Tag: Social gaming »

Monster Warlord by GAMEVIL USA is having a massive party for its two-year anniversary. 

GAMEVIL has been wildly successful with the social monster battling game with over 16 million downloads, which makes Monster Warlord one of their most popular titles. To say thank you, they are giving away free Jewels and anniversary-edition monsters, welcome packages for new members, increasing success rates, and holding massive sales from now through September 22.

Join the party and download Monster Warlord today for free on the App Store.

Wow, what a month it’s been for racing fans. Specifically Real Racing fans! You might recall how we kicked things off with our three-part series documenting the history of the Real Racing series, Firemint’s (now Firemonkeys’) approach to designing the first two games, and a peek at Real Racing 3’s Time Shifted Multiplayer that everyone’s been talking about. If you don’t recall you should give them a read. You know, for science or something. Not because I wrote them and am proud of my work or anything.

Of course that was just the beginning. There was also our look at Real Racing 3’s first true hands-on demo. And of course that whole free-to-play business that turned into something of a debacle. Let’s not forget the seething jealousy that was undoubtedly felt when we all found out both New Zealand and Australia were getting the game a couple weeks earlier than the rest of the world!

Before we knew it, Real Racing 3 was only a week away. Our lord and master, Jeff Scott, really dug into the mathematics at play and analyzed the in-game economic structure, for better or for worse. Blake Grundman followed with a look at the top 5 drool-inducing rides players can get their hands on (thus far), and soon after that Carter Dotson stepped up with a look at the 5 most alluring real-world racetracks on offer. Finally, the week was capped off with Carter’s in-depth look at Time Shifted Multiplayer while Jeff hopped back in the driver’s seat (sorry, I’m only human) one last time to bestow his Real Racing wisdom with an impressive number of tips and tricks. We also reviewed it, of course.

Get Racing - we've got prizes!

Since it’s been something of a non-stop Real Racing 3 party here at 148Apps we wanted to draw things to a close with a bit of style. Which is why we’re going to capitalize on all the spirit of Time Shifted competition and challenge you, our readers, to a race. Specifically the Pure Stock Challenge, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Nissan Silvia (S15) Showcase Cup race pictured above. I think I’ve typed that out correctly. Why this event? Because it requires one of the first cars new players will have access to and doesn’t allow for any other; providing as even and easily accessible a playing field as we could find.

All you have to do is drive your heart out. Snap a screen shot (hit the Power and Home buttons on your iOS device at the same time) of your best time and post it in the comments below along with your Game Center username. We’ll pick random winners from all of the entries and post the results here on Monday (3/4) afternoon.

The prizes? We'll give away three $10 iTunes gift cards to spend how you see fit. Although in the spirit of the contest we’d suggest something like, oh, maybe the Race Car Booster Pack that includes 65 gold and a 2010 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR-X?

Update: We'll contact our three winners via email. Thanks for playing and look for more Real Racing 3 contests coming up soon.

Freemium social games are all well and good, but a number of them are decidedly lacking in certain places. Namely in action. That’s probably why it’s so easy to take notice when companies like Pangalore announce a game like Knightly Adventure.

Knightly Adventure is indeed a social game, and it does indeed possess a bunch of typical fantasy RPG elements; stuff like medieval kingdoms, quests, hostile monsters, colorful storybook-like graphics, and so on. But while it adheres to many freemium norms, it also attempts to deviate in that one key area. Amidst all the kingdom building, character customizing, friend gathering, and so on is a much more interactive action RPG approach to the quests. With the option of choosing between four character classes (swordsman, wizard, bowman, or knight) available to further sweeten the deal.

This free-to-play cross-platform (mobile, tablet, or Facebook) super-hyphenated fantasy adventure will be setting up shop in the App Store sometime next month. Presumably and preferably soon.

A lot of people enjoy Scrabble. Like a lot. But while the current official iOS rendition is doing okay, it’s been in need of a little tweaking for a while. Well the time for tweaking is nigh.

The list of changes includes a much-improved user interface that not only looks nice but makes setting up matches and finding friends a lot easier. In fact, it makes the act of setting up a game into about as painless a process as I’ve seen yet. The chat features have also been updated, and even include some pretty wacky emoticons. There’s also a rather handy new feature that will allow players to see what other words they might have made with their letters after (emphasis on after) their turn is submitted, which should help to even out the playing field a little for the less spell-savvy while still keeping things fair during multiplayer matches.

However, the most exciting change by far has got to be the cross-platform integration. The Facebook rendition is already available, but once the iOS and Android updates are ready to roll out players will be able to get their spell on across all three platforms. This means PC/Mac users can play against iOS/Android users, and that one user’s account can span multiple devices. So one could play a few rounds on their mobile device, then come home and continue the game on the computer via Facebook. Effectively, just about anyone will be able to play Scrabble with just about anyone else just about anywhere.

Scrabble is already available and is free, but these changes won’t hit until sometime this summer. Do any of these changes have you current players excited? Then chime in below!

New Balance has just released a sort of workout-based social game. Make Your Move allows friends to compete with each other to complete physical challenges while earning points and medals.

Make Your Move tracks users' performance for their challenges with the phones sensors like the GPS and accelerometer. Friends challenge other Facebook friends and can make new friends to challenge as well. Players will choose their physical challenges and complete them for points. The harder the task, the more points the player will earn. The app also encourages friends working together to complete challenges - team challenges are worth more points than solo ones. The players will be expected to complete the challenges in a certain time frame. And players will be able to play multiple challenges with multiple friends at a time.

The game is free. So head on over to the App Store, pick it up, and start challenging your Facebook friends to some heated physical challenges.

SGN, creators of the freemium animal shelter sim Fluff Friends Rescue, are back with a new project. It’s not exactly a radical departure as Rescue Reef still involves rescuing wayward animals, but this time it’s all about the sea life. And I’ve never seen more adorable fish.

Rescue Reef is indeed another free to play animal shelter (of a sort) sim, only this time the goal is to nurture and release as opposed to nurture and adopt. Players will have the chance to save and tend to multiple sea creatures including various crustaceans, seagoing mammals, and all kinds of fish. Even sharks. Cute sharks. It also features daily deals, regular updates with new items and such (Orca whales being the latest addition), and even teaches players a bit about sea life.

Rescue Reef is available on the App Store right now for free. If anyone out there has even wanted to play the part of an oceanic conservationist but doesn’t have the sea-legs for it, now is the time.

Bored of Words with Friends? Maybe it's time to try something a little different such as MindFeud.

MindFeud is a game in which players must lay a number of tiles down in the correct formation so that there are no duplicates and they each match with the nearest tile in some way, such as all blue tiles together or all circles in the same row. It's easy to learn but as with many board games, it's challenging to master.

MindFeud offers a single player mode through the robot opponent AI called ADAMA, as well as the ability to play against friends or strangers through the social features available. Real time chat has been included to make this side of play more compelling.

It's simple yet addictive fun regardless of who you play against. Even better, it's free to play and an universal app for added convenience.

MindFeud is out now.

The Best Free To Play Game of 2011, SpellCraft has just been updated quite substantially to offer even more magic casting fun.

Update 1.2 offers the Loot Machine, new suits such as the Raccoon suit, cracked earth suit and waveform suit plus new jewellery each with their own cool effects.

The Loot Machine is a special reward for players upon completion of a dungeon floor. They can win gold, gems, experience, robes and more all thanks to the luck of the loot Machine.

While, each of the new suits is pretty cool to look at, gamers will particularly love the Raccoon suit, a subtle nod to everyone's favorite plumber: Mario. Acquiring the new suits is great motivation for returning or continuing with the fun social role playing game.

The SpellCraft update is out now. It's the ideal time to check out the game for those that haven't yet had a chance.