Communications.

“Space Race Blast Off opens NASA’s history and research to a wide new audience of people accustomed to using social media,” said David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for communications. “Space experts and novices will learn new things about how exploration continues to impact our world.”

Space Race Blast Off is a quiz game, where players knowledge is tested on various topics like Aeronautics, Astronauts, Earth, Math, Solar System, Spacecraft, Station, Universe, and Pop Culture.

You will get to choose from 14 avatars to start with. The game picks two other players to join you for each round. If no one enters the game within 15 seconds, you are placed in a solo game.

You will be presented with multiple-choice questions with three choices. Each round will have a total of 10 questions, for 100 points each. Each question will have to be answered within 15 seconds. The player with the quickest response gets a bonus 20 points. The winner (with a minimum of seven correct answers) advances to the bonus round.

Once you enter the bonus round, click on the “Spin” button to get your final question. Answering it correctly will earn you 200 points as well as a virtual badge, depicting NASA astronauts, spacecraft and celestial object. You can also exchange the points you earn for additional badges to complete sets and earn premium badges.

The game features game stats, awards, and leader board, where you can show off/check your progress.

Game graphics isn’t much to talk about, but Space Race Blast Off surely is packed with tons and tons of educational material with a lingering competitive element. It isn’t a casual game, and if you want to rule the leaderboard, you will have to do your homework well.

(Play Space Race Blast Off)

{ 0 comments }

Facebook Game Review: Triple Town – A Fine Addictive Game

January 23, 2012

Facebook Triple down game from Spry Fox is a cute little matching game with a surprising twist.

Unlike other matching games where you group together matching tiles, bubbles, jewels or anything to clean up the board, in Triple Down, you match up items to build up your board or town.

The game starts off with a 6×6 grid game area that is randomly filled up by different objects like grasses, bushes, house etc. Your basic mission is to attempt to grow the greatest possible city by matching three or more similar items together. Match three or more grasses to make a bush, three bushes to make a tree… until you’ve filled the board with cathedrals and castles.

Check out the screenshots that I have put together to get a clearer picture of how the buildings are build.

Apart from building, you will have to watch out for pesky bears and ninjas. They themselves won’t do any harm but you will not be able to build on the grids they are on. So, you will have to kill them by trapping them. Once trapped, they will turn into tombstone. Three or more tombs will turn into a church. You can also corner three of more bears at once. Three churches make a cathedral, and three cathedrals turn into treasure.

Trapping a bear is easy with a little bit of strategy. But, ninjas are of different league. You cannot trap them because they will shift their location at every turn. You can only remove them with an Imperial Bot that erases any object from a grid on the board.

Besides imperial bots, you will get a crystal every now and then. Use the crystal as a wild card. There is also a storage facility where you can store objects to use them in times of need. You can also buy items from the game store with the coins that you earn.

When you put down the last piece of a triad, the upgraded object will be formed at that piece’s grid. So, the game requires a careful thinking. A particular board ends when all the grid of the board is filled.

The game graphics are cute and nice. I don’t have anything to complain about the game, except for its limited social feature as a social game. The only social element I have come across was inviting friends and a weekly high score chart. It would be nice to be able to send gifts.

All in all, Triple Town is a very addictive puzzle/matching strategy game that is full of challenge, fun and be warned that you could get stuck with the game for hours.

You might want to try it out if you haven’t.

(Play Triple Town Facebook Game)

{ 0 comments }

Students-Created Facebook Game Raise Awareness On Wetland Restoration

January 20, 2012

Undergraduate students at the University of Washington Bothell’s Center for Serious Play created and released a Wetlands restoration game for Facebook titled ‘UWB Wetlands Restoration’ on Thursday.

In UWB Wetlands Restoration, you start with an empty piece of land. The main objective of the game is to convert your empty piece of land into fully functioning ecosystems.

Evolution of your ecosystem follows a path of succession. So you will need careful planning and execution. Flora and fauna needs to be introducing gradually. For example, if you want the Cinnamon Teal duck to roost on your land, you need Tall Mannagrass, Ponds, and Broadleaf Arrowhead. But in order to have Tall Mannagrass, you need trees planted, and the easiest tree to get is the Douglas-fir, which will first require planting Tufted Hairgrass.

The game has two seasons, winter and summer. You will need to work on different aspects of your wetland during different seasons. to best protect and grow the ecosystem. The game last for 50 years of evolution and your progress is measured in a biodiversity rating.

There are two types of currency in the game: donations and grant funds. Grant funds are given at the beginning of the game and at various intervals. Donations on the other hand can be acquired by inviting friends to play, helping other players, holding events to raise money, and by buying them with Facebook Credits.

An interesting element of the game is video lecture by Dr. Warren Gold, the Associate Professor of Environmental Science at UWB, on how these flora and fauna contribute to wetland restoration. A video icon appears sometime when you gain access to new game element (animal, plant or terrain). Clicking on it allows you to view a brief YouTube lecture video.

Also, every time you purchase in-game currency, 80 percent of the proceeds will go to restoring the actual Wetlands ecosystem located at the university, while the other 20 percent will be retained to maintain the game.

You don’t often come across games like these; one that educate you, and gives you a chance to be a part of real-world issues and causes while you are having fun.

(Play UWB Wetlands Restoration)

{ 0 comments }

Starz Launches Spartacus: Vengeance Game On Facebook

January 19, 2012

Starz is launched another Facebook game titled “Spartacus: Vengeance,” a sequel to it popular social game, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.

Starz launched the game on Wednesday, the same day the new season of its popular TV show ‘Spartacus’ began.

Spartacus: Vengeance: The Game is sort of sequel to the existing Facebook game Spartacus: Gods of the Arena: The Game. The big difference between the two games is the new Spartacus game takes players outside of the arena.

The game takes the player, a recently escaped slave, outside of the arena to lead a band of warriors. Travelling from Capua to Vesuvius, players can engage themselves with the improved visuals, and new elements of the game like expanded battle system for six-on-six melee battles, advance game progressions, and more varied strategic gameplay as they try to take over Roman territories. Players will also come across various characters from the TV show in the game.

Starz will sample the first full episode of Spartacus: Vengeances to fans on their Facebook Page beginning January 20.

Check out the trailer of the game:

{ 0 comments }

Hidden Chronicles: Zynga’s First Hidden-Objects Game

January 5, 2012

Leading social game maker, Zynga, launched its first hidden object and puzzle game on Facebook titled “Hidden Chronicles.”

Hidden Chronicles has familiar features with other hidden-object and puzzle games with intricate scenes and a list of hidden objects that players must find before time runs out, in order to gather points and to progress with the story.

In Hidden Chronicles, players are lead through the game with a narrative. On starting the game, you are summoned to your Uncle Jeffrey’s estate, after his suspicious death. It’s up to you now, to unlock different location at his mansion and various parts of the estate and progress with the story of the game.

The game also includes leaderboards, a home base (players own Manor, which can be customize), quests, and several mini-games inside the game. The game also has some surprise elements, like certain scenes in the game becomes available when players challenge a friend to a contest. In addition, certain scenes can only be unlocked with reputation points, which you can amass by doing things such as sending gifts to friends.

The graphics of the game has a photorealistic style, quite different from the cartoonish graphics most of Zynga’s other games sports.

The team behind Hidden Chronicles includes some big names like Cara Ely (as Creative director), veteran hidden object game creator well known for creating the popular Dream Day Wedding series, and Margaret Foley-Mouvais, former art director for titles such as “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Godfather”.

Hidden object games have been around and popular for quite some time. Looking forward with a hope that Zynga’s little romance with this genre will bring about a breath of fresh air to this genre.

{ 0 comments }

Top Facebook Games Of 2011

December 23, 2011

Facebook released its list of top 10 most popular Facebook games and surprise, surprise… Playdom’s Gardens of Time topped the list.

As the list goes on, I see titles that have completely eluded me throughout the year. Although leading social game developer Zynga made several appearances, they weren’t able to occupy the top two spots.

The list, according to Facebook, was based on game “with more than 100,000 monthly active users and giving priority to those games with the highest user satisfaction scores.”

So, here’s the official Top 10 Most Popular Facebook games of 2011:

1. Gardens of Time ( By Playdom)
2. The Sims Social (By EA)
3. Cityville (By Zynga)
4. DoubleDown Casino (By DoubleDown Interactive)
5. Indiana Jones Adventure World (By Zynga)
6. Words With Friends (By Zynga)
7. Bingo Blitz (By Buffalo Studios)
8. Empires & Allies (By Zynga)
9. Slotomania-Slot Machines (By Playtika)
10. Diamond Dash (By Wooga)

More list of top games under different categories goes as follows.

Top up-and-comers

Battle Pirates (By Kixeye)
Dragons of Atlantis (By Kabam)
Gourmet Ranch (By Rock You!)

* Based on new games which drew the highest engagement in the 100k-500k user category

Top games with 50,000-100,000 users

Super Slot Machines (By Davy Campano, David Livingston Kirby and Robby Campano)
WestWars (By Innogames)
MouseHunt (By HitGrab)

* Based on the most engaging apps with audiences between 50k-100k users

Top Casino Games in 2011

Zynga Poker (By Zynga)
Slotomania – Slot Machines (By Playtika)
DoubleDown Casino (By DoubleDown Interactive)

* Based on casino-related games with the most monthly active users in 2011

Top Sports Games in 2011

TopEleven – Be a Football Manager (By Nordeus)
Pool Live Tour (By Geewa)
EA Sports: FIFA Superstars (By EA)

* Based on sports-related games with the most monthly active users in 2011

Top Fashion Games in 2011

Mall World (By 50 Cubes)
ItGirl (By CrowdStar)
Coco Girl (By Metrogames)

* Based on fashion-related games with the most monthly active users in 2011

The list might surprise many of you like me. Honestly, titles like Doubledown Casino or Bingo Blitz completely had me thinking “now, which one was that?” But, hey who is complaining? I am happy that there are quite a few good games out there that I have to try out before this year slither away. And as I wind up this post, I raise my cup of coffee to all the good times we had playing and to more good times in 2012. Cheers!

{ 0 comments }

Indy Whipping His Way Into Zynga’s Adventure World Soon

September 16, 2011

If you have been playing Zynga’s latest Facebook game – Adventure World – then, Indiana Jones must have crossed your mind many a times.

Just wanted to drop in a quick update on the game with this post. The developer has announced via the game’s Facebook page that “Indiana Jones will soon be whipping his way into Adventure world!” But, it’s too soon to say what role his character will play. Nevertheless, the game will be a lot more fun with this flamboyant, adventure loving, archaeologist in the game.

So, keep your fingers cross until Indy’s character come to grace the game in October.

{ 3 comments }

Lionsgate And Social Game Universe Launched “Dirty Dancing” Game On Facebook.

September 13, 2011

'Dirty Dancing' game launched on Facebook by Lionsgate and Social Universe

Lionsgate in collaboration with Social Game Universe has announce the launch of ‘Dirty Dancing Facebook game’. The game is an adaptation of the greatest 80′s romantic movie “Dirty Dancing”.

In the game, player manage and caretake the Kellerman’s Resort. The main objective is to built the resort into a burgeoning and romantic-filled harbor for its guest. To create the resort of their dreams, players can use the game’s watermelon currency to purchase virtual items like tennis courts and decorate their resorts with everything from hedges to jukeboxes.

Players must host dance shows where they can also feature their Facebook friends. Proper dance rehearsal with combination of different dance technique is pre-eminent in order to generate more ‘romantic waves’ which will contribute to restore Kellerman’s to its former glory. For every romantic wave blast it features soundtrack from the Oscar-winning movie. If they really want to put on a show for the ages, players must discover secret dance style combinations that give them bonuses.

Nathon Gunn, CEO of Social Game Universe said: “We wanted to create a game that would not only capture the essence and aesthetic of the Dirty Dancing film, but also offer Facebook gamers an opportunity to experience it in a whole new way”.

You can also take pictures of your resort and share them with friends on Facebook and can help out friends by visiting their resort. Dirty Dancing game is a part of Lionsgate to remake the original movie, which is set to release in 2013. Besides, the success of this game will give the way for other Lionsgate games.

With more than 10.9 million fans, ‘Dirty Dancing’is 9th ranked movie on Facebook. The great sensation of the movie will definitely hitch the game among players. You can play the game by visiting http://apps.facebook.com/dirtydancinggame