Games.com Blog: “Inception 'Mind Crime': Play the mind-blowing movie game on Facebook” plus 12 more |  |
- Inception 'Mind Crime': Play the mind-blowing movie game on Facebook
- Flutter on Facebook takes us on a much-needed vacation from the farm
- PetVille: Meet and own the cast of Twilight Dusk
- Quote of the Moment: Howard just don't understand
- Marc Jacobs wants to Bang you in new Facebook adver-game
- FarmVille: Honeybees of lazy farmers are flying away
- FarmVille's Lost Turtle Returns
- FarmVille Crafting Buildings Video Guide: Channel Management
- Players protest Zynga's abrupt Street Racing shutdown
- Chronicles of Spellborn: Has Playdom pulled the plug on this free MMO?
- YoVille: Silver Chests and Silver Keys return as limited free gifts
- Nielsen: Online games now more popular than e-mail
- Top 10 fastest growing Facebook games this week
| Inception 'Mind Crime': Play the mind-blowing movie game on Facebook Posted: 02 Aug 2010 10:00 AM PDT Nearly everyone has heard of Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010) at this point, but I'm willing to bet that most of Facebook's gaming audience were in the dark on Mind Crime, a Facebook advergame created by Escalation Studios to promote the film. It's also one of the most ambitious and lovingly executed advergame projects I've seen since The Expendables: 8 Bit Game of last month.   You can get a tour of the action in this video from Nolan Fans. As you can see, it's pretty sophisticated for a Facebook title, and totally not your usual point-and-click operation. Because of this, I highly recommend you read the game instructions.  To play, access the game via its official website, or on the Facebook page. NOTE: You'll first need to have the Unity Web Player, a browser plug-in that'll enable the game to run in 3-D. It's a pretty simple deal though. Just click Install, Run, then Finish. Launching the game will make it ask you to download the plug-in, so it's a no-brainer.
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| Flutter on Facebook takes us on a much-needed vacation from the farm Posted: 02 Aug 2010 09:00 AM PDT Filed under: Farmville  A few months ago, we wrote about a Facebook game called Flutter, where you steer a butterfly through the rainforest collecting honey dust, watering fruit trees, and customizing a home, aka the Grove, decorating with flowers, leaves and other forest critters. After several months in beta, the game has officially taken flight on Facebook, offering a big dose of creativity in a space that is inundated with me-too games. Flutter takes mechanics found in other Facebook games -- harvest, collecting and social interaction- and mixes them in with basic adventuring and puzzle solving in a natural environment. Start the game by steering your butterfly through the forest, picking up Honey Dew (the game's virtual currency) floating in the air, stopping to open flowerbeds for Honey Dew and XP and harvesting water, which is used to make flowers and fruit tree grow. There are also seed chests that include mystery items inside and potions that can speed up growth and increase your luck. You can explore on your own, and once you're ready, start picking up quests that keep the game moving forward.  The social components of the game tread on more familiar ground -- visit friends' groves and harvest a social flower that grows by 50 Honey Dew every day a friend logs in. Please note that at the time of this writing, the game was not allowing me to invite fellow Facebookers to play the game with me, so I will loop back on this once that's up and running. Flutter will have regular chapter updates that will introduce new species, plants, decorations and challenges, and -- as of right now -- there is no way to use real-life cash to purchase extra Honey Dew in the game -- though I'm sure that will be arriving soon enough. My biggest complaint about the game is less about its unfinished state, and more about the tutorial. Since Flutter isn't just another farm or pet simulation game, it's not immediately clear what you're supposed to do. The tutorial starts out strong and then kind of peters out at some point, which left me twisting in the wind while trying to figure out what to do next. After flitting around the forest for a while (and consulting the Flutter mini-site), I eventually started to figure it out on my own. Despite any potential confusion, Flutter is still worth taking the time to play The entire game is rendered beautifully with a lush forest setting and spa-like music in the background, and once I started playing, words like 'artful' and 'clever' kept popping into my head -- not terms I usually associate with the standard Facebook fare. Just like the similarly nature-themed 'Flower' gave PlayStation 3 gamers a break from gunning down bad guys, this rainforest game will provide you with a much needed vacation from planting and plowing your virtual farm. Play Flutter on Facebook Now >
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| PetVille: Meet and own the cast of Twilight Dusk Posted: 02 Aug 2010 07:30 AM PDT Filed under: PetVille  A lot of PetVille's Twilight Dusk release is outdoor decor that can only be used in the yards, but there's still new clothes, walls and floor styles. Also, if you head to the game's Premium Showroom section, you can buy PetVille-styled versions of the Twilight Dusk characters for your pet's home. The following is the rest of the cast, not including Edward (or Petward Culven, as the game calls him) since he appeared before the weekend.   Another adopted sister of Edward is Rosalie Hale, who's been renamed Josalie Tail (costs 27 Pet Cash). In Twilight, Rosalie grew up with everyone telling her how beautiful she was, and she's always been mad at Edward for not being attracted to her. PetVille has chosen to represent this by having its version of Rosalie whip out her compact mirror to gaze at herself. Now I know I said no more Edward, but this one screenshot was just too cute to pass up. Like the Howling Jaycub Grey, this version of Edward, called Petward Culven and the Apple (for 35 Pet Cash), is only available for the next 6 days. So grab him while you still can! 
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| Quote of the Moment: Howard just don't understand Posted: 02 Aug 2010 07:00 AM PDT  "I've got to be honest: I don't get [social gaming]. I look at it and try to understand but for now I've just decided to ignore it (laughter). I think, one day, maybe I'll figure it out, but until then, I don't see the allure of those kinds of games.""There might be a way to connect people. I think that's always a good goal: to connect people through your game. So I've kind of looked into that, how we might be able to do some of those things. But as far as a game on there, I don't know." -Bethesda's Todd Howard dashes our hopes for an Facebook version of Oblivion in a recent interview with IndustryGamers
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| Marc Jacobs wants to Bang you in new Facebook adver-game Posted: 02 Aug 2010 06:00 AM PDT  As the name suggests, the virtual verb in question this time around is "Bang," which also happens to be the name of Jacob's new fragrance (coincidence? Probably not). After giving over loads of personal data to the game, you get to sift through pages of distorted black-and-white pictures of other players, deciding which ones you want to "bang" and which ones to skip (how naughty... if you're in 5th grade). There are bonus points for late-night and international banging, and real-life prizes like cologne and clothing will be given to random players. The game deserves praise for a streamlined interface and loads of statistics to keep track of all the banging. That said, the game probably won't have much staying power for anyone who got their fill of Hot or Not back in 2001, when it was a new idea.
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| FarmVille: Honeybees of lazy farmers are flying away Posted: 02 Aug 2010 05:15 AM PDT Filed under: Farmville  Please see the FarmVille notice above, and take note that if you do not tend to your Beehive each day, some of your Bees will "fly away" or be stolen by the Zynga gods. Although diligent farmers login everyday to tend to their farms, do you think this is another way to encourage the lazy farmers to return more frequently? What do you think? This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.
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| FarmVille's Lost Turtle Returns Posted: 02 Aug 2010 05:10 AM PDT Filed under: Farmville  Note to newbie farmers, the Lost Turtle is not a new adoptable. FarmVille rotates the lost adoptable animals and the Turtle had been out of rotation for some time.  This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.
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| FarmVille Crafting Buildings Video Guide: Channel Management Posted: 02 Aug 2010 05:05 AM PDT Filed under: Farmville With the introduction of Crafting Buildings, some FarmVille Freaks are becoming quite the crafting entrepreneurs. FarmVille Freak Wilfried shared with us a "Channel Management of Crafting Buildings" video guide. If you are a Crafting Building enthusiast, check out the detailed video below for some handy tips. Says FarmVille Freak Wilfried, What are some tips with Crafting Buildings that you have found helpful for maximizing your profit or productivity? This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.
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| Players protest Zynga's abrupt Street Racing shutdown Posted: 02 Aug 2010 05:00 AM PDT Filed under: Mafia Wars  Zynga is offering refunds for in-game purchases made in the last 90 days, much as it has for its other defunct games, plus a 100 Credit bonus for the inconvenience. But this hasn't pacified some of Street Racing players, over 100 of whom have signed an online petition begging for the game to be continued. "If they shut it down then i suggest people sue them for theft..!!" wrote one excitable poster. "i feel that i should just quit all these... whats the point when you are jsut [sic] gonna shut down the game after a few years anyway..." wrote another discouraged player. Zynga initially announced the move two weeks ago with an image (above) suggesting that Street Racing fans try out Frontierville, a game that couldn't have much less in common with the street racing sim. That image was later replaced with a new image that removes the specific reference to Frontierville. Street Racing's numbers have been flagging recently, and while its current player base of 400,000 monthly users isn't nothing, it's well short of the 3 million monthly players the game once claimed, and the tens of millions Zynga's biggest games enjoy. [Via Develop]
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| Chronicles of Spellborn: Has Playdom pulled the plug on this free MMO? Posted: 02 Aug 2010 04:30 AM PDT  Rumors are running rampant that Playdom (now owned by Disney) has pulled the plug on the free-to-play MMO Chronicles of Spellborn. One reader named Debbilicious says that the servers for the game were turned off today, and so far -- there's no sign of them coming back to life:
The forum is buzzing with speculation that someone has pulled the plug on this awesome game, without even having the respect to warn us first. It's disgraceful to say the least and now I am hoping that Disney will respond to my e-mails. I have struggled to find the correct people to discuss this with and appeal to whoever reads this to help us and pass this on to the relevant department." We've contacted Playdom to see if this is just a prolonged outage, or if Chronicles of Spellborn is gone for good. Chronicles of Spellborn was originally launched under Acclaim Games, which was purchased by social gaming publisher Playdom in May 2010. Last week, Disney, in turn, acquired Playdom for half-a-billion dollars. With all of the crazy acquisions and mergers in the social gaming space, closing games with little or no communication to the players seems to be happening with more frequency. This is especially problematic for those who have sunk significant funds into the game, buying virtual goods to enhance their experience. In the end, that leaves players disenfranchised and less willing to invest time and money into a game that might disappear without advance notice. Have any of your favorite social games been shut down? Did you know it was coming? Share your experience in the comments below.
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| YoVille: Silver Chests and Silver Keys return as limited free gifts Posted: 02 Aug 2010 03:20 AM PDT Filed under: YoVille  This article originally appeared on YoVille Lounge.
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| Nielsen: Online games now more popular than e-mail Posted: 02 Aug 2010 02:00 AM PDT  Games now represent just over 10 percent of all time spent online, according to Nielsen, a number that is itself a 10 percent increase from Nielsen's June 2009 report. Use of e-mail, the previous No. 2 online timesink, fell by over a quarter and now represents only 8.3 percent of total online time. The winner and still champion of online time-wasting, of course, is social networks. Usage of sites like Facebook and MySpace shot up over 40% from last year's already dominant position, and the networks now collectively represent over 1/5th of all time spent online. While the Nielsen report doesn't break social games away from time spent on social networks and online games generally, it's safe to assume that the skyrocketing popularity of such games in the past year has helped drive growth in both areas. Online videos and movies were the only other area measured in Nielsen's report to see a significant increase over the year.
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| Top 10 fastest growing Facebook games this week Posted: 31 Jul 2010 11:00 AM PDT  Need to take a break from tending those virtual crops or slaving over at hot stove at your virtual cafe? Look no further than this week's list of the top 10 fastest growing Facebook games, courtesy of AppData. Market Street Playdom A new Facebook game that puts you in charge of your own virtual shop. Make sure you place orders in a timely fashion to keep your shelves stocked and keep customers coming back for more. This is one of several virtual shop games that have opened recently, and even though it's not really unique, it's still well done. Jewel Box Mob Science This goal of this game is to open friend's jewel boxes and complete your gem collection. The number of boxes you have to open depends on the number of friends who are also playing the game. Don't really see the appeal, but, then again, diamonds are a girl's best friend. Office Wars Broken Bulb Studios If the movie 'Office Space' were turned into a Facebook game, well, you'd probably get something like Office Wars. This fighting game set in an office environment has your employees go head to head with other offices, and fighters are armed with everything from spoiled lunches to fluorescent light bulbs. This game doesn't have the mass appeal of FarmVille, but it's charming and fills the hole that Ponzi left behind. Cafe Life Icebreak Games This is a pretty simple cafe game where you make and serve up coffee and baked goods to customers. It's girly and charming, but if you've played Baking Life, Restaurant City or Cafe World -- you've pretty much played this.  Crazy TaxiTubeyou If you're looking for something a little more arcade-like, this is a little like Pole Position, except your car can hop over the competition. Your goal is to get as far as possible when the timer runs out and then post your final score on your Facebook Wall for bragging rights. Knighthood Hive7 This medieval themed role-playing game joins a slew of others on Facebook. This one is more text based and doesn't look as good as some of the others out there, but it offers a fine level of detail that a seriously hardcore RPG fan craves in their games. The tutorial was a little confusing, so I recommend reading the game's Getting Started guide before jumping in. Four in a Row Core 10 Gaming This Connect Four clone matches you up against another live player and then you try to get four chips in a row while blocking the other player's move. Simple execution of a classic game. Once you get into a game, however, there's no way to pause for a bathroom or dinner break. Bummer.  Bingo Island 2Mytopia It's Bingo! On Facebook! Even if you don't think you're a big bingo fan, you'll find yourself sucked in by the relaxing beach theme and the friendly players who send each other gifts that boost popularity and never forget to wish each other 'GL' in the live chat when a round begins. Tellywood Tellywood TV star? Oh, yes, you are in Tellywood, a game where you run your own television studio. Platinum Life Web Edition Heatwave Interactive Want to live the Platinum life? This is your chance to sing, DJ or rap your way to the top by taking on gigs and showing everyone what you've got. Think Mafia Wars for the hip-hop set, with real-life tracks thrown in for good measure. Have you played any of these games? Which ones would you recommend to people who want to try something new? [Via Inside Social Games]
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