Social Game

I figured when I finally got the chance to bomb my neighbor’s yard from orbit, that that would be the turning point. But, I guess not. Apparently twigs just don’t do that much damage. I have a plan. Next time: I drop pebbles. Right onto the Tesla coil. Bzzzzzzt, indeed. Backyard Monsters, a whimsical tower defense game from Desktop Tower Defense creators Casual Collective, is about as cruel with its goo-formed monsters as any sadistic game of Lemmings. You can zap them, shoot them, bomb them, mine them, shoot them, trick them… ...

If you’ve ever played the Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic: the Gathering card games, you’re already pretty familiar with the game behind Zynga’s Warstorm: collectible card battle games where you build a deck and then draw monsters from it with which to attack your opponent’s health. First to lose all their health (called ‘morale’ in this game) or run out of cards, wins. You obtain cards in the now-familiar metaphor of the booster pack, bought for in-game silver or real world cash. Each card – all of which are beautifully illustrated – represents a unit. Units have a draw time – the number of turns a card must wait after it is drawn before it can be played. This can be as much as ten turns for the most powerful cards, or as little as one for cheap, expendable infantry. Cards also have an attack power, health, and an optional special ability. ...

I quit Frontierville tonight. No big deal. I ended up playing it a lot longer than I thought I would, actually. I got to a point in FV where I’d just log in once in the morning and once again at night, harvest stuff, visit neighbors, see what folks were up to. Some people arranged their homesteads so that they just had mass herds of animals that they’d tend to; otherwise made gigantic farms; some folks just tried to make their homestead a pleasant looking place. There clearly could be a lot of creativity in the way the farms were laid out, and Zynga holds frequent contests to find the most innovative designs. ...

If you’re going to waste time playing social games, you might as well play a game that elevates wasting time to a paying activity. In Astroape Studios’ Office Heroes, out now for the Apple iPhone and soon for Facebook, you’ll spend your day tweeting, drinking coffee, updating Facebook, surfing the web and trying to look busy when your boss is around while moving up the corporate ladder. Heck, I think I LIVE this game. ...