Even though we're in the end of September, the leaves are still green in New York City. But Onisuka057's FarmVille farm is clearly headed for autumn with the yellows and reds of what appears to be the Autumn Ginkgo Tree, Maple Tree, Red Maple Tree, Sugar Maple Tree, and Rowan Tree. On top of that, there's also a Maple orchard below, though that seems to have been thrown in at the last minute. Maybe he can build up the bottom of his farm once Halloween comes around. But he has already dipped into the recently released Lighthouse Cove decor with several Tree Arches, Autumn Creeks, and Outdoor Picnics. So yeah, there's a lot of premium Farm Cash goods going on in this one.
Beyond the colors, the next most striking aspect of Onisuka057's farm are the train tracks bordering it, which are actually two-dimensional, but some massive fence-stacking and blue hay bales have fooled your eyes into seeing an elevated "bridge" hanging over "water." That's the sort of low-cost ingenuity farm designers love to see. But while building a bridge out of fences was a bit of improvisation on the creator's part, limited edition railroad decor did come out in FarmVille last fall as part of the Wild West package, so those are real tracks you're looking at there.
Onisuka057 FarmVille farm closeup
Finally, hidden in the top corner is a plume of smoke that's actually another limited edition special--an Old Faithful geyser eruption from the Yellowstone collection.
Have the trees changed colors in your town yet? Does the use of lots of Farm Cash items in a farm bug you? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Thứ Sáu, 30 tháng 9, 2011
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
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
Thứ Năm, 29 tháng 9, 2011
Zynga partners with Pizza Hut across CityVille, FarmVille and more
Zynga isn't a stranger to charitable donations, so it comes as no surprise that the major developer has launched another charity project across four of its Facebook games this weekend. This promotion comes by way of a partnership with Pizza Hut, in an effort to "share a slice of hope" with the World Hunger Relief campaign.
Specifically, this promotion is available through the company's RewardVille rewards program, and offers a single prize in FarmVille, CityVille, Pioneer Trail and Empires & Allies. For each donation of $5 US or more, you'll receive your choice of one of the four items. Here's a rundown of what's available:
FarmVille: Food Wagon
CityVille: Nutrition Center
Empires & Allies: Farm
Pioneer Trail: Merino Sheep
To be especially clear, you must contribute at least $5 to the cause to be eligible for a prize, and you'll only receive a single prize (of your choosing) for each donation. If you play all four of these games and want all four prizes, you'll need to make five separate donations (for a minimum of $20 in total).
This promotion is set to run from September 25 (now) and October 31, giving you plenty of time to make a few donations if you choose. Here's the link to the donation site if you'd like to help out.
Will you donate to the Pizza Hut and Zynga World Hunger Relief event? Which of the four items are you going after, or will you donate enough to earn multiple items? Sound off in the comments.
Specifically, this promotion is available through the company's RewardVille rewards program, and offers a single prize in FarmVille, CityVille, Pioneer Trail and Empires & Allies. For each donation of $5 US or more, you'll receive your choice of one of the four items. Here's a rundown of what's available:
FarmVille: Food Wagon
CityVille: Nutrition Center
Empires & Allies: Farm
Pioneer Trail: Merino Sheep
To be especially clear, you must contribute at least $5 to the cause to be eligible for a prize, and you'll only receive a single prize (of your choosing) for each donation. If you play all four of these games and want all four prizes, you'll need to make five separate donations (for a minimum of $20 in total).
This promotion is set to run from September 25 (now) and October 31, giving you plenty of time to make a few donations if you choose. Here's the link to the donation site if you'd like to help out.
Will you donate to the Pizza Hut and Zynga World Hunger Relief event? Which of the four items are you going after, or will you donate enough to earn multiple items? Sound off in the comments.
FarmVille Mystery Game (09/25/11): Dairy animals take the spotlightLast week, the FarmVille Mystery Game contained Livestock animals to go along with the Livestock Pen animal habitat that had recently been released. Well, you might be able to guess what this week's game would contain then, in response. With the launch of the Cow Pasture last week, this week's Mystery Game is full of cows and bulls that will help you earn all sorts of calves. This week's Mystery Game costs 20 Farm Cash per dart, but remember that you may end up with duplicates in the process of going for them all. There are six basic prizes available in this week's game, along with the expected bonus prize that we'll get to later. For now, here are the six animals you can win by popping balloons: * Ayrshire Cow * Black Angus Bull * Brown Swiss Cow * Canadienne Cow * Guernsey Cow * Norwegian Red Cow If you can manage to win all six of these (through either luck or pure determination - and tons of Farm Cash), you'll receive a Randall Bull as a free gift. Although, when it really comes down to it, you will have spent so many Farm Cash on these first six animals, I'm not sure if "free" is the appropriate word here. Either way, you'll have just a single week to earn these six (potentially seven dairy animals) before they go into retirement with no guarantee that they'll be re-released. Good luck if you're going for all seven! [Image Credit: FarmVille Freak] Will you take a stab at this week's Mystery Game in FarmVille? Which of the six animals would you most hope to win? Which ones did you receive? Let us know in the comments!
Last week, the FarmVille Mystery Game contained Livestock animals to go along with the Livestock Pen animal habitat that had recently been released. Well, you might be able to guess what this week's game would contain then, in response. With the launch of the Cow Pasture last week, this week's Mystery Game is full of cows and bulls that will help you earn all sorts of calves.
This week's Mystery Game costs 20 Farm Cash per dart, but remember that you may end up with duplicates in the process of going for them all. There are six basic prizes available in this week's game, along with the expected bonus prize that we'll get to later. For now, here are the six animals you can win by popping balloons:
* Ayrshire Cow
* Black Angus Bull
* Brown Swiss Cow
* Canadienne Cow
* Guernsey Cow
* Norwegian Red Cow
If you can manage to win all six of these (through either luck or pure determination - and tons of Farm Cash), you'll receive a Randall Bull as a free gift. Although, when it really comes down to it, you will have spent so many Farm Cash on these first six animals, I'm not sure if "free" is the appropriate word here.
Either way, you'll have just a single week to earn these six (potentially seven dairy animals) before they go into retirement with no guarantee that they'll be re-released. Good luck if you're going for all seven!
[Image Credit: FarmVille Freak]
Will you take a stab at this week's Mystery Game in FarmVille? Which of the six animals would you most hope to win? Which ones did you receive? Let us know in the comments!
This week's Mystery Game costs 20 Farm Cash per dart, but remember that you may end up with duplicates in the process of going for them all. There are six basic prizes available in this week's game, along with the expected bonus prize that we'll get to later. For now, here are the six animals you can win by popping balloons:
* Ayrshire Cow
* Black Angus Bull
* Brown Swiss Cow
* Canadienne Cow
* Guernsey Cow
* Norwegian Red Cow
If you can manage to win all six of these (through either luck or pure determination - and tons of Farm Cash), you'll receive a Randall Bull as a free gift. Although, when it really comes down to it, you will have spent so many Farm Cash on these first six animals, I'm not sure if "free" is the appropriate word here.
Either way, you'll have just a single week to earn these six (potentially seven dairy animals) before they go into retirement with no guarantee that they'll be re-released. Good luck if you're going for all seven!
[Image Credit: FarmVille Freak]
Will you take a stab at this week's Mystery Game in FarmVille? Which of the six animals would you most hope to win? Which ones did you receive? Let us know in the comments!
FarmVille Raffle Booth (09/25/11): Win a Lily Pond or Summer House
The FarmVille Raffle Booth has been updated once again this evening, with three prizes being those you'd expect, and two that are far better, if not entirely original. Remember, if you don't see these items in your Raffle Booth right away, it's likely due to the fact that you haven't traded in last week's Raffle Tickets, so you'll need to do that (and see if you won any of last week's prizes) before you can see these new prizes and start gathering tickets all over again. Here's the set of prizes for this week's raffle, along with your odds of winning them.
10 Special Delivery Boxes - 1:5
3 Farmhands - 1:20
5 Love Potions - 1:50
Summer House - 1:200
Lily Pond - 1:500
Remember, these odds simply mean that you'll have a 1 in 500 chance of winning the Lily Pond, as a particular example. Of course, that means you'll have a far better chance of winning the first two prizes, or even the third prize (the Love Potions) before you'll walk away with the top two prizes for this week. Still, Raffle Tickets are free, so long as your friends send them to you (they can also be purchased with Farm Cash), so there's no harm in trying and hoping to win them all!
Which of this week's prizes are you most hoping to win with your Raffle Tickets? Did you walk away with the top prize last week? Share with us in the comments!
10 Special Delivery Boxes - 1:5
3 Farmhands - 1:20
5 Love Potions - 1:50
Summer House - 1:200
Lily Pond - 1:500
Remember, these odds simply mean that you'll have a 1 in 500 chance of winning the Lily Pond, as a particular example. Of course, that means you'll have a far better chance of winning the first two prizes, or even the third prize (the Love Potions) before you'll walk away with the top two prizes for this week. Still, Raffle Tickets are free, so long as your friends send them to you (they can also be purchased with Farm Cash), so there's no harm in trying and hoping to win them all!
Which of this week's prizes are you most hoping to win with your Raffle Tickets? Did you walk away with the top prize last week? Share with us in the comments!
FarmVille Lighthouse Cove Items: American Aspen Tree, Draft Horse, Anchor Statue and more
With tonight's FarmVille update, we see a continuation of the Lighthouse Cove limited edition item theme in the game's store. As a reminder, these items may be in the new Lighthouse Cove theme (corresponding with the game's newest farm), but they can be purchased and used on other farms. As of right now, however, there's no way to get items from the Lighthouse Cove and onto other farms, so you'll have to purchase more than one of each item for each farm until the FarmVille team fixes that issue. That all being said, here's a complete look at the newly available items!
Trees
American Aspen Tree - 8 Farm Cash
European Aspen Tree - 14 Farm Cash
Unfortunately, these items don't come with sale prices like those released in the last Lighthouse Cove release, so you'll be stuck paying the full (high) price for these trees. Of course, you only ever should purchase the Level 1 tree in these pairings, with this one being the American Aspen Tree. You'll be able to earn the European Aspen Tree for free (eventually) by growing Mystery Seedlings.
Animals
Draft Horse - 26 Farm Cash
American Buff - 8 Farm Cash
The American Buff is a kind of Goose, so you'll (in theory) be able to breed it inside your Aviary animal habitats. Either way, just purchasing a single American Buff gives you access to the animal's animal mastery sign, so you'll earn it eventually (if that's what you're interested in). As for the Draft Horse, this one rewards you with 2,600 experience points for purchasing it.
Buildings
Clock Tower - 20 Farm Cash
This Clock Tower is unfortunately the only new building released this week, but that just makes it all the more special. It's an incredibly tall building, so you'll likely want to place it on the outskirts of your farm (towards the top of the screen) so that it doesn't block your view of anything resting "behind" it.
Decorations
Pumpkin Gnome - 15 Farm Cash
Anchor Statue - 40,000 coins
Sunflower Pot - 8,000 coins
Autumn Fall - 30 Farm Cash
Trawler Gnome - 18 Farm Cash
Hayride Wagon - 80,000 coins
As fall is now officially upon us, it's not surprising to see a return of items like the Autumn Fall and Hayride Wagon to the game. Just make sure to check your storage before purchasing these re-released items to make sure you're not needlessly purchasing duplicates.
While there's no word when this "theme" of items will officially end, I am starting to wonder when exactly we'll see the game switch from Lighthouse Cove to Halloween in overall theme. Regardless of when it happens, you can be sure we'll be there every step of the way to help you prepare for the beginning of FarmVille's lengthy in-game holiday season.
What do you think of this newest set of Lighthouse Cove items? Sound off in the comments.
Trees
American Aspen Tree - 8 Farm Cash
European Aspen Tree - 14 Farm Cash
Unfortunately, these items don't come with sale prices like those released in the last Lighthouse Cove release, so you'll be stuck paying the full (high) price for these trees. Of course, you only ever should purchase the Level 1 tree in these pairings, with this one being the American Aspen Tree. You'll be able to earn the European Aspen Tree for free (eventually) by growing Mystery Seedlings.
Animals
Draft Horse - 26 Farm Cash
American Buff - 8 Farm Cash
The American Buff is a kind of Goose, so you'll (in theory) be able to breed it inside your Aviary animal habitats. Either way, just purchasing a single American Buff gives you access to the animal's animal mastery sign, so you'll earn it eventually (if that's what you're interested in). As for the Draft Horse, this one rewards you with 2,600 experience points for purchasing it.
Buildings
Clock Tower - 20 Farm Cash
This Clock Tower is unfortunately the only new building released this week, but that just makes it all the more special. It's an incredibly tall building, so you'll likely want to place it on the outskirts of your farm (towards the top of the screen) so that it doesn't block your view of anything resting "behind" it.
Decorations
Pumpkin Gnome - 15 Farm Cash
Anchor Statue - 40,000 coins
Sunflower Pot - 8,000 coins
Autumn Fall - 30 Farm Cash
Trawler Gnome - 18 Farm Cash
Hayride Wagon - 80,000 coins
As fall is now officially upon us, it's not surprising to see a return of items like the Autumn Fall and Hayride Wagon to the game. Just make sure to check your storage before purchasing these re-released items to make sure you're not needlessly purchasing duplicates.
While there's no word when this "theme" of items will officially end, I am starting to wonder when exactly we'll see the game switch from Lighthouse Cove to Halloween in overall theme. Regardless of when it happens, you can be sure we'll be there every step of the way to help you prepare for the beginning of FarmVille's lengthy in-game holiday season.
What do you think of this newest set of Lighthouse Cove items? Sound off in the comments.
FarmVille farmers might endorse presidential candidates in-game
Soon, you might be able to show your red (or blue) colors on your digital lawn. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that social media consulting firm Campaign Solutions is working to bring political campaigns into Facebook games, namely Zynga's FarmVille. Michael Hendrix, a consultant for the firm working on Rep. Michele Bachmann's, R-Minn., presidential ad campaign, is at the helm.
"We'll throw out four or five different messages targeting different demographics," Hendrix told the San Francisco Chronicle. "You're trying to figure out which message will drive a higher response." After working with advertising tools created by Facebook to directly target Bachmann's (a Tea Party supporter) demographic, his next message is said to hit FarmVille later this year.
The consultant has "written software" that will allow players to campaign for their candidate of choice by visiting their friends' farms spreading the message. FarmVille players will also be able to place yard signs on their farms, showing support for their favorite candidate. "The majority of social gamers are stay-at-home moms over 38," said Hendrix to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The consultant hopes to use FarmVille "to target soccer moms again." According to the report, Hendrix is looking squarely at Republican supporters in his campaign. However, nothing is said of whether Campaign Solutions's efforts will include support for Democratic candidates.
We'd imagine that, if this campaign were to actually happen in FarmVille, it would have to appeal to both sides of the political spectrum. Otherwise, players might get the impression that Zynga itself is expressing its support one way or the other. Zynga has yet to mention any collaboration with this firm, so we've contacted the company for comment.
[Image Credit: Kevin Bondelli]
Would you campaign for your favorite presidential candidate in FarmVille? How do you feel about Zynga potentially allowing players to express their political opinions in-game? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
"We'll throw out four or five different messages targeting different demographics," Hendrix told the San Francisco Chronicle. "You're trying to figure out which message will drive a higher response." After working with advertising tools created by Facebook to directly target Bachmann's (a Tea Party supporter) demographic, his next message is said to hit FarmVille later this year.
The consultant has "written software" that will allow players to campaign for their candidate of choice by visiting their friends' farms spreading the message. FarmVille players will also be able to place yard signs on their farms, showing support for their favorite candidate. "The majority of social gamers are stay-at-home moms over 38," said Hendrix to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The consultant hopes to use FarmVille "to target soccer moms again." According to the report, Hendrix is looking squarely at Republican supporters in his campaign. However, nothing is said of whether Campaign Solutions's efforts will include support for Democratic candidates.
We'd imagine that, if this campaign were to actually happen in FarmVille, it would have to appeal to both sides of the political spectrum. Otherwise, players might get the impression that Zynga itself is expressing its support one way or the other. Zynga has yet to mention any collaboration with this firm, so we've contacted the company for comment.
[Image Credit: Kevin Bondelli]
Would you campaign for your favorite presidential candidate in FarmVille? How do you feel about Zynga potentially allowing players to express their political opinions in-game? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Thứ Hai, 26 tháng 9, 2011
f8 Developers Conference: Facebook game shares move to the Ticker
Super Mario Facebook Share
You know those annoying pop-ups Facebook displays whenever you try to share something in FarmVille or what have you? Soon, those might be a thing of the past, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook boss announced the change in brief during the f8 Facebook Developers Conference, referring to a particularly hilarious Internet meme.
This change applies to Facebook apps across the board, but, of course, we're concerned with the games. According to Zuckerberg, sharing activity will be directly and automatically published to the News Feed or the Games Ticker, depending on what exactly it is you're sharing. And with that comes the privacy concerns.
Judging from Zuckerberg's brief mention of the change, this would cause apps to inform users upon installation exactly what activity they will automatically share. This information is extremely early, but we imagine that, if developers like Zynga were to implement this change, that players would have the be informed of those changes.
Later in the presentation, Zuckerberg mentioned that games will take even more advantage of the Games Ticker, which launched earlier this summer. The Facebook chief showed an instance in which a friend played the word "TEXT" against another in Words With Friends, which was displayed on the Games Ticker. He then proceeded to mouse over that Ticker notification, and it displayed a snapshot of the game board.
Words with Friends Share
Of course, you could then jump into the game and start a match with either player. In short, the day of the game-stopping share notification will soon be over. In its place, much of the viral sharing in Facebook games seems as if it will take place in the Games Ticker. It appears that these changes have already taken place in Words With Friends.
When these specific changes will take place has yet to be announced, though we imagine much of them will be up to the developers. And if FarmVille players' reactions to when Zynga made similar changes to its flagship game is any indication, we're opinons will be ... mixed. We'll keep you posted.
What do you think of Facebook doing away with the game share notifications, automating them and moving them into the Games Ticker? Share with us in the comments. 1 Comment
You know those annoying pop-ups Facebook displays whenever you try to share something in FarmVille or what have you? Soon, those might be a thing of the past, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook boss announced the change in brief during the f8 Facebook Developers Conference, referring to a particularly hilarious Internet meme.
This change applies to Facebook apps across the board, but, of course, we're concerned with the games. According to Zuckerberg, sharing activity will be directly and automatically published to the News Feed or the Games Ticker, depending on what exactly it is you're sharing. And with that comes the privacy concerns.
Judging from Zuckerberg's brief mention of the change, this would cause apps to inform users upon installation exactly what activity they will automatically share. This information is extremely early, but we imagine that, if developers like Zynga were to implement this change, that players would have the be informed of those changes.
Later in the presentation, Zuckerberg mentioned that games will take even more advantage of the Games Ticker, which launched earlier this summer. The Facebook chief showed an instance in which a friend played the word "TEXT" against another in Words With Friends, which was displayed on the Games Ticker. He then proceeded to mouse over that Ticker notification, and it displayed a snapshot of the game board.
Words with Friends Share
Of course, you could then jump into the game and start a match with either player. In short, the day of the game-stopping share notification will soon be over. In its place, much of the viral sharing in Facebook games seems as if it will take place in the Games Ticker. It appears that these changes have already taken place in Words With Friends.
When these specific changes will take place has yet to be announced, though we imagine much of them will be up to the developers. And if FarmVille players' reactions to when Zynga made similar changes to its flagship game is any indication, we're opinons will be ... mixed. We'll keep you posted.
What do you think of Facebook doing away with the game share notifications, automating them and moving them into the Games Ticker? Share with us in the comments. 1 Comment
FarmVille Pic of the Day: Have fun getting lost in Aliciafay03's farm maze
Don't let the look of this farm fool you. Because the first thing someone would notice about Aliciafay03's FarmVille farm is that she's got "FARM VILLE" spelled out in an outline of red, orange, and blue hay bales, which I know isn't a big whoop. Hay bales as a design element have gotten pretty stale in the landscaping community. Bales are good for spelling out visual shout-outs, portraits, and the occasional fun art (care for a whopper?), but there's rarely any impressive ones anymore. But look closer at Aliciafay03's farm, and you'll realize that it's an interactive maze.
Originally designed to be a cornfield maze, Aliciafay03 was eager to debut her farm for Zynga's official Farm of the Week contest, so she released her entry before the corn had a chance to grow. This is probably better, cause a cornfield would've obscured all the clever lettering. What we know about hay bales is that there's a cheat for players to harvest crops faster by trapping your FarmVille farming avatar in hay bales -- now here's where the interactive part comes in -- so if you click one end of this farm, your avatar can't go anywhere but to run through the maze!
Have you ever played in a real cornfield maze? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
If you have an AWESOME FarmVille farm that you want to see featured on Games.com, please email a picture to editors@games.com, Include a few words about the inspiration for your design and maybe a few tips for people who need an assist.
Originally designed to be a cornfield maze, Aliciafay03 was eager to debut her farm for Zynga's official Farm of the Week contest, so she released her entry before the corn had a chance to grow. This is probably better, cause a cornfield would've obscured all the clever lettering. What we know about hay bales is that there's a cheat for players to harvest crops faster by trapping your FarmVille farming avatar in hay bales -- now here's where the interactive part comes in -- so if you click one end of this farm, your avatar can't go anywhere but to run through the maze!
Have you ever played in a real cornfield maze? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
If you have an AWESOME FarmVille farm that you want to see featured on Games.com, please email a picture to editors@games.com, Include a few words about the inspiration for your design and maybe a few tips for people who need an assist.
Thứ Bảy, 24 tháng 9, 2011
Empires & Allies Battle Blitz launches global PvP (and special prizes)
Finally, Zynga's answer to the growing legion of hardcore strategy games on Facebook, Empires & Allies, puts on the brass knuckles, so to speak. The developer has released Battle Blitz to the game, a feature that essentially allows you to invade (or be invaded by) any opposing Empire in the game. In other words, E&A finally has its own global PvP (player vs player) mode.
The feature appears on your tool bar to the bottom right of the screen with an icon that looks like two heads butting each other. Click on it to open the Battle Blitz menu. This replaces your Neighbor Bar for the time being with portraits of players that may or (most likely) may not be your Facebook friends. However, you must fight these players in succession--more on that later.
Once you click on the player, you will be taken to their Empire. Then, it's clobbering time as per usual. Click on a site to invade, and proceed to bring it to the ground. Once you successfully invade an opposing Empire, the Prize Machine will appear. Successfully invading Empires through Battle Blitz earns you Tokens to use in this feature for rewards like resources.
E&A Prize Machine
The reason you must invade Battle Blitz players in succession is that the higher you climb on the Battle Blitz ladder, the better your rewards will be from the Prize Machine. And just like normal invasions between friends, players can easily opt out of Battle Blitz by using your Immunity Tower or click on the white flag icon found to the left of the Battle Blitz bar. But look, this is war--why would you want to do that? What are you ... chicken?
[Source and Image Credit: Zynga]
Have you participated in the Battle Blitz feature yet--what do you think? Is this the feature you've been waiting for in E&A, or what else do you think the game needs? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.
The feature appears on your tool bar to the bottom right of the screen with an icon that looks like two heads butting each other. Click on it to open the Battle Blitz menu. This replaces your Neighbor Bar for the time being with portraits of players that may or (most likely) may not be your Facebook friends. However, you must fight these players in succession--more on that later.
Once you click on the player, you will be taken to their Empire. Then, it's clobbering time as per usual. Click on a site to invade, and proceed to bring it to the ground. Once you successfully invade an opposing Empire, the Prize Machine will appear. Successfully invading Empires through Battle Blitz earns you Tokens to use in this feature for rewards like resources.
E&A Prize Machine
The reason you must invade Battle Blitz players in succession is that the higher you climb on the Battle Blitz ladder, the better your rewards will be from the Prize Machine. And just like normal invasions between friends, players can easily opt out of Battle Blitz by using your Immunity Tower or click on the white flag icon found to the left of the Battle Blitz bar. But look, this is war--why would you want to do that? What are you ... chicken?
[Source and Image Credit: Zynga]
Have you participated in the Battle Blitz feature yet--what do you think? Is this the feature you've been waiting for in E&A, or what else do you think the game needs? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.
FarmVille Livestock Pen Animals re-released to fill your habitats
If you're looking for a slew of new (ok, re-released) animals to fill your new Livestock Pen in FarmVille, you'll want to check out the game's store within the next five days, as you can choose from a selection of re-released pigs, sheep and goats for a limited time. Here's the full lineup of re-released animals, along with their prices for your reference.
Black Pied Pig - 18 Farm Cash
Alpine Goat - 14 Farm Cash
Latxa Sheep - 20 Farm Cash
Biker Goat - 14 Farm Cash
Fame Sheep - 20 Farm Cash
Chamois Goat - 14 Farm Cash
Island Pig - 16 Farm Cash
Devon Pig - 16 Farm Cash
Again, these animals have been released previously; for instance, the Black Pied Pig was released previously in the German event in 2010 and then again in the Birthday Classics even earlier this year. You'll want to make sure you don't already have these animals on your farm before shelling out the Farm Cash, so you don't run into unnecessary duplicates. Just make sure you shop fast - these little fellas (and ladies) won't be around forever.
Are you going to purchase any of these animals during their brief re-release in the store, or do you already have the best ones on your farm? Sound off in the comments.
Black Pied Pig - 18 Farm Cash
Alpine Goat - 14 Farm Cash
Latxa Sheep - 20 Farm Cash
Biker Goat - 14 Farm Cash
Fame Sheep - 20 Farm Cash
Chamois Goat - 14 Farm Cash
Island Pig - 16 Farm Cash
Devon Pig - 16 Farm Cash
Again, these animals have been released previously; for instance, the Black Pied Pig was released previously in the German event in 2010 and then again in the Birthday Classics even earlier this year. You'll want to make sure you don't already have these animals on your farm before shelling out the Farm Cash, so you don't run into unnecessary duplicates. Just make sure you shop fast - these little fellas (and ladies) won't be around forever.
Are you going to purchase any of these animals during their brief re-release in the store, or do you already have the best ones on your farm? Sound off in the comments.
FarmVille Livestock Mystery Crate: What's inside?
As part of Zynga's attempt to make people care about the Livestock Pen in FarmVille, which, admittedly is a little hard (don't we already have dedicated storage buildings for both pigs and sheep?), it has released a Livestock Mystery Crate in the game's store containing six animals that can be stored inside your new pen. Now, the Livestock Pen can also store animals like goats or llamas, but unfortunately, only two items of these six re-released animals isn't some form of Pig or Sheep. Here's a full list so you see what I mean:
Alpaca
Babydoll Sheep
Miniature Goat
Teacup Pig
Welsh Mountain Sheep
White Ram
Each of these crates costs 20 Farm Cash, and they can be purchased from within the Decorations tab of the marketplace, instead of the Animals tab like you might expect. Remember, while you are guaranteed to receive one of these animals when you purchase a crate, you aren't guaranteed that you won't receive duplicates the next time you purchase one. That being the case, you'll want to really make sure you don't already have some of these animals already on your land before making a purchase, to ward off any unneeded extras. If you do want one of these crates, shop fast, as they'll only be around for five days.
Do you already have all of the animals inside the Livestock Mystery Crate, or will you purchase some for your farm this week? Which of these animals are you hoping to find inside? Let us know in the comments.
Alpaca
Babydoll Sheep
Miniature Goat
Teacup Pig
Welsh Mountain Sheep
White Ram
Each of these crates costs 20 Farm Cash, and they can be purchased from within the Decorations tab of the marketplace, instead of the Animals tab like you might expect. Remember, while you are guaranteed to receive one of these animals when you purchase a crate, you aren't guaranteed that you won't receive duplicates the next time you purchase one. That being the case, you'll want to really make sure you don't already have some of these animals already on your land before making a purchase, to ward off any unneeded extras. If you do want one of these crates, shop fast, as they'll only be around for five days.
Do you already have all of the animals inside the Livestock Mystery Crate, or will you purchase some for your farm this week? Which of these animals are you hoping to find inside? Let us know in the comments.
FarmVille: New Craftshop recipes use Lighthouse Cove crops
If you thought your Lighthouse Cove crops in FarmVille were only going to be good for completing goals or earning new mastery signs, think again. Zynga has released a series of new Craftshop recipes using these new crops which will see you combining "old" crops with these new bushels. Here's a complete rundown of the new crops so you know exactly what to grow (and what to stock up on) should you wish to craft any of these items in bulk.
Bright Yellow Tractor: 4 Clam, 10 Tarragon and 6 Elderberry Bushels
Mechanic Scarecrow: 3 Hay Bushels, 3 Apple Wood Baskets and 4 Wheat Bushels
Sheep Topiary: 4 Tarragon Bushels, 2 Wool Bundles and 5 Green Tea Bushels
Apple Red Seeder: 4 Seafood, 10 Dill and 6 Onion Bushels
Bonsai: 3 Kennebec Potato, 2 Cherry and 4 Basil Bushels
Tree House: 4 Lady Slipper Bushels, 2 Apple Wood Baskets and 4 Chandler Blueberry Bushels
Apple Red Harvester: 4 Lobster, 10 Daylily and 6 Basil Bushels
Post Office: 10 Cove Cranberry Bushels, 4 Poplar Wood Baskets and 6 Cauliflower Bushels
Evergreen Train: 10 Red Clover Bushels, 4 Poplar Wood Baskets and 6 Hay Bushels
Keep in mind, farmers, that if you're new to crafting these items, you won't be able to craft many of them until you earn mastery stars by crafting other things. Luckily, ones like the Bright Yellow Tractor and Sheep Topiary recipes are open by default, so at least you can earn some mastery stars while completing these new recipes. Also, keep track of how long each of these recipes take to complete, as some of them aren't exactly fast (the Harvester, for instance).
We'll make sure to let you know if additional Craftshop recipes are released in the future, along with what you'll take to actually craft them. Keep checking back with us for more.
What do you think of these new Craftshop recipes? Which items would you like to have more of on your farm? Sound off in the comments.
Bright Yellow Tractor: 4 Clam, 10 Tarragon and 6 Elderberry Bushels
Mechanic Scarecrow: 3 Hay Bushels, 3 Apple Wood Baskets and 4 Wheat Bushels
Sheep Topiary: 4 Tarragon Bushels, 2 Wool Bundles and 5 Green Tea Bushels
Apple Red Seeder: 4 Seafood, 10 Dill and 6 Onion Bushels
Bonsai: 3 Kennebec Potato, 2 Cherry and 4 Basil Bushels
Tree House: 4 Lady Slipper Bushels, 2 Apple Wood Baskets and 4 Chandler Blueberry Bushels
Apple Red Harvester: 4 Lobster, 10 Daylily and 6 Basil Bushels
Post Office: 10 Cove Cranberry Bushels, 4 Poplar Wood Baskets and 6 Cauliflower Bushels
Evergreen Train: 10 Red Clover Bushels, 4 Poplar Wood Baskets and 6 Hay Bushels
Keep in mind, farmers, that if you're new to crafting these items, you won't be able to craft many of them until you earn mastery stars by crafting other things. Luckily, ones like the Bright Yellow Tractor and Sheep Topiary recipes are open by default, so at least you can earn some mastery stars while completing these new recipes. Also, keep track of how long each of these recipes take to complete, as some of them aren't exactly fast (the Harvester, for instance).
We'll make sure to let you know if additional Craftshop recipes are released in the future, along with what you'll take to actually craft them. Keep checking back with us for more.
What do you think of these new Craftshop recipes? Which items would you like to have more of on your farm? Sound off in the comments.
Sims Social survey lets you sound off on item prices, favorite features and more
It's that time folks - time to let your collective voices be heard! EA wants to know how much fun (or not) you're having with the Sims Social on Facebook, and they've released a fairly long survey to help you tell them. This survey contains all sorts of questions, ranging from the basics of how often you play the game, to allowing you to rate your opinion on item pricing (are they too cheap? too expensive?) and what some of your favorite features are in the game.
Of course, the point of all of this is to gather enough opinions to actually sway the way the game develops in the future. Hopefully, with questions dealing with how much we like to "build" items with parts (bookcases, double beds, etc.), and the option to say that you don't like it at all, we may actually see a lessening in those kinds of items, if enough users agree. You can even rank various gameplay features (decorating your house, visiting friends, customizing your Sim, etc.) in the order that you like them. In this way, perhaps we'll see more focus being placed on the most (overall) liked feature, and you'll be able to say you helped to make that happen.
Unfortunately, this isn't the kind of survey that will allow you to give your opinion on future item sets, but there are plenty of blank text boxes for you to say exactly what you want to the developers in a place that you know they'll see it. Again, this survey is prety lengthy (when compared to other Facebook game surveys anyway), so you'll want to make sure you have around 5-10 minutes to set aside to take it.
We've taken this survey as well, and if we start to notice any gameplay changes arising because of options listed here, we'll make sure to let you know. In the meantime, head over to this link right here to take the survey for yourself.
Of course, the point of all of this is to gather enough opinions to actually sway the way the game develops in the future. Hopefully, with questions dealing with how much we like to "build" items with parts (bookcases, double beds, etc.), and the option to say that you don't like it at all, we may actually see a lessening in those kinds of items, if enough users agree. You can even rank various gameplay features (decorating your house, visiting friends, customizing your Sim, etc.) in the order that you like them. In this way, perhaps we'll see more focus being placed on the most (overall) liked feature, and you'll be able to say you helped to make that happen.
Unfortunately, this isn't the kind of survey that will allow you to give your opinion on future item sets, but there are plenty of blank text boxes for you to say exactly what you want to the developers in a place that you know they'll see it. Again, this survey is prety lengthy (when compared to other Facebook game surveys anyway), so you'll want to make sure you have around 5-10 minutes to set aside to take it.
We've taken this survey as well, and if we start to notice any gameplay changes arising because of options listed here, we'll make sure to let you know. In the meantime, head over to this link right here to take the survey for yourself.
Thứ Năm, 22 tháng 9, 2011
Kinect Sports: Season Two ready to win big this holiday season
Last year's enjoyable launch game, Kinect Sports, was a critically acclaimed showpiece for Microsoft's motion sensing camera. It was so good, that consumers snatched up over three million copies, prompting the billion dollar company to green light a sequel.
The result, Kinect Sports: Season Two, appears to be every bit as good as its predecessor.
Rare's latest features six new sports to enjoy, each one more addictive than the last.
The game's most impressive activity, Darts, almost perfectly mimics the real deal, minus the occasional finger prick and the numerous holes in the wall.
Players stand in front of their televisions, hold an imaginary dart and watch as an on-screen hand appears. From there, it's as simple as making a throwing motion to send that dart to its intended location.
Matches support up to four players offline and one-versus-one via Xbox Live. From there, everyone competes to reduce their individual scores from 501 to zero.
More interesting, though, is Pop Darts, one of Season Two's three Challenge Play Modes that let users send high scores to friends via Xbox Live. Here, the object is to pop as many balloons as possible before time expires, where destroying said balloons adds precious seconds to the clock.
Another sport, Skiing, provides a more intense workout, as players pull into a tuck position and lean right or left to pass through gates. Similarly, they can fire up this event's Challenge Mode, Downhill Dodge, and tackle progressively difficult courses, jumping and ducking over obstacles to outscore their opponents.
Baseball, meanwhile, has a Challenge Mode all its own in the form of Homerun Hero, allowing gamers to blast pitches out of the park. On top of that, they can compete against the computer/other players in a more traditional three-inning game.
As for Golf, players should expect to retire their Wii Remotes, as the Kinect Sports: Season Two iteration is without question superior. Up to four players can hit the links, choosing between different clubs and taking practice swings before sending their golf balls into orbit.
The coolest feature is the ability to place one's hand over his or her eyes, prompting the game to offer a bird's eye view of the course.
Rare also put Nintendo's Wii Tennis to shame with a more advanced offering, where wannabe stars step into balls (on offense and defense) before hitting them with imaginary rackets, instead of just standing still the whole time.
Finally, there's American football. Although we don't expect it to replace Electronic Arts' Madden NFL anytime soon, Rare has done a great job capturing the thrill of being a quarterback and throwing a long bomb to a wide open receiver, or running in place to take the ball 100 yards to pay dirt. Quarters end too quickly, but at the very least, it's cool kicking field goals and dodging defensemen.
To compliment this impressive package, Rare included more mascots as well as 300 plus voice commands that put further distance between players and those plastic controllers. In fact, they can control much of the experience without pressing a single button.
Although there's still work to do (we encountered a couple minor glitches), Kinect Sports: Season Two should not only compliment its prequel, but surpass it. Most importantly, the game's a lot of fun, and further proof that Microsoft's Kinect has a bright future.
Gallery: Kinect Sports: Season Two (Xbox 360)
The result, Kinect Sports: Season Two, appears to be every bit as good as its predecessor.
Rare's latest features six new sports to enjoy, each one more addictive than the last.
The game's most impressive activity, Darts, almost perfectly mimics the real deal, minus the occasional finger prick and the numerous holes in the wall.
Players stand in front of their televisions, hold an imaginary dart and watch as an on-screen hand appears. From there, it's as simple as making a throwing motion to send that dart to its intended location.
Matches support up to four players offline and one-versus-one via Xbox Live. From there, everyone competes to reduce their individual scores from 501 to zero.
More interesting, though, is Pop Darts, one of Season Two's three Challenge Play Modes that let users send high scores to friends via Xbox Live. Here, the object is to pop as many balloons as possible before time expires, where destroying said balloons adds precious seconds to the clock.
Another sport, Skiing, provides a more intense workout, as players pull into a tuck position and lean right or left to pass through gates. Similarly, they can fire up this event's Challenge Mode, Downhill Dodge, and tackle progressively difficult courses, jumping and ducking over obstacles to outscore their opponents.
Baseball, meanwhile, has a Challenge Mode all its own in the form of Homerun Hero, allowing gamers to blast pitches out of the park. On top of that, they can compete against the computer/other players in a more traditional three-inning game.
As for Golf, players should expect to retire their Wii Remotes, as the Kinect Sports: Season Two iteration is without question superior. Up to four players can hit the links, choosing between different clubs and taking practice swings before sending their golf balls into orbit.
The coolest feature is the ability to place one's hand over his or her eyes, prompting the game to offer a bird's eye view of the course.
Rare also put Nintendo's Wii Tennis to shame with a more advanced offering, where wannabe stars step into balls (on offense and defense) before hitting them with imaginary rackets, instead of just standing still the whole time.
Finally, there's American football. Although we don't expect it to replace Electronic Arts' Madden NFL anytime soon, Rare has done a great job capturing the thrill of being a quarterback and throwing a long bomb to a wide open receiver, or running in place to take the ball 100 yards to pay dirt. Quarters end too quickly, but at the very least, it's cool kicking field goals and dodging defensemen.
To compliment this impressive package, Rare included more mascots as well as 300 plus voice commands that put further distance between players and those plastic controllers. In fact, they can control much of the experience without pressing a single button.
Although there's still work to do (we encountered a couple minor glitches), Kinect Sports: Season Two should not only compliment its prequel, but surpass it. Most importantly, the game's a lot of fun, and further proof that Microsoft's Kinect has a bright future.
Gallery: Kinect Sports: Season Two (Xbox 360)
Kabam on Edgeworld's release and what battles lie ahead [Interview]
Edgeworld
Even at first glance of its war-torn landscape filled with futuristic buildings blasted to bits by the laser weapons of alien and mechanized armies, it's clear that Edgeworld is San Francisco-based developer Kabam's most ambitious project yet. Formerly known as Watercooler, the studio and publisher is filled with fans of traditional strategy PC games. Even CEO Kevin Chou was a world-ranked StarCraft player back in the day.
Inspired by sci-fi staples like Star Wars, Star Trek and even the Halo series of shooter games, Edgeworld is the culmination of Kabam's ongoing mission to bring a true 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) game experience to Facebook. Since the game's "open beta" release in August, the team is hard at work to make that vision a reality as it claims to have in previous games. (As of this writing, the game enjoys over 858,000 monthly players, according to AppData.)
We sat down with Edgeworld Producer James Holloway recently to hear his thoughts on the game post-release, and what plans he and the rest of the Kabam team have for the strategy game in the future.
Edgeworld in action
Now that Edgeworld has released, what are your knee-jerk reactions? What do you love about the game at release, and what would you like to fix most?
We're really pleased with the release so far. We're seeing a lot of people come back to play the game--it has a really high retention. A lot of people are joining Alliances and engaging with each other. In every sector, I see chat is very active. But this is just the beginning.
The biggest thing that I think we're missing is that our Alliance feature is pretty lean right now. The thing that we would like to emphasize more is a cooperative play of the game. I think we have just the basics right now. The new Maps feature is going to integrate very tightly with alliances--you work together [with Alliances] to conquer territory.
We have about four unique turrets and nine units, and that's just the beginning. We're working on a new unit and a new turret that we're really excited about, and those are going to launch in the next month. We'll be introducing higher levels of our buildings. So, there's a lot more content that we need to create, and we're just getting started.
What's the most interesting thing you've seen players do in the game since release--something that never happened during testing?
One thing that we sort of didn't anticipate was that some Alliances and players are attacking each other for resources. At one point we didn't have inter-Alliance resource sharing, so right now you can actually send resources to other players to help them out. So, we didn't have that feature [originally].
But what people were doing was working around that by setting up their Command Centers, which are what contain your resources, outside the perimeter of their turrets. [Players would then] leave their Alliance, cook it, and then attack them and take their resources. So, they were doing resource transfers before the feature was even allowed.
Do you have any interesting or helpful gameplay tips for the players to get ahead in Edgeworld?
Certainly! If you're just starting out, we give every player two days of starter protection wherein no other player can attack you. That's a free few days of protection, and use that time wisely to build up your base and experiment with different configurations. Allow the Factions to attack your base. There's a lot of experimentation with the units.
Players are posting on the forums, talking with each other and also within their Alliances about the best combinations of units to deploy when attacking a base. There are a lot of combinations of tanks and DPS [damage per second] units you can deploy. Rhinos, or other types that have a lot of hit points, can take a lot of fire, and then you can deploy units with longer range or higher DPS behind them.
Edgeworld blast
Depending on what your goals are--like, you might want as many resources as possible--you might want to deploy the Raiders. The Rhinos draw fire from the turrets, while the Spectres sit outside and fire away at the turrets. You really want to upgrade your Spectres to give them a longer range.
We have two different types of units in the game right now: infantry units and mechanized units. It's not necessarily that the mechs are more powerful than the infantry--we're still constantly balancing the game to make sure every unit has its role.
Another thing is that the Warp Gates are really important as far as attacking goes. As you upgrade those, you increase their capacity so that you can actually deploy more units on the ground [at once]. As you unlock more units, the more powerful units will start to consume more of the [Warp Gates'] bandwidth, so you want to upgrade those to deploy the biggest army that you can.
Thanks for talking with us (and for the tips), James.
Territories Could Blow Alliance Play Wide Open
During our chat, Holloway had something brand new to show coming soon to Edgeworld. (Though, it's still in the concept phase, so weren't provided images.) It's a feature tentatively known as "Territories," and the game's producer hopes that it will expand Alliance play into something even more meaningful.
"We haven't seen a past feature like this that I can think of, and we all play a lot of games," Holloway gushes about what he's about to show me. "We're trying to make this a deeper, more robust 4X or empires building game."
As it relates to the game's story, many of the Galactic Union's outposts have been abandoned during the war for Cerulea IV, and they're ripe for the taking. The Territories feature will provide you with a map of the entire planet Cerulea IV, with your home base appearing in the center as a star. Your home base will be surrounded by either hostile, Alliance or neutral territories marked in red, green or simply displayed as abandoned outposts, respectively.
Edgeworld concept art
It's up to you to work with your Alliance to invade either hostile (controlled by enemy Alliances) or neutral outposts, and keep them under your control for as long as possible to reap their benefits, which weren't revealed to us. (Our best guess is additional resources to keep your home bases going.) Players will individually attack outposts just as they would enemy bases, and can call on their Alliance for help asynchronously.
However, players cannot build on these outposts, only bolster their existing defense turrets with their own resources to maintain control of the benefits they provide. This will make it more difficult for enemies to invade. Speaking of invading, players can only enter outposts that are adjacent to their own base or controlled outposts. Eventually, we see the Territories feature becoming a constant struggle between opposing Alliances, and hopefully something for us to work toward.
"This is very different from our other strategy games," Holloway says. "In most cases you individually own tiles on the map, but in this case you kind of need an Alliance to own territory. This is something we're really excited about. We're still working on it and prototyping it, but hopefully we'll have something out in the next four weeks."
[Image Credit: Kabam]
What are you impressions of Edgeworld so far? Are you excited about the upcoming Territories feature coming to the game, and what else do you hope to see from developers like Kabam? Sound off in the comments. 3 Comments
Even at first glance of its war-torn landscape filled with futuristic buildings blasted to bits by the laser weapons of alien and mechanized armies, it's clear that Edgeworld is San Francisco-based developer Kabam's most ambitious project yet. Formerly known as Watercooler, the studio and publisher is filled with fans of traditional strategy PC games. Even CEO Kevin Chou was a world-ranked StarCraft player back in the day.
Inspired by sci-fi staples like Star Wars, Star Trek and even the Halo series of shooter games, Edgeworld is the culmination of Kabam's ongoing mission to bring a true 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) game experience to Facebook. Since the game's "open beta" release in August, the team is hard at work to make that vision a reality as it claims to have in previous games. (As of this writing, the game enjoys over 858,000 monthly players, according to AppData.)
We sat down with Edgeworld Producer James Holloway recently to hear his thoughts on the game post-release, and what plans he and the rest of the Kabam team have for the strategy game in the future.
Edgeworld in action
Now that Edgeworld has released, what are your knee-jerk reactions? What do you love about the game at release, and what would you like to fix most?
We're really pleased with the release so far. We're seeing a lot of people come back to play the game--it has a really high retention. A lot of people are joining Alliances and engaging with each other. In every sector, I see chat is very active. But this is just the beginning.
The biggest thing that I think we're missing is that our Alliance feature is pretty lean right now. The thing that we would like to emphasize more is a cooperative play of the game. I think we have just the basics right now. The new Maps feature is going to integrate very tightly with alliances--you work together [with Alliances] to conquer territory.
We have about four unique turrets and nine units, and that's just the beginning. We're working on a new unit and a new turret that we're really excited about, and those are going to launch in the next month. We'll be introducing higher levels of our buildings. So, there's a lot more content that we need to create, and we're just getting started.
What's the most interesting thing you've seen players do in the game since release--something that never happened during testing?
One thing that we sort of didn't anticipate was that some Alliances and players are attacking each other for resources. At one point we didn't have inter-Alliance resource sharing, so right now you can actually send resources to other players to help them out. So, we didn't have that feature [originally].
But what people were doing was working around that by setting up their Command Centers, which are what contain your resources, outside the perimeter of their turrets. [Players would then] leave their Alliance, cook it, and then attack them and take their resources. So, they were doing resource transfers before the feature was even allowed.
Do you have any interesting or helpful gameplay tips for the players to get ahead in Edgeworld?
Certainly! If you're just starting out, we give every player two days of starter protection wherein no other player can attack you. That's a free few days of protection, and use that time wisely to build up your base and experiment with different configurations. Allow the Factions to attack your base. There's a lot of experimentation with the units.
Players are posting on the forums, talking with each other and also within their Alliances about the best combinations of units to deploy when attacking a base. There are a lot of combinations of tanks and DPS [damage per second] units you can deploy. Rhinos, or other types that have a lot of hit points, can take a lot of fire, and then you can deploy units with longer range or higher DPS behind them.
Edgeworld blast
Depending on what your goals are--like, you might want as many resources as possible--you might want to deploy the Raiders. The Rhinos draw fire from the turrets, while the Spectres sit outside and fire away at the turrets. You really want to upgrade your Spectres to give them a longer range.
We have two different types of units in the game right now: infantry units and mechanized units. It's not necessarily that the mechs are more powerful than the infantry--we're still constantly balancing the game to make sure every unit has its role.
Another thing is that the Warp Gates are really important as far as attacking goes. As you upgrade those, you increase their capacity so that you can actually deploy more units on the ground [at once]. As you unlock more units, the more powerful units will start to consume more of the [Warp Gates'] bandwidth, so you want to upgrade those to deploy the biggest army that you can.
Thanks for talking with us (and for the tips), James.
Territories Could Blow Alliance Play Wide Open
During our chat, Holloway had something brand new to show coming soon to Edgeworld. (Though, it's still in the concept phase, so weren't provided images.) It's a feature tentatively known as "Territories," and the game's producer hopes that it will expand Alliance play into something even more meaningful.
"We haven't seen a past feature like this that I can think of, and we all play a lot of games," Holloway gushes about what he's about to show me. "We're trying to make this a deeper, more robust 4X or empires building game."
As it relates to the game's story, many of the Galactic Union's outposts have been abandoned during the war for Cerulea IV, and they're ripe for the taking. The Territories feature will provide you with a map of the entire planet Cerulea IV, with your home base appearing in the center as a star. Your home base will be surrounded by either hostile, Alliance or neutral territories marked in red, green or simply displayed as abandoned outposts, respectively.
Edgeworld concept art
It's up to you to work with your Alliance to invade either hostile (controlled by enemy Alliances) or neutral outposts, and keep them under your control for as long as possible to reap their benefits, which weren't revealed to us. (Our best guess is additional resources to keep your home bases going.) Players will individually attack outposts just as they would enemy bases, and can call on their Alliance for help asynchronously.
However, players cannot build on these outposts, only bolster their existing defense turrets with their own resources to maintain control of the benefits they provide. This will make it more difficult for enemies to invade. Speaking of invading, players can only enter outposts that are adjacent to their own base or controlled outposts. Eventually, we see the Territories feature becoming a constant struggle between opposing Alliances, and hopefully something for us to work toward.
"This is very different from our other strategy games," Holloway says. "In most cases you individually own tiles on the map, but in this case you kind of need an Alliance to own territory. This is something we're really excited about. We're still working on it and prototyping it, but hopefully we'll have something out in the next four weeks."
[Image Credit: Kabam]
What are you impressions of Edgeworld so far? Are you excited about the upcoming Territories feature coming to the game, and what else do you hope to see from developers like Kabam? Sound off in the comments. 3 Comments
CityVille Doggie Daycare Upgrades: Everything you need to know
CityVille Doggie Daycare Upgrades
Sometimes, we forget about the citizens of CityVille that aren't the people. And that's OK, because they don't really matter Zynga looks to remind us with the next big Community Building upgrade: the Doggie Daycare. This Community Building, released back in April, will grant you a boost in population and don a palette swap once upgraded.
However, you must be at least Level 18 to access the new Doggie Daycare. Once you reach that point, you'll notice that the building has a green arrow floating above it. Click on the Doggie Daycare to open its upgrade page. Here are all the items you'll need to upgrade the Doggie Daycare:
Ugrade Doggie Daycare
Doggie Daycare UpgradedUnfortunately, it looks like you'll have to ask you friends for each and every one of these items. Zynga claims you can also post the requests to your News Feed. Once you receive one of each item, we imagine you can also post the items to your Wish List. Once you acquire all 25 items, you can click "Finish Building" to boost the Doggie Daycare's allowed population to 540.
For the Level 3 Doggie Daycare, you'll need to ask for the same items using the same process. But this time, you will need eight of each item for a total of 40. This will boost the building's total allowed population to 1,080, and give it a fresh look. Now, you can forget all about the puppies of CityVille all over again--we kid ... sort of. Poor guys.
[Source and Image Credit: Zynga]
Check out the rest of our CityVille Cheats & Tips right here.
Have you started upgrading the Doggie Daycare yet? What do you think of how Zynga handles building upgrades in CityVille? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Sometimes, we forget about the citizens of CityVille that aren't the people. And that's OK, because they don't really matter Zynga looks to remind us with the next big Community Building upgrade: the Doggie Daycare. This Community Building, released back in April, will grant you a boost in population and don a palette swap once upgraded.
However, you must be at least Level 18 to access the new Doggie Daycare. Once you reach that point, you'll notice that the building has a green arrow floating above it. Click on the Doggie Daycare to open its upgrade page. Here are all the items you'll need to upgrade the Doggie Daycare:
Ugrade Doggie Daycare
Doggie Daycare UpgradedUnfortunately, it looks like you'll have to ask you friends for each and every one of these items. Zynga claims you can also post the requests to your News Feed. Once you receive one of each item, we imagine you can also post the items to your Wish List. Once you acquire all 25 items, you can click "Finish Building" to boost the Doggie Daycare's allowed population to 540.
For the Level 3 Doggie Daycare, you'll need to ask for the same items using the same process. But this time, you will need eight of each item for a total of 40. This will boost the building's total allowed population to 1,080, and give it a fresh look. Now, you can forget all about the puppies of CityVille all over again--we kid ... sort of. Poor guys.
[Source and Image Credit: Zynga]
Check out the rest of our CityVille Cheats & Tips right here.
Have you started upgrading the Doggie Daycare yet? What do you think of how Zynga handles building upgrades in CityVille? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Adventure World Safari Showdown Expedition: Everything you need to know
By the time you reach Level 10 in Adventure World, you will have unlocked the first five Expeditions in the game, with this fifth Expedition being called Safari Showdown. This one comes with the tagline: "Face off with Queen Coral and move her nest to safety." While that may not do much to describe exactly what you'll be facing, you are told a few details about what to expect from the technical side of the things.
You'll need to have 450 Supplies to spare, along with two units each of Food, Fuel and Water. In terms of a time limit, you're limited to finishing this entire Expedition in a single 24 hour period. Your maximum rewards are 2,350 coins and 3 Food, on top of the XP and coins (among other items) you'll earn from simply completing the Quests therein. Here's a complete guide to finishing Safari Showdown from start to finish.
Stop Queen Coral!
Defeat the Queen Coral
Get Queen Coral's Eggs and Nest
Place Queen Coral's Eggs and Nest across the river
Apparently, a mama coral snake has formed a nest too close to a small village, and she's scaring the children. In this Expedition, your overall goal is to eliminate her from the area and move her next across the river where it can remain undisturbed and the children can go back to playing. Queen Coral's next is located in a fairly secure location, surrounded by shrubs and thorns. There are traps between you and she, and the snake itself has 12 hit points. Once you defeat the snake, you'll see the nest sitting nearby. It has three "points," so you'll need to eliminate those before you can pick it up. Finally, the bridge across the river is blocked by a boulder, requiring dynamite to remove. Dynamite costs 1,000 coins to purchase in the Tool Shop back in your Base Camp.
Find Them a New Home
Collect 5 Bundles of Grass
Plant 5 Bundles of Grass around the snake's new home
Since your ultimate goal is to remove the threat to the village by moving the nest across the river, you'll need to create a new home for the Queen Coral's nest by collecting and planting Bundles of Grass on this map. The bundles of grass can easily be mistaken for shrubs, so make sure to look for them at every corner. Meanwhile, the Bundles of Grass can be planted on the far side of the river, in the area clearly set aside as their new home.
Build Them a Sanctuary!
Collect 10 Cotton
Collect 4 Hardened Vines
Use 10 Soils Piles to build a fence around the snakes' new home
Of course, you're going to "remove" the snake and nest as harmlessly as possible, so you'll need to first make sure that the new home for these snakes is as comfortable as possible. After all, you wouldn't want the snakes to get bored and head back into the village, now would you? Vines themselves come from clearing out thorns (you tend to get around four hardened vines per thorn removed), while cotton is found in the far right side of the map, growing in a make-shift farm setup (apparently) by the villagers. I'm sure they won't mind you taking some of that cotton to build this new home, so long as it means they're free of the snakes. Finally, the Soil Piles are found around the outside edge of the marked area above. Here are some pictures of what you're looking for in this quest.
Once you finish these three tasks, you will have finished the fifth Expedition in Adventure World, and will be one step closer to fame and fortune within the Adventure Society. Good luck!
Check out the rest of our Adventure World Cheats & Tips right here.
What did you think of this Expedition? Which of the game's Expeditions has been your favorite thus far? Sound off in the comments.
You'll need to have 450 Supplies to spare, along with two units each of Food, Fuel and Water. In terms of a time limit, you're limited to finishing this entire Expedition in a single 24 hour period. Your maximum rewards are 2,350 coins and 3 Food, on top of the XP and coins (among other items) you'll earn from simply completing the Quests therein. Here's a complete guide to finishing Safari Showdown from start to finish.
Stop Queen Coral!
Defeat the Queen Coral
Get Queen Coral's Eggs and Nest
Place Queen Coral's Eggs and Nest across the river
Apparently, a mama coral snake has formed a nest too close to a small village, and she's scaring the children. In this Expedition, your overall goal is to eliminate her from the area and move her next across the river where it can remain undisturbed and the children can go back to playing. Queen Coral's next is located in a fairly secure location, surrounded by shrubs and thorns. There are traps between you and she, and the snake itself has 12 hit points. Once you defeat the snake, you'll see the nest sitting nearby. It has three "points," so you'll need to eliminate those before you can pick it up. Finally, the bridge across the river is blocked by a boulder, requiring dynamite to remove. Dynamite costs 1,000 coins to purchase in the Tool Shop back in your Base Camp.
Find Them a New Home
Collect 5 Bundles of Grass
Plant 5 Bundles of Grass around the snake's new home
Since your ultimate goal is to remove the threat to the village by moving the nest across the river, you'll need to create a new home for the Queen Coral's nest by collecting and planting Bundles of Grass on this map. The bundles of grass can easily be mistaken for shrubs, so make sure to look for them at every corner. Meanwhile, the Bundles of Grass can be planted on the far side of the river, in the area clearly set aside as their new home.
Build Them a Sanctuary!
Collect 10 Cotton
Collect 4 Hardened Vines
Use 10 Soils Piles to build a fence around the snakes' new home
Of course, you're going to "remove" the snake and nest as harmlessly as possible, so you'll need to first make sure that the new home for these snakes is as comfortable as possible. After all, you wouldn't want the snakes to get bored and head back into the village, now would you? Vines themselves come from clearing out thorns (you tend to get around four hardened vines per thorn removed), while cotton is found in the far right side of the map, growing in a make-shift farm setup (apparently) by the villagers. I'm sure they won't mind you taking some of that cotton to build this new home, so long as it means they're free of the snakes. Finally, the Soil Piles are found around the outside edge of the marked area above. Here are some pictures of what you're looking for in this quest.
Once you finish these three tasks, you will have finished the fifth Expedition in Adventure World, and will be one step closer to fame and fortune within the Adventure Society. Good luck!
Check out the rest of our Adventure World Cheats & Tips right here.
What did you think of this Expedition? Which of the game's Expeditions has been your favorite thus far? Sound off in the comments.
Zynga, Playdom, EA and Bioware vets cause a Rumble with new freemium studio
While many a story has come to light recently, detailing high-level game designers jumping ship to Zynga, here's one where a fairly big gun under the big Z's umbrella has left for new pastures. To be specific, John Yoo, lead designer on CityVille, is one of a few industry veterans that have joined with Greg Richardson [pictured], of former BioWare/Pandemic fame, in the creation of a new freemium (free-to-play) game studio by the name of Rumble.
After speaking with Rick Thompson, the founder of another major social games company - Playdom - the two partnered to form Rumble. Rounding out this new package are former EA employees Mark Spenner and David O'Connor. With these big names in their camp, Richardson's goal with Rumble is to create games that are free to play (supported with paid add-ons), but lie somewhere in between the expensive world of high-end PC games and the extremely casual games represented by many Facebook titles.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Richardson has faith that this middle ground holds a lot of merit. "We saw this third hill, and we think it's the biggest of the three hills," he says. This isn't to say, though, that Facebook games are out of the picture, as Richardson confirmed that they will use the social service, but will also focus on mobile devices and PCs through the browser.
In addition to developing its own games, Rumble will publish other developer's titles. While no specific details were announced about any of Rumble's specific games (we can expect the first sometime early next year), Richardson did list many of the company's areas of inspiration, which lie anywhere from Zelda and Super Smash Bros. to Diablo and Civilization. Regardless of the game in question, he says that Rumble looks to avoid overly complex gameplay. With this many areas of inspiration, we're definitely interested in seeing what Rumble comes up with, but for now - the possibilities are endless.
Are you excited in trying out this apparent middle-ground of freemium games that aren't too challenging, but aren't too basic either? Sound off in the comments.
After speaking with Rick Thompson, the founder of another major social games company - Playdom - the two partnered to form Rumble. Rounding out this new package are former EA employees Mark Spenner and David O'Connor. With these big names in their camp, Richardson's goal with Rumble is to create games that are free to play (supported with paid add-ons), but lie somewhere in between the expensive world of high-end PC games and the extremely casual games represented by many Facebook titles.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Richardson has faith that this middle ground holds a lot of merit. "We saw this third hill, and we think it's the biggest of the three hills," he says. This isn't to say, though, that Facebook games are out of the picture, as Richardson confirmed that they will use the social service, but will also focus on mobile devices and PCs through the browser.
In addition to developing its own games, Rumble will publish other developer's titles. While no specific details were announced about any of Rumble's specific games (we can expect the first sometime early next year), Richardson did list many of the company's areas of inspiration, which lie anywhere from Zelda and Super Smash Bros. to Diablo and Civilization. Regardless of the game in question, he says that Rumble looks to avoid overly complex gameplay. With this many areas of inspiration, we're definitely interested in seeing what Rumble comes up with, but for now - the possibilities are endless.
Are you excited in trying out this apparent middle-ground of freemium games that aren't too challenging, but aren't too basic either? Sound off in the comments.
Thứ Tư, 21 tháng 9, 2011
Zynga Mobile steals away Disney Interactive exec Adam Sussman
Just despicable: When Zynga isn't buying out companies, it's downright hiring buying out people. According to paidContent, Disney Games SVP Adam Sussman has left the company to join Zynga Mobile, which Disney confirmed to paidContent's Staci D. Kramer. Sussman joined Disney Interactive Media Group (DIMG) in January of this year, coming from EA's mobile division.
The former SVP was responsible for global publishing at Disney's games department, but paidContent believes Sussman will focus solely on mobile games while with Zynga Mobile, working under David Ko. In his move to Zynga Mobile, Sussman joins former Playdom VP of global distribution Paul LaFontaine as the second Disney Games executive to leave this week alone.
Companies like Disney, EA and similar major gaming companies have suffered several losses of high-level executives--including EA COO John Schappert (which has since been confirmed)--to Zynga and other competitors this year. Even a delayed IPO (initial public offering) can't scare high-level games industry execs away from the big red dog.
The continuous string of bad news already had analysts questioning whether Disney and Playdom could hang with its competitors months ago, and the fact that the company is having trouble holding onto its key players doesn't help today. Despite its losses, games like Gardens of Times do consistently well for Disney Playdom.
So, perhaps there is still hope for the company that it can squeeze out another hit and continue to hang with the top five Facebook game developers. You know, another hit like ... a Facebook game actually revolving around Disney characters? (Um ... duh?)
[Image Credit: Disney]
Do you think Disney Playdom can still compete with Zynga, EA and Wooga despite its losses and worried analysts? Why do you think the developer has yet to make a Facebook game using Disney characters? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
The former SVP was responsible for global publishing at Disney's games department, but paidContent believes Sussman will focus solely on mobile games while with Zynga Mobile, working under David Ko. In his move to Zynga Mobile, Sussman joins former Playdom VP of global distribution Paul LaFontaine as the second Disney Games executive to leave this week alone.
Companies like Disney, EA and similar major gaming companies have suffered several losses of high-level executives--including EA COO John Schappert (which has since been confirmed)--to Zynga and other competitors this year. Even a delayed IPO (initial public offering) can't scare high-level games industry execs away from the big red dog.
The continuous string of bad news already had analysts questioning whether Disney and Playdom could hang with its competitors months ago, and the fact that the company is having trouble holding onto its key players doesn't help today. Despite its losses, games like Gardens of Times do consistently well for Disney Playdom.
So, perhaps there is still hope for the company that it can squeeze out another hit and continue to hang with the top five Facebook game developers. You know, another hit like ... a Facebook game actually revolving around Disney characters? (Um ... duh?)
[Image Credit: Disney]
Do you think Disney Playdom can still compete with Zynga, EA and Wooga despite its losses and worried analysts? Why do you think the developer has yet to make a Facebook game using Disney characters? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
The Sims Social beats FarmVille, attracts second most daily players
Boy, people sure do love to play god. According to Appdata, The Sims Social has surpassed Zynga's iconic FarmVille with the second most daily players of any Facebook game. Since its launch just a month ago today, EA and Playfish's ambitious social rendition of The Sims has amassed over 9.3 million daily players--that's over 1 million more than FarmVille's 8.1 million.
The Sims Social still has a way to go to the number one spot, which is, of course, held by Zynga's most popular game CityVille at just under 14 million daily players. Regardless, it's unprecedented for a game to grow this quickly in daily players, at least for a game that wasn't built by Zynga. Not to mention this is despite the hiccups the game faced along the way including days worth of downtime.
So, that's the power of The Sims, huh? Well, not so fast. While The Sims Social has certainly showed its might when it comes to gripping players (and keeping them there ... so far), the game is still in fourth place in terms of monthly players at just over 34.3 million. This number could grow in time naturally as daily players spread the word and through advertising, but it's nevertheless telling of the limits a Facebook game faces when it doesn't have a massive existing player base, like Zynga's games.
In other words, EA and Playfish have quite a lot of work ahead of them, if they want The Sims Social to be on top in all regards. But judging from the game's performance thus far despite its early setbacks--and in the face of the most popular Facebook games to date--perhaps Simlish could become the dominant language in Facebook gaming.
Have you been one of the over 9 million locked into The Sims Social? What do you think of the game so far? Share with us in the comments.Add Comment
The Sims Social still has a way to go to the number one spot, which is, of course, held by Zynga's most popular game CityVille at just under 14 million daily players. Regardless, it's unprecedented for a game to grow this quickly in daily players, at least for a game that wasn't built by Zynga. Not to mention this is despite the hiccups the game faced along the way including days worth of downtime.
So, that's the power of The Sims, huh? Well, not so fast. While The Sims Social has certainly showed its might when it comes to gripping players (and keeping them there ... so far), the game is still in fourth place in terms of monthly players at just over 34.3 million. This number could grow in time naturally as daily players spread the word and through advertising, but it's nevertheless telling of the limits a Facebook game faces when it doesn't have a massive existing player base, like Zynga's games.
In other words, EA and Playfish have quite a lot of work ahead of them, if they want The Sims Social to be on top in all regards. But judging from the game's performance thus far despite its early setbacks--and in the face of the most popular Facebook games to date--perhaps Simlish could become the dominant language in Facebook gaming.
Have you been one of the over 9 million locked into The Sims Social? What do you think of the game so far? Share with us in the comments.Add Comment
Thứ Ba, 20 tháng 9, 2011
FarmVille Pic of the Day: Yesn's flower bouquet forest
After featuring Hemi 426's zoo farm yesterday, I decided to feature something a bit more abstract today. Yesn's FarmVille tree bouquet is exactly that. Yesn seems to have thrown out the structure, thrown out the organization, and settled with a very organic, fun, and ultimately beautiful design.
If you've ever read any of my FarmVille Pic of the Day posts, you know I love seeing art created with items other than the usual hay bales. I'm especially fond of tree art, and this is an excellent example of how to flawlessly execute it. I'd say this FarmVille design is on the same level as the fire-breathing dragon and giant Lady Gaga, two tree art masterpieces. In addition to the wild design, the arrangement of flowers itself is very nice. Yesn seems to have worked hard to ensure the bouquet doesn't feature any flower repeats, each one is unique.
Great job Yesn, and here's to hoping you have plenty of arborists!
What do you think of Yesn's FarmVille flower arrangement?
If you have an AWESOME FarmVille farm that you want to see featured on Games.com, please email a picture to editors@games.com, Include a few words about the inspiration for your design and maybe a few tips for people who need an assist!
If you've ever read any of my FarmVille Pic of the Day posts, you know I love seeing art created with items other than the usual hay bales. I'm especially fond of tree art, and this is an excellent example of how to flawlessly execute it. I'd say this FarmVille design is on the same level as the fire-breathing dragon and giant Lady Gaga, two tree art masterpieces. In addition to the wild design, the arrangement of flowers itself is very nice. Yesn seems to have worked hard to ensure the bouquet doesn't feature any flower repeats, each one is unique.
Great job Yesn, and here's to hoping you have plenty of arborists!
What do you think of Yesn's FarmVille flower arrangement?
If you have an AWESOME FarmVille farm that you want to see featured on Games.com, please email a picture to editors@games.com, Include a few words about the inspiration for your design and maybe a few tips for people who need an assist!
Kinect Sports: Season Two ready to win big this holiday season
Last year's enjoyable launch game, Kinect Sports, was a critically acclaimed showpiece for Microsoft's motion sensing camera. It was so good, that consumers snatched up over three million copies, prompting the billion dollar company to green light a sequel.
The result, Kinect Sports: Season Two, appears to be every bit as good as its predecessor.
Rare's latest features six new sports to enjoy, each one more addictive than the last.
The game's most impressive activity, Darts, almost perfectly mimics the real deal, minus the occasional finger prick and the numerous holes in the wall.
Players stand in front of their televisions, hold an imaginary dart and watch as an on-screen hand appears. From there, it's as simple as making a throwing motion to send that dart to its intended location.
Matches support up to four players offline and one-versus-one via Xbox Live. From there, everyone competes to reduce their individual scores from 501 to zero.
More interesting, though, is Pop Darts, one of Season Two's three Challenge Play Modes that let users send high scores to friends via Xbox Live. Here, the object is to pop as many balloons as possible before time expires, where destroying said balloons adds precious seconds to the clock.
Another sport, Skiing, provides a more intense workout, as players pull into a tuck position and lean right or left to pass through gates. Similarly, they can fire up this event's Challenge Mode, Downhill Dodge, and tackle progressively difficult courses, jumping and ducking over obstacles to outscore their opponents.
Baseball, meanwhile, has a Challenge Mode all its own in the form of Homerun Hero, allowing gamers to blast pitches out of the park. On top of that, they can compete against the computer/other players in a more traditional three-inning game.
As for Golf, players should expect to retire their Wii Remotes, as the Kinect Sports: Season Two iteration is without question superior. Up to four players can hit the links, choosing between different clubs and taking practice swings before sending their golf balls into orbit.
The coolest feature is the ability to place one's hand over his or her eyes, prompting the game to offer a bird's eye view of the course.
Rare also put Nintendo's Wii Tennis to shame with a more advanced offering, where wannabe stars step into balls (on offense and defense) before hitting them with imaginary rackets, instead of just standing still the whole time.
Finally, there's American football. Although we don't expect it to replace Electronic Arts' Madden NFL anytime soon, Rare has done a great job capturing the thrill of being a quarterback and throwing a long bomb to a wide open receiver, or running in place to take the ball 100 yards to pay dirt. Quarters end too quickly, but at the very least, it's cool kicking field goals and dodging defensemen.
To compliment this impressive package, Rare included more mascots as well as 300 plus voice commands that put further distance between players and those plastic controllers. In fact, they can control much of the experience without pressing a single button.
Although there's still work to do (we encountered a couple minor glitches), Kinect Sports: Season Two should not only compliment its prequel, but surpass it. Most importantly, the game's a lot of fun, and further proof that Microsoft's Kinect has a bright future.
Gallery: Kinect Sports: Season Two (Xbox 360)
The result, Kinect Sports: Season Two, appears to be every bit as good as its predecessor.
Rare's latest features six new sports to enjoy, each one more addictive than the last.
The game's most impressive activity, Darts, almost perfectly mimics the real deal, minus the occasional finger prick and the numerous holes in the wall.
Players stand in front of their televisions, hold an imaginary dart and watch as an on-screen hand appears. From there, it's as simple as making a throwing motion to send that dart to its intended location.
Matches support up to four players offline and one-versus-one via Xbox Live. From there, everyone competes to reduce their individual scores from 501 to zero.
More interesting, though, is Pop Darts, one of Season Two's three Challenge Play Modes that let users send high scores to friends via Xbox Live. Here, the object is to pop as many balloons as possible before time expires, where destroying said balloons adds precious seconds to the clock.
Another sport, Skiing, provides a more intense workout, as players pull into a tuck position and lean right or left to pass through gates. Similarly, they can fire up this event's Challenge Mode, Downhill Dodge, and tackle progressively difficult courses, jumping and ducking over obstacles to outscore their opponents.
Baseball, meanwhile, has a Challenge Mode all its own in the form of Homerun Hero, allowing gamers to blast pitches out of the park. On top of that, they can compete against the computer/other players in a more traditional three-inning game.
As for Golf, players should expect to retire their Wii Remotes, as the Kinect Sports: Season Two iteration is without question superior. Up to four players can hit the links, choosing between different clubs and taking practice swings before sending their golf balls into orbit.
The coolest feature is the ability to place one's hand over his or her eyes, prompting the game to offer a bird's eye view of the course.
Rare also put Nintendo's Wii Tennis to shame with a more advanced offering, where wannabe stars step into balls (on offense and defense) before hitting them with imaginary rackets, instead of just standing still the whole time.
Finally, there's American football. Although we don't expect it to replace Electronic Arts' Madden NFL anytime soon, Rare has done a great job capturing the thrill of being a quarterback and throwing a long bomb to a wide open receiver, or running in place to take the ball 100 yards to pay dirt. Quarters end too quickly, but at the very least, it's cool kicking field goals and dodging defensemen.
To compliment this impressive package, Rare included more mascots as well as 300 plus voice commands that put further distance between players and those plastic controllers. In fact, they can control much of the experience without pressing a single button.
Although there's still work to do (we encountered a couple minor glitches), Kinect Sports: Season Two should not only compliment its prequel, but surpass it. Most importantly, the game's a lot of fun, and further proof that Microsoft's Kinect has a bright future.
Gallery: Kinect Sports: Season Two (Xbox 360)
Kabam on Edgeworld's release and what battles lie ahead [Interview]
Edgeworld
Even at first glance of its war-torn landscape filled with futuristic buildings blasted to bits by the laser weapons of alien and mechanized armies, it's clear that Edgeworld is San Francisco-based developer Kabam's most ambitious project yet. Formerly known as Watercooler, the studio and publisher is filled with fans of traditional strategy PC games. Even CEO Kevin Chou was a world-ranked StarCraft player back in the day.
Inspired by sci-fi staples like Star Wars, Star Trek and even the Halo series of shooter games, Edgeworld is the culmination of Kabam's ongoing mission to bring a true 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) game experience to Facebook. Since the game's "open beta" release in August, the team is hard at work to make that vision a reality as it claims to have in previous games. (As of this writing, the game enjoys over 858,000 monthly players, according to AppData.)
We sat down with Edgeworld Producer James Holloway recently to hear his thoughts on the game post-release, and what plans he and the rest of the Kabam team have for the strategy game in the future.
Edgeworld in action
Now that Edgeworld has released, what are your knee-jerk reactions? What do you love about the game at release, and what would you like to fix most?
We're really pleased with the release so far. We're seeing a lot of people come back to play the game--it has a really high retention. A lot of people are joining Alliances and engaging with each other. In every sector, I see chat is very active. But this is just the beginning.
The biggest thing that I think we're missing is that our Alliance feature is pretty lean right now. The thing that we would like to emphasize more is a cooperative play of the game. I think we have just the basics right now. The new Maps feature is going to integrate very tightly with alliances--you work together [with Alliances] to conquer territory.
We have about four unique turrets and nine units, and that's just the beginning. We're working on a new unit and a new turret that we're really excited about, and those are going to launch in the next month. We'll be introducing higher levels of our buildings. So, there's a lot more content that we need to create, and we're just getting started.
What's the most interesting thing you've seen players do in the game since release--something that never happened during testing?
One thing that we sort of didn't anticipate was that some Alliances and players are attacking each other for resources. At one point we didn't have inter-Alliance resource sharing, so right now you can actually send resources to other players to help them out. So, we didn't have that feature [originally].
But what people were doing was working around that by setting up their Command Centers, which are what contain your resources, outside the perimeter of their turrets. [Players would then] leave their Alliance, cook it, and then attack them and take their resources. So, they were doing resource transfers before the feature was even allowed.
Do you have any interesting or helpful gameplay tips for the players to get ahead in Edgeworld?
Certainly! If you're just starting out, we give every player two days of starter protection wherein no other player can attack you. That's a free few days of protection, and use that time wisely to build up your base and experiment with different configurations. Allow the Factions to attack your base. There's a lot of experimentation with the units.
Players are posting on the forums, talking with each other and also within their Alliances about the best combinations of units to deploy when attacking a base. There are a lot of combinations of tanks and DPS [damage per second] units you can deploy. Rhinos, or other types that have a lot of hit points, can take a lot of fire, and then you can deploy units with longer range or higher DPS behind them.
Edgeworld blast
Depending on what your goals are--like, you might want as many resources as possible--you might want to deploy the Raiders. The Rhinos draw fire from the turrets, while the Spectres sit outside and fire away at the turrets. You really want to upgrade your Spectres to give them a longer range.
We have two different types of units in the game right now: infantry units and mechanized units. It's not necessarily that the mechs are more powerful than the infantry--we're still constantly balancing the game to make sure every unit has its role.
Another thing is that the Warp Gates are really important as far as attacking goes. As you upgrade those, you increase their capacity so that you can actually deploy more units on the ground [at once]. As you unlock more units, the more powerful units will start to consume more of the [Warp Gates'] bandwidth, so you want to upgrade those to deploy the biggest army that you can.
Thanks for talking with us (and for the tips), James.
Territories Could Blow Alliance Play Wide Open
During our chat, Holloway had something brand new to show coming soon to Edgeworld. (Though, it's still in the concept phase, so weren't provided images.) It's a feature tentatively known as "Territories," and the game's producer hopes that it will expand Alliance play into something even more meaningful.
"We haven't seen a past feature like this that I can think of, and we all play a lot of games," Holloway gushes about what he's about to show me. "We're trying to make this a deeper, more robust 4X or empires building game."
As it relates to the game's story, many of the Galactic Union's outposts have been abandoned during the war for Cerulea IV, and they're ripe for the taking. The Territories feature will provide you with a map of the entire planet Cerulea IV, with your home base appearing in the center as a star. Your home base will be surrounded by either hostile, Alliance or neutral territories marked in red, green or simply displayed as abandoned outposts, respectively.
Edgeworld concept art
It's up to you to work with your Alliance to invade either hostile (controlled by enemy Alliances) or neutral outposts, and keep them under your control for as long as possible to reap their benefits, which weren't revealed to us. (Our best guess is additional resources to keep your home bases going.) Players will individually attack outposts just as they would enemy bases, and can call on their Alliance for help asynchronously.
However, players cannot build on these outposts, only bolster their existing defense turrets with their own resources to maintain control of the benefits they provide. This will make it more difficult for enemies to invade. Speaking of invading, players can only enter outposts that are adjacent to their own base or controlled outposts. Eventually, we see the Territories feature becoming a constant struggle between opposing Alliances, and hopefully something for us to work toward.
"This is very different from our other strategy games," Holloway says. "In most cases you individually own tiles on the map, but in this case you kind of need an Alliance to own territory. This is something we're really excited about. We're still working on it and prototyping it, but hopefully we'll have something out in the next four weeks."
[Image Credit: Kabam]
What are you impressions of Edgeworld so far? Are you excited about the upcoming Territories feature coming to the game, and what else do you hope to see from developers like Kabam? Sound off in the comments. 2 Comments
Even at first glance of its war-torn landscape filled with futuristic buildings blasted to bits by the laser weapons of alien and mechanized armies, it's clear that Edgeworld is San Francisco-based developer Kabam's most ambitious project yet. Formerly known as Watercooler, the studio and publisher is filled with fans of traditional strategy PC games. Even CEO Kevin Chou was a world-ranked StarCraft player back in the day.
Inspired by sci-fi staples like Star Wars, Star Trek and even the Halo series of shooter games, Edgeworld is the culmination of Kabam's ongoing mission to bring a true 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) game experience to Facebook. Since the game's "open beta" release in August, the team is hard at work to make that vision a reality as it claims to have in previous games. (As of this writing, the game enjoys over 858,000 monthly players, according to AppData.)
We sat down with Edgeworld Producer James Holloway recently to hear his thoughts on the game post-release, and what plans he and the rest of the Kabam team have for the strategy game in the future.
Edgeworld in action
Now that Edgeworld has released, what are your knee-jerk reactions? What do you love about the game at release, and what would you like to fix most?
We're really pleased with the release so far. We're seeing a lot of people come back to play the game--it has a really high retention. A lot of people are joining Alliances and engaging with each other. In every sector, I see chat is very active. But this is just the beginning.
The biggest thing that I think we're missing is that our Alliance feature is pretty lean right now. The thing that we would like to emphasize more is a cooperative play of the game. I think we have just the basics right now. The new Maps feature is going to integrate very tightly with alliances--you work together [with Alliances] to conquer territory.
We have about four unique turrets and nine units, and that's just the beginning. We're working on a new unit and a new turret that we're really excited about, and those are going to launch in the next month. We'll be introducing higher levels of our buildings. So, there's a lot more content that we need to create, and we're just getting started.
What's the most interesting thing you've seen players do in the game since release--something that never happened during testing?
One thing that we sort of didn't anticipate was that some Alliances and players are attacking each other for resources. At one point we didn't have inter-Alliance resource sharing, so right now you can actually send resources to other players to help them out. So, we didn't have that feature [originally].
But what people were doing was working around that by setting up their Command Centers, which are what contain your resources, outside the perimeter of their turrets. [Players would then] leave their Alliance, cook it, and then attack them and take their resources. So, they were doing resource transfers before the feature was even allowed.
Do you have any interesting or helpful gameplay tips for the players to get ahead in Edgeworld?
Certainly! If you're just starting out, we give every player two days of starter protection wherein no other player can attack you. That's a free few days of protection, and use that time wisely to build up your base and experiment with different configurations. Allow the Factions to attack your base. There's a lot of experimentation with the units.
Players are posting on the forums, talking with each other and also within their Alliances about the best combinations of units to deploy when attacking a base. There are a lot of combinations of tanks and DPS [damage per second] units you can deploy. Rhinos, or other types that have a lot of hit points, can take a lot of fire, and then you can deploy units with longer range or higher DPS behind them.
Edgeworld blast
Depending on what your goals are--like, you might want as many resources as possible--you might want to deploy the Raiders. The Rhinos draw fire from the turrets, while the Spectres sit outside and fire away at the turrets. You really want to upgrade your Spectres to give them a longer range.
We have two different types of units in the game right now: infantry units and mechanized units. It's not necessarily that the mechs are more powerful than the infantry--we're still constantly balancing the game to make sure every unit has its role.
Another thing is that the Warp Gates are really important as far as attacking goes. As you upgrade those, you increase their capacity so that you can actually deploy more units on the ground [at once]. As you unlock more units, the more powerful units will start to consume more of the [Warp Gates'] bandwidth, so you want to upgrade those to deploy the biggest army that you can.
Thanks for talking with us (and for the tips), James.
Territories Could Blow Alliance Play Wide Open
During our chat, Holloway had something brand new to show coming soon to Edgeworld. (Though, it's still in the concept phase, so weren't provided images.) It's a feature tentatively known as "Territories," and the game's producer hopes that it will expand Alliance play into something even more meaningful.
"We haven't seen a past feature like this that I can think of, and we all play a lot of games," Holloway gushes about what he's about to show me. "We're trying to make this a deeper, more robust 4X or empires building game."
As it relates to the game's story, many of the Galactic Union's outposts have been abandoned during the war for Cerulea IV, and they're ripe for the taking. The Territories feature will provide you with a map of the entire planet Cerulea IV, with your home base appearing in the center as a star. Your home base will be surrounded by either hostile, Alliance or neutral territories marked in red, green or simply displayed as abandoned outposts, respectively.
Edgeworld concept art
It's up to you to work with your Alliance to invade either hostile (controlled by enemy Alliances) or neutral outposts, and keep them under your control for as long as possible to reap their benefits, which weren't revealed to us. (Our best guess is additional resources to keep your home bases going.) Players will individually attack outposts just as they would enemy bases, and can call on their Alliance for help asynchronously.
However, players cannot build on these outposts, only bolster their existing defense turrets with their own resources to maintain control of the benefits they provide. This will make it more difficult for enemies to invade. Speaking of invading, players can only enter outposts that are adjacent to their own base or controlled outposts. Eventually, we see the Territories feature becoming a constant struggle between opposing Alliances, and hopefully something for us to work toward.
"This is very different from our other strategy games," Holloway says. "In most cases you individually own tiles on the map, but in this case you kind of need an Alliance to own territory. This is something we're really excited about. We're still working on it and prototyping it, but hopefully we'll have something out in the next four weeks."
[Image Credit: Kabam]
What are you impressions of Edgeworld so far? Are you excited about the upcoming Territories feature coming to the game, and what else do you hope to see from developers like Kabam? Sound off in the comments. 2 Comments
CityVille Doggie Daycare Upgrades: Everything you need to know
Sometimes, we forget about the citizens of CityVille that aren't the people. And that's OK, because they don't really matter Zynga looks to remind us with the next big Community Building upgrade: the Doggie Daycare. This Community Building, released back in April, will grant you a boost in population and don a palette swap once upgraded.
However, you must be at least Level 18 to access the new Doggie Daycare. Once you reach that point, you'll notice that the building has a green arrow floating above it. Click on the Doggie Daycare to open its upgrade page. Here are all the items you'll need to upgrade the Doggie Daycare:
Ugrade Doggie Daycare
Doggie Daycare UpgradedUnfortunately, it looks like you'll have to ask you friends for each and every one of these items. Zynga claims you can also post the requests to your News Feed. Once you receive one of each item, we imagine you can also post the items to your Wish List. Once you acquire all 25 items, you can click "Finish Building" to boost the Doggie Daycare's allowed population to 540.
For the Level 3 Doggie Daycare, you'll need to ask for the same items using the same process. But this time, you will need eight of each item for a total of 40. This will boost the building's total allowed population to 1,080, and give it a fresh look. Now, you can forget all about the puppies of CityVille all over again--we kid ... sort of. Poor guys.
[Source and Image Credit: Zynga]
Check out the rest of our CityVille Cheats & Tips right here.
Have you started upgrading the Doggie Daycare yet? What do you think of how Zynga handles building upgrades in CityVille? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
However, you must be at least Level 18 to access the new Doggie Daycare. Once you reach that point, you'll notice that the building has a green arrow floating above it. Click on the Doggie Daycare to open its upgrade page. Here are all the items you'll need to upgrade the Doggie Daycare:
Ugrade Doggie Daycare
Doggie Daycare UpgradedUnfortunately, it looks like you'll have to ask you friends for each and every one of these items. Zynga claims you can also post the requests to your News Feed. Once you receive one of each item, we imagine you can also post the items to your Wish List. Once you acquire all 25 items, you can click "Finish Building" to boost the Doggie Daycare's allowed population to 540.
For the Level 3 Doggie Daycare, you'll need to ask for the same items using the same process. But this time, you will need eight of each item for a total of 40. This will boost the building's total allowed population to 1,080, and give it a fresh look. Now, you can forget all about the puppies of CityVille all over again--we kid ... sort of. Poor guys.
[Source and Image Credit: Zynga]
Check out the rest of our CityVille Cheats & Tips right here.
Have you started upgrading the Doggie Daycare yet? What do you think of how Zynga handles building upgrades in CityVille? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Adventure World Safari Showdown Expedition: Everything you need to know
By the time you reach Level 10 in Adventure World, you will have unlocked the first five Expeditions in the game, with this fifth Expedition being called Safari Showdown. This one comes with the tagline: "Face off with Queen Coral and move her nest to safety." While that may not do much to describe exactly what you'll be facing, you are told a few details about what to expect from the technical side of the things.
You'll need to have 450 Supplies to spare, along with two units each of Food, Fuel and Water. In terms of a time limit, you're limited to finishing this entire Expedition in a single 24 hour period. Your maximum rewards are 2,350 coins and 3 Food, on top of the XP and coins (among other items) you'll earn from simply completing the Quests therein. Here's a complete guide to finishing Safari Showdown from start to finish.
Stop Queen Coral!
Defeat the Queen Coral
Get Queen Coral's Eggs and Nest
Place Queen Coral's Eggs and Nest across the river
Apparently, a mama coral snake has formed a nest too close to a small village, and she's scaring the children. In this Expedition, your overall goal is to eliminate her from the area and move her next across the river where it can remain undisturbed and the children can go back to playing. Queen Coral's next is located in a fairly secure location, surrounded by shrubs and thorns. There are traps between you and she, and the snake itself has 12 hit points. Once you defeat the snake, you'll see the nest sitting nearby. It has three "points," so you'll need to eliminate those before you can pick it up. Finally, the bridge across the river is blocked by a boulder, requiring dynamite to remove. Dynamite costs 1,000 coins to purchase in the Tool Shop back in your Base Camp.
Find Them a New Home
Collect 5 Bundles of Grass
Plant 5 Bundles of Grass around the snake's new home
Since your ultimate goal is to remove the threat to the village by moving the nest across the river, you'll need to create a new home for the Queen Coral's nest by collecting and planting Bundles of Grass on this map. The bundles of grass can easily be mistaken for shrubs, so make sure to look for them at every corner. Meanwhile, the Bundles of Grass can be planted on the far side of the river, in the area clearly set aside as their new home.
Build Them a Sanctuary!
Collect 10 Cotton
Collect 4 Hardened Vines
Use 10 Soils Piles to build a fence around the snakes' new home
Of course, you're going to "remove" the snake and nest as harmlessly as possible, so you'll need to first make sure that the new home for these snakes is as comfortable as possible. After all, you wouldn't want the snakes to get bored and head back into the village, now would you? Vines themselves come from clearing out thorns (you tend to get around four hardened vines per thorn removed), while cotton is found in the far right side of the map, growing in a make-shift farm setup (apparently) by the villagers. I'm sure they won't mind you taking some of that cotton to build this new home, so long as it means they're free of the snakes. Finally, the Soil Piles are found around the outside edge of the marked area above. Here are some pictures of what you're looking for in this quest.
Once you finish these three tasks, you will have finished the fifth Expedition in Adventure World, and will be one step closer to fame and fortune within the Adventure Society. Good luck!
Check out the rest of our Adventure World Cheats & Tips right here.
What did you think of this Expedition? Which of the game's Expeditions has been your favorite thus far? Sound off in the comments.
You'll need to have 450 Supplies to spare, along with two units each of Food, Fuel and Water. In terms of a time limit, you're limited to finishing this entire Expedition in a single 24 hour period. Your maximum rewards are 2,350 coins and 3 Food, on top of the XP and coins (among other items) you'll earn from simply completing the Quests therein. Here's a complete guide to finishing Safari Showdown from start to finish.
Stop Queen Coral!
Defeat the Queen Coral
Get Queen Coral's Eggs and Nest
Place Queen Coral's Eggs and Nest across the river
Apparently, a mama coral snake has formed a nest too close to a small village, and she's scaring the children. In this Expedition, your overall goal is to eliminate her from the area and move her next across the river where it can remain undisturbed and the children can go back to playing. Queen Coral's next is located in a fairly secure location, surrounded by shrubs and thorns. There are traps between you and she, and the snake itself has 12 hit points. Once you defeat the snake, you'll see the nest sitting nearby. It has three "points," so you'll need to eliminate those before you can pick it up. Finally, the bridge across the river is blocked by a boulder, requiring dynamite to remove. Dynamite costs 1,000 coins to purchase in the Tool Shop back in your Base Camp.
Find Them a New Home
Collect 5 Bundles of Grass
Plant 5 Bundles of Grass around the snake's new home
Since your ultimate goal is to remove the threat to the village by moving the nest across the river, you'll need to create a new home for the Queen Coral's nest by collecting and planting Bundles of Grass on this map. The bundles of grass can easily be mistaken for shrubs, so make sure to look for them at every corner. Meanwhile, the Bundles of Grass can be planted on the far side of the river, in the area clearly set aside as their new home.
Build Them a Sanctuary!
Collect 10 Cotton
Collect 4 Hardened Vines
Use 10 Soils Piles to build a fence around the snakes' new home
Of course, you're going to "remove" the snake and nest as harmlessly as possible, so you'll need to first make sure that the new home for these snakes is as comfortable as possible. After all, you wouldn't want the snakes to get bored and head back into the village, now would you? Vines themselves come from clearing out thorns (you tend to get around four hardened vines per thorn removed), while cotton is found in the far right side of the map, growing in a make-shift farm setup (apparently) by the villagers. I'm sure they won't mind you taking some of that cotton to build this new home, so long as it means they're free of the snakes. Finally, the Soil Piles are found around the outside edge of the marked area above. Here are some pictures of what you're looking for in this quest.
Once you finish these three tasks, you will have finished the fifth Expedition in Adventure World, and will be one step closer to fame and fortune within the Adventure Society. Good luck!
Check out the rest of our Adventure World Cheats & Tips right here.
What did you think of this Expedition? Which of the game's Expeditions has been your favorite thus far? Sound off in the comments.
Thứ Hai, 12 tháng 9, 2011
Roly Poly Cannon
Shoot as few exploding cannon balls as possible as you kill the bad smileys and save the good.
How to Play:
Use your mouse to aim the cannon to kill the bad smileys without hitting the bad smileys.Paper Canon
Imagine that you have a simple paper cannon and you live in a paper world invaded by pink critters. You have to save the world. The paper world.
How to Play:
Use your Mouse to playCrusade
Crusade
Physics “Break castle” game! Clear Europe from the invasion of monsters… Beautiful graphycs. Many cannon types, enemys, achievents, elements for build own levels … and others!How to Play:
Use your mouse to shootMax Damage
Max Damage
Shoot cannonballs at stacks of fridges, tvs, and microwaves and cause maximum damage to pass each level. Bash, bounce, explode, and burn your way through 49 challenging levels. Aim for targets that are worth more money in order to meet the level damage goals.How to Play:
Shoot cannonballs at stacks of fridges, tvs, and microwaves and cause maximum damage to pass each level. Bash, bounce, explode, and burn your way through 49 challenging levels. Aim for targets that are worth more money in order to meet the level damage goals.Roly Poly Cannon
Shoot as few exploding cannon balls as possible as you kill the bad smileys and save the good.
How to Play:
Use your mouse to aim the cannon to kill the bad smileys without hitting the bad smileys.Paper Canon
Imagine that you have a simple paper cannon and you live in a paper world invaded by pink critters. You have to save the world. The paper world.
How to Play:
Use your Mouse to playCrusade
Crusade
Physics “Break castle” game! Clear Europe from the invasion of monsters… Beautiful graphycs. Many cannon types, enemys, achievents, elements for build own levels … and others!How to Play:
Use your mouse to shootSieger
Sieger
The goal of each level of Sieger to win a level as the Siege commander you have to kill all the castle defenders and keep the hostages safe from harm by carefully choosing what supporting blocks of the castle to smash with your cannon fire. You can earn one of the three medals (Gold, Silver and Bronze) and you can also loot each castle by breaking a treasure chest. The fewer shots fired at the castle the better. The Level Editor allows you to create and share your own custom levels. Check out the People’s Empire to play the user submitted levels. The bonus level unlocks at the end when all the previous castles are taken.How to Play:
Sieger Game Controls: Point at a castle block and click to fire with your mouse.Cannibal Casserole
Cannibal Casserole
Castaways are edible, but require thorough cooking. Use your catapult skills to toss wayward humans into your giant cooking pot. Obstacles abound: aim carefully, monkey!How to Play:
Use Mouse to controlDa Vinci Cannon
Da Vinci Cannon
Similar to Crush the Castle, but your weapon is a cannon instead of a trebuchet. Adjust the angle and power of the cannon, and then fire away to knock over structures and kill your foes.Leonardo Da Vinci was a genius. Many great inventions, but one in particular was lost to time: The Da Vinci Cannon. Control this machination and decimate those who would stand against you. How dare they underestimate the genius of Da Vinci!
How to Play:
Use mouse onlyCrush the Castle 2
Crush the Castle 2
Even after crushing and capturing Arcturia, the Redvonian King was still longing for more castles to crush. Rumor has it that King Blutias has built sturdier castles in his cluster of islands known as Crushtania the Redvonian King wants them crushed. The King has sent you, his Seige Master, and Halgrim his finest mason, to assemble the greatest minds in the land to destroy Blutias’s empire.How to Play:
Mouse to Fire, Release, and Reload Arrow Keys to View CastleBloons
Bloons
With the darts given, pop the target number of balloons to pass each level. Some balloons have unique effects when they are popped; try to figure out how to use these special balloons to your advantage (hint: Pacman balloons can be moved using the arrow keys once popped).How to Play:
Move the mouse to aim. Click and hold the left mouse button to set the power, and release to throw the dart.Max Damage
Max Damage
Shoot cannonballs at stacks of fridges, tvs, and microwaves and cause maximum damage to pass each level. Bash, bounce, explode, and burn your way through 49 challenging levels. Aim for targets that are worth more money in order to meet the level damage goals.How to Play:
Shoot cannonballs at stacks of fridges, tvs, and microwaves and cause maximum damage to pass each level. Bash, bounce, explode, and burn your way through 49 challenging levels. Aim for targets that are worth more money in order to meet the level damage goals.Old Canon
Old Canon
Use this rusty old cannon to destroy all the wobbly and unstable castles. Only 3 shots in each level and you have to take down the right amount and correct building blocks. Discover how its done while playing. Can you complete all 18 levels?How to Play:
Aim and fire - Use mouse to aim, left click to fireSandcastle
Sandcastle
Mix of strategy and shooting in medieval defense game. Defend your city from the invading ships. Use different types of cannons and ammo to sunk them!How to Play:
Click with the mouse to shoot, hold the mouse button down longer for more power. Press spacebar after shoot to cancel it. Win 7 battles and defend Your Kingdom! Control Scheme: * Space: cancels shoot * fire: left mouseCannibal Casserole
Cannibal Casserole
Cannibal Casserole
Castaways are edible, but require thorough cooking. Use your catapult skills to toss wayward humans into your giant cooking pot. Obstacles abound: aim carefully, monkey!How to Play:
Use Mouse to controlChicken House
Chicken House
Use your mouse as an AXE to cut and break objects. Pop various blue, red & yellow chickens, eggs and gems to earn the highest score!How to Play:
Solve puzzles with angry chickens in the house!Da Vinci Cannon
Da Vinci Cannon
Similar to Crush the Castle, but your weapon is a cannon instead of a trebuchet. Adjust the angle and power of the cannon, and then fire away to knock over structures and kill your foes.Leonardo Da Vinci was a genius. Many great inventions, but one in particular was lost to time: The Da Vinci Cannon. Control this machination and decimate those who would stand against you. How dare they underestimate the genius of Da Vinci!
How to Play:
Use mouse onlyCrush the Castle 2
Crush the Castle 2
Even after crushing and capturing Arcturia, the Redvonian King was still longing for more castles to crush. Rumor has it that King Blutias has built sturdier castles in his cluster of islands known as Crushtania the Redvonian King wants them crushed. The King has sent you, his Seige Master, and Halgrim his finest mason, to assemble the greatest minds in the land to destroy Blutias’s empire.How to Play:
Mouse to Fire, Release, and Reload Arrow Keys to View CastleMax Damage
Max Damage
Shoot cannonballs at stacks of fridges, tvs, and microwaves and cause maximum damage to pass each level. Bash, bounce, explode, and burn your way through 49 challenging levels. Aim for targets that are worth more money in order to meet the level damage goals.How to Play:
Shoot cannonballs at stacks of fridges, tvs, and microwaves and cause maximum damage to pass each level. Bash, bounce, explode, and burn your way through 49 challenging levels. Aim for targets that are worth more money in order to meet the level damage goals.Old Canon
Old Canon
Use this rusty old cannon to destroy all the wobbly and unstable castles. Only 3 shots in each level and you have to take down the right amount and correct building blocks. Discover how its done while playing. Can you complete all 18 levels?How to Play:
Aim and fire - Use mouse to aim, left click to fireSandcastle
Sandcastle
Mix of strategy and shooting in medieval defense game. Defend your city from the invading ships. Use different types of cannons and ammo to sunk them!How to Play:
Click with the mouse to shoot, hold the mouse button down longer for more power. Press spacebar after shoot to cancel it. Win 7 battles and defend Your Kingdom! Control Scheme: * Space: cancels shoot * fire: left mouseCool West
Cool West
Launch various animals with your slingshot as you attempt to kill the penguins inside and on top of structures.How to Play:
Use your mouse to play.Demolition City 2
Demolition City 2
Put your explosives in the right spots to make buildings topple below the specified height. Boom goes the dynamite!How to Play:
Use your mouse to interact.Max Damage 2
Max Damage 2
Destructive Max is back! Help him cause as much damage as possible by aiming his cannon and launching various projectiles at expensive objects.How to Play:
Use your mouse to playMushroom Cannon
Mushroom Cannon
Mushroom Cannon is a physics-based shooting game, your goal is to get mushrooms into the bucket. You need to get at least one mushroom to each bucket.Use your mouse to aim the cannon and left mouse click to fire the cannon. You can shoot the cannon as many times as you need to hit the buckets.
How to Play:
Use your mouse to aim the cannon and left mouse click to fire the cannon. You can shoot the cannon as many times as you need to hit the buckets.
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