Free(ish)

Justin Hall's company, GameLayers has apparently giving up on its "passive MMO" and jumped on the social network game bandwagon. Dictator Wars is the result. While there's nothing particularly original from a design perspective idea here -- it's a classic social network RPG, like all the Mafia and Vampire-like games you've undoubtedly been spammed on Facebook or MySpace about -- the theme is amusing and interesting.

IncrediBots is obviously influenced by The Incredible Machine, but equally, is an attempt to create a digital version of a construction set toy -- a set of tools that allow users to create a wide variety of objects in a freeform (or as we say in digital games, sandbox) way.

Overdrive is another MySpace social game designed by Steve Meretzky (who also contributed to Nightfall: Bloodlines and is, of course, famous for his text and graphic adventure work). It's similar to other games of the style, with energy and health regenerating slowly, missions to level up and attacks on other players, an incentive to invite others to the game, and optional payment for faster advancement.

So a game I designed with Steve Meretzky launched today. It's a "social network" game, developed by You Plus, and is currently available on MySpace. A Facebook version is now live will follow later.

We're seeing the birth of a new game genre, something that doesn't happen all that often; it's already acquired the monicker of "social game," which is a terrible name, in a way. "Social games" live on social networks, hence the name, but at least to date use the social connections those networks provide in very primitive ways. And after all, all multiplayer games are social, albeit some more so than others; a game like Elven Blood is actually far less social than, say, Spades or Diplomacy or Hundred Years War, since there are few ways for players to either help or hinder each other -- and no support for 'table talk.'