VROOOOOOOM!

Driven is a new 3D web based racing game from BAG Entertainment. They are running a Closed Beta on Facebook starting the 30th of April until the 7th of May. So start your engines and get ready to play a fully 3D racing game inside Facebook!

During CBT, it will allow testers to get a glimpse of Driven with its high quality racing tracks and customizable vehicles that would suit their playing style.

At the moment, DRVEN CBT service will focus on single play in the Facebook App Platform.  However, various social activities and multi-play features will be updated once CBT service has concluded.

Unlike other existing Online Racing Game Genre, Driven has a unique system called Challenge point system. A Challenge Point is required for players to enter each Racing Track available and Challenge Point can be acquired via various methods within the game.

Driven also focuses on both Single Player and Multi Player features to suit various types of players who the Online Racing Game Genre.

CBT Service of Driven will run for 1 week, focusing on tests on basic functions of Driven for high quality service in future and CBT Service will not have any limitation which means it is opened to every Facebook users to enjoy.

 Available Features during CBT:

 1) PIT Stop

PIT Stop is the first User Interface that the players will see when they have connected to the game.  From the PIT Stop, players can select or purchase vehicles to race. This is also the place where you can repair your damaged vehicles.

 2) Vehicles

There are 3 Basic Type of vehicles available during CBT service. From these 3 types, player can buy 3 variables of each 3 Basic Type vehicle. That’s a selection of 9 vehicles in total during CBT service that you can mix and match.

 3) Racing Tracks

Players need to select a Race Track to start the race.  Each Race Track consists of 3 types of difficulties:  Easy, Normal and Hard.

During the CBT service 3 Racing Tracks will be available. As any other feature, more Tracks will be updated once CBT service has been concluded.

Official Facebook DRIVEN URL : http://apps.facebook.com/bagdriven/

Official Facebook DRIVEN Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/drivenzero

DRIVEN CBT Schedule : April 30^th, 2012 ~ May 7^th, 2012

Tricky Words!

Word Trick is a Facebook game which will keep crossword fans fixated on their letters and considering their vocabularies as they battle friends for the highest score and bragging rights. Adding a unique twist to the classic game play, Word Trick rewards players with higher scores for creating words that line up three or more green Trick Tiles. No longer restricted by the shackles of only benefiting from Triple Letter or Triple Word spaces, players can take down seven-letter specialists by unlocking Trick Bonuses to double, triple or quadruple a word’s score.

Delivering a truly social experience, Word Trick allows up to four players per game, and players can have as many as 21 games underway at the same time, ensuring they have words to play almost every time they’re on Facebook. With a slick chat feature, complete history of moves, and both Facebook and email reminders, players will always be on top of their game, battling for word domination.

“We’re incredibly proud of the recent release of Word Trick on Facebook, and delighted that it rewards players with a truly social, fun, and addictive experience,” said Richard Hare, president and co-founder of Outplay Entertainment Ltd. “Word games continue to entertain a worldwide audience in a variety of forms every day and we’re certain that Word Trick with its unique Trick Tile feature will appeal to millions of wordsmiths around the world, providing the lexical challenge they’ve been waiting for.”

Word Trick Key Features:
Let’s Get Tricky – Watch scores sky rocket as players chain Trick Tiles together and trigger board busting combos – 2x, 3x or 4x.
Two’s Company, Four’s a Party – Word Trick offers up to four players per game, bringing more in the game
Multiple Games – Word Trick allows each player to have 21 active games at any one time!
Bubbly Conversation – Keep the words flowing with the speech bubbly chat feature.
It’s a Date – The optional email reminder system makes sure everyone is on top of their game.

You can find Word Trick Facebook game here

I’ve been playing Word Trick in between games of poker recently. I find word trick keeps my brain active and ready for my next game, keeping my rhythm and focus ready for the next game. You can also find a good poker facebook game here.

Oooooh.....sparkly!

Diamond Dash is a Facebook game in the same family as the incredibly popular Bejeweled.

Like Bejeweled, you’re looking for combinations of three or more of the same colored gems. Unlike Bejeweled, you don’t move the gems at all. In Diamond Dash, you simply click on the gems that are in sets of three or more and they disappear. This makes it faster and simpler to play, which is always an advantage.

You’re also on a much tighter timeline than you are in Bejeweled, as you are playing to a time limit in Diamond Dash of sixty seconds per level. This means you don’t have time to look carefully, and there is a lot less strategy that you are able to engage in. You’re mostly just clicking as quickly as you possibly can in each level.

At the top of the game screen there’s a progress bar which represents the amount of points you’ve acquired in that level. If you manage to fill the progress bar before you run out of time, get a flaming diamond in the game screen. Click the flaming diamond and the entire row will self-destruct, taking gems out on either side as it does.

This gives you a huge advantage in terms of points and also gives you fresh sets of gems which can help you find more combinations of three or more gems if you were running low on those before the flaming diamond situation.

There are many advantages to this game over the more in depth games that I’ve been reviewing lately, and one of the biggest is that there’s no reliance on other people playing the game. You’ll never need to have your friends send you things in this game in order to be effective. The only thing you can send to your friends is a single life point per day.

Each round of Diamond Dash costs a single life point, so having your friends send you life points can extend your gaming session, but it’s not necessary and the life points do regenerate regardless, so you can play this game happily forever even if none of your friends are interested in playing the game.

Another great advantage of this kind of game is unlike some of the other games, there are no optional add on features that you would need to spend real money on. It’s completely free, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Have you played Diamond Dash? Do you think it’s better or worse than Bejeweled? Let us know in the Facebook Games Forum.

Stately Ramsey Manor

Hidden Chronicles is almost exactly Gardens of Time, which I reviewed here.

To be honest, if I’d known that when I started playing I probably wouldn’t have started playing at all because how many hidden object games does any one person need?

But Hidden Chronicles resolves some of my issues with Gardens of Time, so that might give it a bit of an edge in terms of which hidden object game is better.

The concept is simple. You play hidden object games to get trophies, points, and coins. These games involve a large picture with dozens of objects and you have a small list of objects to find in that picture. You get bonuses for not needing a hint, for not clicking randomly, and for finishing quickly. The more points you get, the more trophies you’ll get.

The trophies are necessary because much like Castleville–which I also reviewed here–you’ll need to explore the area around the manor and in order to do that you’ll need trophies, coins, and clues. The clues are harder to come by.

The game’s back story is pretty simple. You inherited Ramsey Manor from your uncle, who was a Guardian. He–and you–can determine the history of items by seeing the past situations it has been involved in. Those situations form the basis of the hidden object scenes.

Like all these facebook games, there is a social component. You need to build items on your estate to gain estate points. You need increasing numbers of estate points to unlock more hidden object scenes. Many of these items cannot be built without the assistance of your friends. This is eerily similar to Castleville, where you need a certain number of various items to complete a building or an object.

Additionally, there are some quests that require you to play “fast find” challenge games with your friends. These are hidden object scenes but instead of requiring you to find all the objects on your list, you have to find as many objects as you can in 60 seconds.

The advantage Hidden Chronicles has over Gardens of Time is that getting the estate points you need to unlock the next scene is much easier and much less dependent on the kindness of your friends. The downside is that you are much more dependent on your friends to complete buildings. I find that I’m getting my estate points through items that require no outside assistance instead of through the many half completed buildings I have waiting for items.

It’s a good game. If you like the play mechanics of Castleville, and you have friends that are playing this game regularly, you’ll probably really enjoy this game. Try it out and let us know what you think in the Facebook Games Forum.

Mission Home

World War is a Facebook game in the same family as Mafia Wars and Vampire Wars. You use energy points to do missions, and as you complete the levels of missions you move up in levels and get new missions.

Additionally, you can battle other players for bonus cash. Fake cash, obviously. What makes this game more interesting to me than some of the other games in this style is the additional effort you can put into your military units. You can recruit military units of various types (tanks, infantry, and so on) and then you can upgrade the units to make them more powerful.

As you level up, you get points you can use to improve your overall stats. This helps you win in battles with other players.

As with all games in this style, there are advantages to encouraging your friends to join and play with you. And if you have friends that enjoy this kind of game, they’ll love this one. World War is the most enjoyable game of this style that I have ever played, which is significant because I’m not a fan of war games in general.

This isn’t the kind of game you sit down and play for hours, like Dungeons and Dragons. This is more the kind of game you play for a few minutes at the beginning of a Facebook gaming session, then come back to later. Accordingly, it’s easy to enjoy without feeling like it’s taking over your life. Sometimes you want a game that you just pop into and pop out of.

As far as game tips, I’d advise keeping your army fully equipped. Spend your money on more units, and keep them upgraded. Without a strong army, you cannot win the battles, which is essential to getting additional money and experience.

Keep an eye on your honor points. You get honor points for completing specific missions, which you can trade in order to make changes to your account. For example, with enough honor points, you can change your name and country. This adds the ability to make the game more interesting, because you can effectively restart the game when you feel like you’ve reached the limit of what you can do with your starting game settings.

I really enjoyed this game. It was fun and varied and not too time consuming. Have you played World War? Tell us what you thought about it in the Facebook Games Forum.

My awesome treehouse in YoVille!

YoVille is a great little game for people who like to build their own characters and create a more realistic fantasy life. Not unlike the Sims, YoVille is a game where you design your character and decorate their house. You then take your character through their world, performing activities and shopping and interacting with your friends.

In that way, YoVille is not unlike the Sims. Unlike the Sims, YoVille was designed for Facebook, and you can feel the intuitiveness of that when you play. Like many of Zynga’s games, you start each session with a gift screen and the invitation to send gifts to your friends. In this game, the gift screen is tied to various different kinds of gifts. There are gifts for crafting materials, gifts for decoration, gifts for your friend’s home, or gifts for special collections that are time-sensitive.

This brings us to the way you make in-game money. There is, of course, always the option of paying REAL money to the nice folks at Zynga, but for those of us that prefer to save our real money for our real lives, there are lots of way to earn money in game.

First, you can work at the widget factory. You can do a job there, but it costs a lot of energy points. The amount of money you earn for doing this job depends on the number of friends you have that are playing YoVille. This provides you with incentive to encourage your friends to play YoVille as well, to help both of you make more at the widget factory.

Second, you can do “jobs.” These are more random. One, for example, involves catching bats. If you catch enough bats, you’ve mastered the job and you get money. There are many of these jobs that you can master to get money for your character.

You can also “craft collectibles” which requires gathering the materials for said collectibles, then crafting them. Once they are crafted you can sell them for money or use them to decorate your home.

Once you’ve gotten money, you can take your time and buy things. You can upgrade your house, like I did. You can decorate and re-decorate your house, buy new clothes, new hairstyles and new items to play with, or visit your friends.

I like this game. It’s a fun little game that you can drop into and out of without too much of an issue.

Tell us what you think about YoVille at The Facebook Games Forum.

Facebook games don't come more "social" than this!

Two entrepreneurs, Brian Fudge and Michael Mikikian, co-founders of Gickup, are hoping to bring the thrill back in social gaming this time with REAL social games. They have developed a platform that facilitates the creation of multi-player video chat games where people could play OR watch. It’s similar to Google Hangouts + Youtube Live Stream.

Their partner, Propulsion Games, co-founded by TV game show producers Michael Agbabian and Dwight Smith, is launching their first game, Secret Celeb, on Facebook. Secret Celeb is a wildly addictive four player game where player’s knowledge of famous people is tested. The goal of the game is to guess as many celebrities correctly in the allotted time with your partner. The most celebrities named by a team in the allotted time wins the match. Losers get bumped off and a new team of challengers gives it a shot. The games are also broadcast where fans of the players can cheer them on or jump in the queue and challenge.

Gickup and Propulsion Games saw a gap emerging in social video broadcasting and social games. Social video broadcasters like Justin.TV, TinyChat, Ustream are great at facilitating a broadcast of user generated content but generally lack structure that would more naturally facilitate interactions with strangers. Current social games from Zynga and others, on the other hand, are a paradox because the games are not actually “social”. By adding game mechanics to video broadcasting Gickup hopes to connect people in a fun, new way, reminiscent of party games at home or classic games shows on TV.

With Gickup’s platform the production and distribution of game shows and talent based competitions is dramatically reduced. Watching streaming video online no longer needs to be a dichotomy of choice where on one end of the spectrum, there is highly produced content and on the other is unstructured, user generated content. Gickup’s new platform provides a third choice, where user generated content is produced within the confines of a game where you can be the star or just a watcher.

What’s next? Propulsion Games will be launching more games from their pipeline in the coming weeks. Meanwhile Gickup will be making its private beta SDK available soon to make it easy for any game developer to build games on Facebook, iOS and Android.

Cookin' up a storm!

True story about me and Cafe World: I used to play this game SO much that my friends collectively begged me to take a break. I had a streak of almost 200 days where I cooked something each day.

It’s safe to say that I love this game.

It has all my favorite Facebook game features. I am a huge fan of the multi-step complex quest lines. There’s always at least five separate quests ongoing at any time, which you can choose to complete or not, of course. You can decorate the cafe to suit your tastes and change the decor at any time. The food itself requires a little bit of thought. You start items cooking on your stove and when the items finish cooking, there is only a set amount of time to serve the dishes before they spoil.

There are spices you can get that can speed the cooking time of dishes, or unspoil dishes once they have spoiled. Another option is to have neighbors come and unspoil your dishes. But generally, it’s important to remember to check on your food frequently and not start a dish that will finish at a time you will be able to return to the game.

Each dish has mastery levels. You have to cook it a certain number of times to reach the first mastery level, after which it cooks more quickly and produces more servings. Each mastery level you reach after that also increases the the speed and amount of food produced. Each dish has three mastery levels.

You also have a cookbook that lists the dishes you have available to cook, which is sorted by the type of cuisine. You need to reach certain levels to unlock more dishes, and you can try to unlock all the dishes in specific cuisine types.

There are also special stoves that allow you to cook specific things. For example, the pizza oven is for pizzas, obviously. There’s also a coffee stand and a bar, which allow you to serve drinks to your customers.

I don’t know why I can’t resist the urge to complete, in a nearly obsessive manner, all the goals in games, but this game kept me playing, daily, for almost an entire year without getting bored.

If you haven’t tried Cafe World, consider giving it a go. And let us know what you like and dislike about it in The Facebook Games Forum.

Lords and Ladies and castles, oh my!

Zynga’s new game, Castleville, is one of the hottest new Facebook games. If you’re an active face-gamer, you probably have friends that are playing this game already.

And for good reason. It’s a beautiful game, with simple and familiar gameplay. You build cottages, raise crops and livestock–do you get the feeling that Zynga can’t help but include Farmville aspects to all their games?–and dispel the gloom that covers the land.

Building royal buildings gets you castle points. Castle points are required for you to be able to explore into the gloom that surrounds your land. As you explore you discover new characters, who can give you new quests. The buildings you build can be taxed to give you additional revenue.

You can cut down the trees on your land, and mine the rocks as well. This gives you the raw materials you need to continue to build new buildings. Periodically “beasties” come and block access to your buildings. These beasties can be fought off and destroyed fairly easily.

The social gaming aspect of this game is high. For several quests you need multiple neighbors to complete the objectives. You also need neighbors to staff your royal buildings. There is more complex gameplay as well. You can use buildings to craft materials required for other buildings. For example, to build the kitchen you need wood planks, which you need to make in your workshop from pieces of wood you previously banked from chopping trees on your land.

To explore the gloom you need more than just the castle points mentioned earlier. You also need exploration crystals. The easiest way to get these is to have your friends give them to you, because the only other way is laborious. You can find shards of the crystals while performing various activities around your town. These shards can be used to create a crystal using your workshop. This is, by far, the most tedious part of the game, acquiring the crystals you need to finish exploring.

But don’t worry. The game has so many other tasks and options open to you that you can certainly keep yourself busy. One of the cutest features is the animals. You buy a baby chick, feed it, and over time it becomes an adult. The same is true for any animal.

I enjoyed this game. I’ll keep playing it. I want to finish building my castle and see what else the gloom holds for me.

I’m sure that some of you are already playing this game, too. Come on over to The Facebook Games Forum and tell us what you think.

Gnome Town is quite possibly the most adorable game in the history of Facebook games.

You play a gnome, like the kind you see in a Travelocity ad or your grandma’s garden. You rescue cute little furry creatures from the Evil Gnome and attempt to restore the good king to power. As you rescue cute little furry creatures, they join your town. Together, you build buildings, run businesses, grow and tend crops, raise pets, and decorate the world you inhabit.

There are, apparently, endless quests and quest lines. They increase in difficulty as you level up, and as you complete them you gain rewards. You clear the forest to find and rescue critters, exploring through the use of machetes to clear the brambles surrounding your town. The machetes are in limited supply so use them cautiously. They are given as rewards for leveling up or sometimes for completing quests, but if you want more than you can get in those ways you can purchase more. However, purchasing more requires the use of in-game gold and once you exhaust your initial gold, you’ll have to use real money to buy more.

You gather wood and other materials necessary to complete the buildings as you clear the forest and pick up debris such as leaves and mushrooms. You earn cupcakes from completing tasks, and you can use the cupcakes to speed the progress of future tasks. Use your cupcakes wisely, as you will run out quickly if you use them regularly.

Cooperative play takes two forms. The first, the more common Facebook game cooperative play mechanism of sending and receiving gifts in-game. The second is a competition between you and other players. You can choose to challenge up to five people a day. A window will pop up and give you three areas of competition including things like “decorations.” If you have a higher score in any of the three areas than the person you have challenged, you win, and you get a reward.

This is, as I’ve said, an incredibly adorable game. It’s easy to get sucked in and just want to rescue more little critters and raise snails as pets all afternoon. Indulge your love of adorable woodland creatures and play some Gnome Town.

Visit The Facebook Games Forum to discuss your experience with Gnome Town.