Be vewy, vewy qwiet. I'm hunting wunners featuwing wabbits, and luckily, it's duck season wunner season. Zynga has unveiledLooney Tunes Dash!: a runner featuring Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, Road Runner, and more.
Following on from fan feedback, the developers have aimed to give players a game that has a sense of progression - meaning that, unlike many runners, levels do have a completion point. By completing levels, players can unlock new characters and landscapes iconic to fans of the animation classics.
Looney Tunes Dash! is set to release in select countries (and Tazmania?) this week in Acme's Apple's App Store. For those asking "What's up Doc?", more details are set to be announced in the coming months. Hopefully in the form of a note attached to a falling anvil.
Zynga has launched Farmville 2: Country Escape for iOS devices, and with it, a re-imagined farming/crafting experience for mobile players.
The current app maintains most of the elements that make the game so popular: the ability to craft and manage output. Facebook is not required, and the game is careful to allow players to consume the game in time chunks that work for them. It also has a new social control mode, which allows users to play anonymously or connect on social networks, enjoy connected rewards, and even play in offline mode.
“FarmVille pioneered social gaming on the web, and with FarmVille 2: Country Escape we’ve reimagined the franchise as a mobile experience to match how players want to connect with their farm and with their friends,” says Jonathan Knight, vice president of games at Zynga. “The foundation of the mobile game was built on listening to player feedback, so we’ve added features such as giving players the choice to play with friends or on their own, connectivity between the mobile game and FarmVille 2 on Facebook and the ability to play offline. We’ve created an experience where all FarmVille fans will feel right at home. As we focus on growing and sustaining this beloved franchise, we’re proud for FarmVille 2: Country Escape to usher in a new chapter of FarmVille on the go.”
Farmville 2: Country Escape is available for free on the App Store.
It might sound crazy to say, but Farmville is one of the most influential games of this millennium, being perhaps the popular spark for the simulation genre that has become wildly popular through the rise of Facebook gaming and on mobile. There's probably no Clash of Clans without Farmville. While Zynga has seen better days, Farmville 2: Country Escape is still a big deal because it's one of the few free-to-play games with history and a sort of gravitas. Well, as much gravitas as a free-to-play game about farming can have. Right now, Zynga's soft-launched the game in Canada and we've gotten our straw hat and overalls on to lead a more rustic lifestyle on our non-rustic technology in this edition of It Came From Canada.
The game essentially follows a simple pattern: water crops and feed animals to get basic resources. Combine these resources into more complex resources and even specific products, and then sell them for gold and experience points in order to buy and unlock new crops and buildings, ultimately expanding one's farm through buying new plots of land. Repeat until satisfied. It's a classic formula, and one that Farmville 2 tries to set up early on with teases of online elements like selling to other players. Ultimately, it doesn't really rock the boat too much.
Interestingly, FarmVille 2 gives players a lot of keys (the game's hard currency), at least to start out with: a total of 90. Of course the game tries to get players to use them in a variety of fashions in small increments when starting out. Skip a pesky wait timer with a key? Well sure, why not, I have plenty of them! Be able to produce twice as much flour by paying five keys to unlock that option? Sure! It's easy to see those keys running out at some point.
That should be one of the interesting things to keep an eye on as the game nears its worldwide release: the keys could definitely be tweaked to give out more or fewer when starting and while playing - leveling up and buying new plots of land gives out more keys, for example. Another unanswered question is just how this game will fare in a world where simulation games have grown up to become Clash of Clans and its similar ilk: will people be willing to jump back in to Zynga's familiar rustic experience? We'll find out soon enough.
Zynga’s back with another game in their series of -Ville titles. This time, it’s all about building a magical kingdom in CastleVille Legends, currently available in Canada and Australia. I take it for a run in this episode of It Came From Canada!
There’s plenty of the initial hand-holding that many of these building games are prone to have: it starts off by showing everything that’s possible, and giving helpful hints as to what exactly the premium currency, crowns, can be spent on. Because of course that’s necessary. Items that serve as resources can be farmed and used to craft new items which can be sold for gold coins, which help make the castle’s land bigger, which necessitates more gold and more resource farming, and so on ad infinitum. The timers are thankfully short early on, though it’s hard to imagine them staying that way – these games depend on lengthy timers!
Heroes play a key role: they can be sent off on ‘quests’, which means “their avatar disappears for a period of time, after which the player gets a reward.” It’s not a very creative system – signs that anything beyond the idea of questing are not exactly present.
While the game’s mechanics tick off a lot of the “free-to-play gaming by numbers” that many titles have, at least Zynga is focusing on production values here: the art is highly-detailed and everything is well-animated, so it’s one of the nicer-looking experiences of the sort.
The game is currently in testing in Canada and Australia, and it’s likely that its monetization in particular is being put to the test – will this game make any money over time? It’ll be up to how Canadians, Australians, and those pretending to be from there decide it to be. Get a taste of the game now with our video footage.
Eden to Green is a new tower defense game about a group of plants defending their home planet from mechanical monsters. Pocket Gamer reports that the game features more than 40 plants and trees for players to unlock with over 70 levels to play through. Players can also share their mightily grown plants with friends through social features. Now go blast away those robo-monster creeps who are infringing on your land!
Casual game mega-publisher Zynga has just released a new arcade hack 'n' slash game called Battlestone. You'll get to swipe your way to victory, fighting off hordes of enemies in single player mode, while squaring up against others in PvP modes. Once you get into the game, you'll collect characters, summoning and upgrading heroes to beat ever-more difficult enemies and environments. Get your swipe on today with this free-to-play game on your iPad or iPhone.
Zynga just released a new app called Running with Friends. In this game, it's the players' job to outrun and outscore their friends while remaining one step ahead of charging bulls. It's not just the bulls that players need to dodge, but speeding cars, flying barrels and more, all while running down the streets of Pamplona, Spain. Watch out!
*Jump off ramps and soar above buildings.
*RIDE bucking bulls for bonuses.
*CHALLENGE your friends or run with new ones.
*RUN as a ninja, ballerina, or zombie.
*COMPETE to be on top of the leaderboard.
*EXPLORE cool locations.
Zynga has released a new trailer for their upcoming massive online battle arena (MOBA) game, Solstice Arena. The trailer provides a first look at the multiplayer action gameplay and character progression system. The team is focused on creating a well-balanced fighting game on mobile devices that will appeal to all fans of the genre.
