Friends For Sale: Next Generation

Genre: Business Simulation

Publisher: DataSteam

Friends For Sale: Next Generation ( FFSNG) is a remake of the original Friends For Sale game. Players begin the game receiving some amount of virtual currency, as well as the in-game value of the pet that represents them. A list of the player's Facebook friends appears, along with their selling price. They could be bought; given nicknames and gifts; put to work with, locked from, sold to and used to poke other players.

Overview

Are your friends cheap? No, I don’t mean “thrifty.” I mean if they were auctioned off by space aliens, how much would you pay for them? Friends for Sale is a social game that asks essentially that same question.

(And what would you do if you could make your friends your pets? This only further compounds the question of “Who is man’s best friend?” – but I digress.)

Friends For Sale’s friendly interface asks you to buy your friends to make them your pets. All of your friends (and some people you don’t know) are in the marketplace. Friends who have this game and have been bought and sold cost a great deal, and friends who are less popular or don’t use Facebook applications often will be pretty cheap. I invested heavily in the latter type of friends to test this application out.

Gameplay

You earn money when other people buy your pets, whenever someone buys you, and every time you visit (a very good idea). After you’ve bought your friends, you can give them nicknames, gifts, or sell them. There are always new gifts to buy your friends and it’s fun to make your friends, as pets, do your bidding.

The profit on a sale is split 50/50 between the pet and the owner. There are also plenty of partner offers to get you more cash.

Friends For Sale is an addictive social game for people with lots of friends, and it’s easy to become thoroughly “invested” in the application. In this way, the game is pretty deep.

But while it can be addictive, the developers need to build more features around the owner/pet relationship. You can buy gifts and poke people in Facebook – if the game only offers the same types of features, it could fall flat pretty quickly.

Analysis

As a business simulation game certain elements that exist in real world business are apparent in FFS-ng. For instances, monopolies, in the sense that a few, well connected players can influence massive sums of in-game cash to make themselves richer. But unlike the real world, money in FFS-ng is easy to come by in the sense that every citizen is capable of monetative easing (printing money). It just takes an understanding of the game system mechanics to become vastly wealthy, and the social aspect of the game will help as well, because with more trading partners comes more business opportunity. 

It is quite interesting to observe the game mechanics, understanding how players interact with each other. It is true that the well established players do not in fact play with anyone they know in real life, but make friends in the game and develop and maintain friendships in game. 

FFS-ng is a unique game. It is simple to understand and play, while the complexity of the game are vast and ever changing. While there are countless variations of how to play there is only one unifying method of determining an given players success, how much money they have, in the form of cash and pet investments. 

It takes a pinch of luck, trust, networking and a whole lot of strategics to become the riches pet owner in the world of Friends for Sale: Next Generation.

Strategy

It would be pointless to believe there is one all powerful strategy to win in FFS'ng. There is an ever expanding arsenal of strategies to be applied and it takes determination, ingenuity and insight to apply them in the most profitable way. 

For Beginners

If you are new to FFS-ng, for accuracy sake lets say playing less than 2 weeks or own less than 2 Billion in assets. You need to ally yourself with an experienced player, someone who can take you under their wing, give you tips, that sort of thing. Someone who will help raise your value by buying and selling you with other players. You need to be active so other players are willing to invest their time and money in you. 

Once you have learned the ropes and established trading partners and steady income you will have cash to invest in pets and other ventures that can generate you more revenue. 

For Established Players

You would be wise to invest in up and coming players, people who haven't been in the game long but are active and seem eager to learn. You want to help them make money because in return they will help you make more. Creating loyal players in a great way to play. 

Tips & Tricks

One of the best ways to make money is "Bouncing". Bouncing is when you and another player buy a single pet back and forth in order to raise it's value. This can be done one of three ways:

First: Two owners buy a pet back and forth, raising the pets value and ultimately increasing each participants capital assets. This one can be done as often as possible, all you need is people who wish to keep the pet at the inflated value once the bouncing is completed, this is an example of an opportunity that arises when you have up and coming allies in the game.

Second: Three players with low values buy each other back and forth like a triangle. Since the money being spent by the buyer on each buy, the inflation value is distributed to the ex-owner and the pet. If done properly, all three players will end up with an increased value and no decrease in cash. So essentially making good money with no risk.

This is a more rewarding method, but is less likely to occur because it requires your own accounts value being inflated and that only happens when you first start and whenever you're reset.

Third: Probably the most profitable method to date. In a case where two players want to own each other but at the same time need to inflate their own values, you acting as the middle-man assist by buying the two players from each other and they by themselves back. You will earn half of the total inflation value and walk away with zero money tied up in investment.

History

FFS was a massively multiplayer online business simulation game originally developed by Serious Business, available as an application on the social networking website Facebook. The game allowed players to buy and sell virtual pets representing other players. Since its launching by November 2007, Friends for Sale soared into popularity by June 2008, becoming one of the top ten Facebook applications with around 700,000 daily users and activity peaked at around 6.5 million monthly users in 2 November 2009 until Zynga acquired Serious Business in 11 February 2010.

Images

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Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM

Genre: Collectable Card Game
Developer: Konami


The Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise is one that spans two similar, but completely different worlds. The first is a popular anime series for young adults that features colorful characters in a world where simple digital card games affect everyone’s life. The second is a physical card game, categorized by its depth, challenge, and sky-high prices for competitive play. In an attempt to blend both worlds, Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM takes the series to a new social freemium space.

Yu-Gi-Oh! BAMis similar to the original card game in that it borrows card art and concepts, but watered-down mechanics make for a much simpler game. There are no sacrifice summons, spell speed chains, fusions, synchros, or any of the deeper mechanics that the original game offers to be found. Instead, you’ll be playing a title that’s much closer to a modified version of the card game War. Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM might not be the best way to duel, but it's definitely the cheapest

You’ll meet dozens of characters from the animated series across an expansive grid of single-player challenges. There are literally hundreds of unique duels across the entire campaign, spanning several hours to complete. And even if you do, you can always challenge a friend to a game with your own custom deck.

There are three monster/spell zones in Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM (as opposed to five in the original game), and each player brings deck of fifteen cards. Each turn, your hand will fill to a maximum of three cards from the deck. Once both players have selected which zones they want to drop their spells/monsters, tapping the “Bam” button will cause everything to collide head-on.

Long story short, monsters with more attack will destroy the weaker monsters and inflict damage to their opponent’s life points. While spells and effects constantly alter the playing field, the entire game centers on this straightforward mechanic.

In addition to spells and monsters, however, are special one-time use abilities. These range from helpful (“gain 500 life points”) to all-powerful (“destroy all monsters and spells on your opponent’s side of the field”). And it’s here that I realized that abilities are just the tip of a very large microtransaction iceberg.

Yu-Gi-Oh! BAMfunctions under a dangerous “let’s throw in every freemium tactic into one game” strategy, making the game’s currency and development options more complicated than the game itself. I could spend an entire article letting you know about every facet of the freemium model, but I’ll save you the time. Here’s a list of what’s been implemented:

Three different types of currency (all purchaseable), an energy system that locks you out of playing the game for long stretches without paying premium currency, a system that rewards you for bringing more friends into the game, the ability to call on a friend when you need help, and a mission-based level-up system.

Are all of these practices bad? Not at all. In fact, playing through objectives and missions took up more of my time than I ever thought it would. But mashed together, things can get to be a bit of a headache in the long run. For example: most of the game’s best cards are locked behind premium currency. After browsing through the game’s current library, the very best deck would cost you about $60 worth of duel points.

This isn’t uncommon in the physical game (a single card can run as much as $100+ if it’s rare and powerful), but for such a simple digital game, it’s a shame that you can only buy your way into power.

I think my larger problem with the system is just that I never felt compelled to drop any money in the first place. Yu-Gi-Oh! BAMsimply isn’t a deep or competitive card game. As a social title, it provides dozens of hours of entertainment for free, but it lacks the compelling gameplay to make it a game worthy of deeper investment.

All in all, my time with Yu-Gi-Oh! BAMwas enjoyable. Its simplicity and heavy reliance on microtransactions will likely turn hardcore followers of the card game away, but it’s a decent time sink if you’re looking for a quick game to supplement your usual social browsing.

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ChefVille

Genre: Social Games
Publisher: Zynga

ChefVille casts players in the role of a new restaurant owner aiming to make a name for themselves in a small local community. The game begins with players designing their avatar — which may be male or female, and customized with a selection of facial features and clothing — and then introduces the various core concepts of play.

The player’s time in ChefVille will be split roughly equally between finding ingredients and using them to cook various dishes. Each dish requires a specific combination of ingredients, some of which may be found in logical places (bread may be found on a rack outside the town bread store, tomatoes may be found growing in the garden) and others, such as salt, which must be acquired by visiting friends’ restaurants. Once ingredients have been found, the player must use an appropriate item of kitchen equipment to create the dish. Bubbles representing the individual ingredients appear over the player’s head and must be clicked on, then the dish takes a period of real time to cook — though as usual, these tasks may be sped up with hard currency.

Once the dish has been prepared, the player earns points towards “mastery stars” for the dish, and it is served onto one of the restaurant counters. More counters mean more dishes may be served at once, and more mastery stars mean a greater number of servings come from a single cooking action. In an interesting touch — and a nod to the foodie audience Zynga is hoping to court — some dishes unlock a shareable “real-life recipe” upon achieving two mastery stars.

Customer orders can be taken automatically by wait staff or by the player, with the latter option providing more soft currency rewards when the customer pays up and leaves. Wait staff will continue to take orders while the player is not actively playing, allowing for the generation of income even if the player has no energy left to play — assuming they have left some items on their restaurant’s counters, of course.

Over time, the player’s influence in the town expands and various new areas open up, providing access to new ingredients and thus more foods. These shops must either be staffed by friends or populated with game characters, hired using hard currency. Similarly, constructing some items — especially those that provide regular income of ingredients — requires the player to either request help for materials from friends or cough up further hard currency. It’s a very conventional system that Zynga has used with great success in its previous titles, so as the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke…”

Social features are a little limited right now aside from the “friend-hiring” and help requests. Gifts may be exchanged between players, and visiting each other’s restaurants provides rare ingredients and currency income, but there is little incentive (or indeed ability) to directly interact with one another. Players are encouraged to visit friends through the reward of “hearts,” the game’s social currency, but there are relatively few items which actually require these. Moreover, hearts can simply be purchased using hard currency, somewhat diminishing their “social” value.

Perhaps more concerning for the game is the fact that a number of bugs and technical issues are evident. When returning from a friend’s restaurant, for example, the game regularly gets stuck in a loading loop requiring the page to be refreshed in order to continue. The interface, too, sometimes has issues when a button is in the same screen location as an interactive item in the game world — several times during testing the game registered a click on the button as a click on the object behind it instead of the button itself, leading to wasted energy points. Flaws like this are unusual to see in Zynga games, which are usually polished to a fine sheen before being released to the public.

ChefVille has some good ideas — the “real-life recipes” function is a particularly nice touch — but the execution needs a little tweaking and refinement before it’s ready for primetime. As such, it’s one to keep an eye on for now and maybe check back in on in a month or two when some of the proposed additional features have been added, and hopefully some of the technical issues have been resolved.

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Dungeon Blitz

Genre: RPG
Publisher: Blue Mammoth Games


Dungeon Blitz is a side-scrolling fantasy action MMO. It is easily accessible from your browser, free-to-play, and continually expanding. Leap fireballs, dodge dragon breath, and vault over chasms in your pursuit of adventure.

Overview

Dungeon Blitz is a massively-multiplayer game you play here in your browser. Team-up with friends to explore the lost land of Ellyria, or go it alone.

By Blue Mammoth Games is a game development studio based in Atlanta, Georgia. Blue Mammoth's founders previously worked on MMOs like City of Heroes, Champions Online, Global Agenda, and World of Darkness, and created the World of Warcraft community site Arena Junkies.

Content

Avatars

Paladin
Stalwart and righteous are these champions. Paladins are front line warriors built for taking heavy blows and dealing damage in close quarters. These sword-and-board daredevils can also heal themselves and other heroes.

RogueWith guile and blades, Rogues can bring down the largest foes. These agile heroes operate under cloak-and-dagger. They can travel past harm unseen, ambush from the shadows, and disable their enemies.


Mage
Mages shape the powers of magic to their own ends. These adventurers can bend the elements into projectiles, summon monsters to their bidding, and ensnare with magic those foes they don't choose to burn to ashes.

Character Features
Customize your characters' Hair, Head, Face, Mouth, gender and the colors in between.

Level up, collect equipment, make friends and forge gems to enhance your gear.

Lots of world to explore and creatures to do battle with.

Critic

I think Dungeon Blitz has a solid architectural system and could become a respectable mmorpg on the facebook platform which is no simple feet. The combat mechanics are enjoyable and the co-op element is promising.

Dungeon Blitz doesn't offer anything unique or of its own, character classes are paladin, rogue or mage, which are the three most basic character classes of all mmorpgs. Finish quests, level up and find gear. Where is the hook? Perhaps the developers are planning to start simple, build a system live and progressively add new classes, maps, quests and all that noise on a regular basis.

The developers need to vigilantly release new content on a regular basis to expand the game and offer features for every type of player, level range and class in order to keep the Dungeon Blitz world alive and the gaming population growing.

If they don't keep up with the demands of today's online gamer and keep the players happy they will quickly find they're game labeled a failure and will require nothing short of a complete overhaul to attempt a come back and see any sort of return on investment.

Strategy

As with most combat oriented MMORPGs I highly recommend forming in-game connections with other strong or up-and-coming players and just buckle down for some experience grinding sessions.

Grinding - The single minded goal oriented actions of acquiring the  thing you want most and nothing else, no wasting time talking, looting or the brb (Be Right Back), efficient progress at its finest.


Note: If your testing out a new comrade and they go afk, or don't pull their weight, kick them from the party and don't look back. Too many people out their want a free ride, joining a team and going to eat a sandwich while everyone else does the work.

Tips & Tricks

If you have any tips or tricks that you would like to share leave a comment or message. 

Your contributions are greatly appreciated.

Recommendation

From what I've played through so far in Dungeon Blitz there haven't been anything that stands out that will attract me to come back, what's the hook? There are far more thoroughly developed games out there and DB has a long ways to go.

Screenshots

Dungeon Blitz Facebook

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Citizen Grim

Genre: Strategic Shooter
Publisher: Eruptive Games


Can you survive the night in Grim?

Overview

Citizen GRIM is a strategic Reaper shooter built for the exploding midcore social games market. Featuring dynamic open-world combat in an engaging 40’s- inspired world, players will need quick thinking and plenty of bullets to survive a night in GRIM! With over-the-top action and a highly stylized aesthetic, Citizen GRIM is built to feel like a Hollywood action flick.

Play it today and see if you have what it takes to survive the deadliest social experience on Facebook!

Gameplay

Standout features include:
- 100% Real Meat: Forget farming! Jump right into a good old fashion killing spree! Then dive deeper into strategic resource management, an onslaught of challenges, storyline and RPG driven gameplay.

- Blockbuster Story: The past is a blur, the present is grim and the future is in your hands. Discover the twisted secrets of Reaper-infested GRIM by playing through episodic story missions

- Intense Action: Mow down wave after wave of attacking Reapers, go head to head with enemy NPC’s, and take on unfathomable mid and end bosses. Even get your friends involved!

- Mercenaries for Hire: Hire up to 3 hired guns who will aid in battles and defend you in the streets. Trust us, you'll need all the help you can get!

-Weapons to Die For: From baseball bats to flamethrowers and everything in between, arm yourself with weapons and effects yet to be seen in social games!

- Friend or Foe?: Rack up high scores and bragging rights against your buddies, send Reapers to damage their buildings, or team up for co-op missions!

Analysis

Citizen Grim refuses to fully load for me and thus I have nothing more to say about it. A few days prior it loaded and I was able to play for a few minutes, just long enough to save someone from several  Reapers before I got an error and the game crashed.

Citizen Grim Facebook

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Dragon City

Genre: Breeding
Publisher: Social Point

Dragon City is a new exciting game where you breed your own dragons and create a fantastic world of magical islands! You can also combat against your friends with you team of dragons! Join the fairytale fun and hatch a dragon egg!

Overview

The basic of Dragon City breeding is taught during tutorial. You will first have to level up your dragon via feeding to at least level 4. Build a building ground such as Breeding Mountain or Breeding Tree, then you can select which of the dragon that you would like to breed. It will take some time for the dragons to create the eggs and even more time for the eggs to hatch. The types of offspring is dependent on the parents. In addition, there is some sort of luck involved in breeding that you may not get the dragon you are looking for 100% of the time.

Game Play 

Cycle System

Gather gold a number of ways; one being income from your dragon collection. The dragon rarity and level determine the income value. 

Use you gold to buy new habitats, eggs, expand, upgrade, etc.

Bread new dragons.

And repeat.

Dragons

All dragons start off as itty-bitty level ONE dracs. Dragons level up when you feed them four times, the higher a dragon's level, the more food they require per feeding. They grow up so fast. And the higher the level the more income they generate. Needless to say you will do well to build as many food farms as possible.

Breeding:
Basics - 1st Generation

To start breeding the dragons, you must first have these basic building blocks. You must purchase these dragons from eggs because you do not have the parents to generate and mate for these basic dragons.

Plant Dragon
Fire Dragon
Earth Dragon
Water Dragon
Electric Dragon
Ice Dragon
Metal Dragon
Dark Dragon

1st Generation Hybrids

Earth Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Earth + Fire = Flaming Rock or Volcano.
Earth + Plant = Tropical or Cactus.
Earth + Water = Mud or Waterfall.
Earth + Electric = Star.
Earth + Ice = Alpine.
Earth + Metal = Armadillo.
Earth + Dark = Hedgehog.

Fire Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Fire + Earth = Flaming Rock or Volcano.
Fire + Water = Cloud or Blizzard.
Fire + Plant = Firebird.
Fire + Electric = Laser.
Fire + Metal = Medieval.
Fire + Dark = Vampire.

Water Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Water + Earth = Mud.
Water + Fire = Cloud or Blizzard.
Water + Plant = Nenufar or Coral.
Water + Electric = Lantern Fish or Storm.
Water + Ice = Icecube.
Water + Metal = Mercury.

Plant Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Plant + Earth = Tropical.
Plant + Fire = Firebird.
Plant + Water = Nenufar or Coral.
Plant + Ice = Dandelion.
Plant + Metal = Jade.
Plant + Dark = Carnivore Plant or Rattle Snake.

Electric Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Electric + Earth = Star.
Electric + Fire = Laser.
Electric + Water = Lantern Fish or Storm.
Electric + Metal = Golden Or Battery.
Electric + Dark = Neon.

Ice Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Ice + Earth = Alpine.
Ice + Water = Icecube.
Ice + Plant = Dandelion.

Metal Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Metal + Fire = Medieval.
Metal + Water = Mercury.
Metal + Plant = Jade.
Metal + Electric = Golden or Battery.
Metal + Dark = Zombie.

Dark Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Dark + Earth = Hedgehog.
Dark + Fire = Vampire.
Dark + Plant = Carnivore Plant Or Rattle Snake.
Dark + Electric = Neon.
Dark + Ice = Penguin.
Dark + Metal = Zombie.
Dark + Mud = Poo.

2nd Generation Hybrids (Rare)

Mud (Earth + Water) + Dark = Poo.

Medieval (Fire + Metal) + Alpine (Ice + Earth) = Cool Fire Or Soccer Or Pearl Or Armadillo Or Flaming Rock

Neon (Dark + Electric) + Nenufar (Water + Plant) = Pirate.
Zombie + Mud (Earth + Water) = Petroleum.
Laser (Fire + Electric) + Dandelion (Plant + Ice) = Gummy or Fluorescent or Laser.

3rd Generation Hybrids (Legendary)

Legendary Dragon – Hybrid Rare + Hybrid Rare.
Crystal Dragon – Coolfire + Soccer
Mirror Dragon – Hybrid Rare + Hybrid Rare.
Wind Dragon – Hybrid Rare + Hybrid Rare.

Structures

The Shelter is where your dragons live, laugh and play, fire elements live in fire habitats, water elements live in water elements and a hybrids like Mud Dragons (Earth + Water) can live in either earth or water habitats, simple enough.

The Breeding Mountain/Tree is where you can send dragons to make eggs and new dragons, the breeding process takes time but it's worth the wait.

The Hatchery is where your eggs are sent to hatch, the hatching can take longer than the breeding process so upgrade the buildings as fast as possible in order to raise more Dragons simultaneously.

The Food Farm is where you grow crops for your dragons so they can grow big and strong one day. Dragons eat lots of food so grow as much food as you can (or else they might eat someone).

The Recruitment Tavern is where you are offered special bonuses and dragon eggs in exchange for inviting new players to Dragon City. 

The Dragon Market is where you can trade your dragons with your friends.

The Stadium is where you take your dragons once they are big and strong from all the 'big breed dragon chow' they've been eating. Win and earn rewards and glory.

The Temples will raise the level cap for you in Dragon City:

Magic Temple at level 20 can raise the level cap of Dragons to 15. 

The Noble temple at level 25 can raise the level cap of your Dragons to level 20.

Strategy

Get more Gold and Level Up Faster

 Complete Quests in the early stages of Dragon City, providing helpful guidance, information and rewards.

Gather gold efficiently by focusing your efforts on dragons that have the highest income rate, which can be viewed by clicking on the dragon screen and view their stats. A rule of thumb: if at level one a dragon earns more than another, the first dragon will earn more comparatively in the higher levels as well.

Level up your Island by preforming tasks like fighting, clearing brush, farming, etc. As you level up new content will become available, such as upgrading structures which is very important.

Level up your Dragons will make them better in combat and earn more income. The best way to raise your Dragons' levels is food, grow plenty of food. The 30 second harvest gives the most food for the time required but you need to be vigilant.

Friends exchange gifts with friends, help each other out in your islands and share your knowledge.

Screenshots

Dragon City Facebook

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Bush Whacker 2

Genre: Adventure
Publisher: DJarts Games



Bush Whacker is a game of bushes, swords, lightning, and what happens when they all meet. Collect hats, capes, critters, customize your house, and explore the wide open world of Bush Whacker!

Overview

DJarts Games' newest venture on Facebook Bush Whacker 2 is an adventure puzzle game sequel to Bush Whacker. Dress up your avatar, whack bushes and creatures, collect items and solve puzzles all by the hand of your wide-eyed little bush whacking friend. 


Fans of the original Bush Whacker game can expect to see many familiar faces like; Steve the Fisherman, Annie, Ralph as well as game content, gems, collectibles, costumes, creatures, furniture and more. As well as all new content such as; trinkets, progress bars and quests, etc.

Game Play

You start the game off, ship wrecked on a strange island, venture inland to find a group of friendly villagers that help show you the ropes of Bush Whacker and offer you rewards in exchange for completing quests and tasks.

The Basics

Begin your journey by learning the art of bush whacking, taking your trusty wooden sword shred an idol bush and collect what ever it leaves behind, could be coins, gems, potions, costumes, puzzles pieces or any combination of the aforementioned possibilities or could be nothing at all. 


Power attack is your next skill to learn. Use power attacks by first collecting power potions from defeated bushes/creatures, power potions are orange and act as a multiplier so 10 power attack used on a tree that would have dropped 5 coins, would now yield 50 coins (10 X 5 = 50) but if the tree drops nothing, you would get 10 of nothing so there is a luck factor. 


Mana Whack is next, this is a lightning attack that consumes not energy but instead mana which is blue and is also obtained from defeating bushes/creatures in the same manor as power potions. As you progress through the game you will be able to upgrade your mana whacking power and use it to destroy higher level targets (which require more energy) but as the mana whack power increases the mana cost increases as well. 

Inventory

Inventory is broken down into four separate categories:


General Items - The everyday things; coins, plants, furniture, costumes, etc.

Key Items - Items needed to complete quests/challenges in order to move onto the next stages.


Trinkets - Powerful items that grant bonuses, such as; better loot chances, faster running, increasing max energy. Reaching higher levels unlock additional Trinket slots to be used.


Gems - Obtained through defeating bushes/creatures, quests, rewards, etc. Used as currency, similar to gold, ranging in value.


Agate is the lowest quality gems.
Aquamarine is worth four Agate.
Citrine is worth four Aquamarine.


The highest quality gem is worth about 260,000 Agate.


You can exchange gems with one of the towns people from the beginning of the journey.

The World Map

Is capable to transporting your character to any already discovered areas with one click, free of charge.
Summarizes area completion percentages for easy review.

A very handy tool.

Analysis

Bush Whacker 2 seems to me like an amusing application but it feels like nothing short of a revamped original Bush Whacker, if this is the case than why go through the trouble of redoing an app that was doing well and stick with it. Perhaps Bush Whacker had some technical issues that would have been just as much or even more trouble to resolve so DJarts decided to go ahead and launch a whole new application while maintaining the name and image. 


If the reason for a Bush Whacker 2 is known I would be interested in learning what is was.

Although Bush Whacker 2 has many notable similarities to those present in the original Bush Whacker, the sequel does have it's own unique components and personality. Also I expect the developers to maintain both versions in the short term, which adding more content and updates to BW 2 and in the long run possibly tune BW or attempt to incorporate the accounts of BW into BW 2 if at all possible. But at the end of the day I would put my money on Bush Whacker 2 to outlive its predecessor.

Strategies

Creature supposedly have a better chance of dropping energy refills so consider using your power attacks on whacking creatures because big energy refills are the most valuable loot you can hope for.


Use your power attack when the power bar is at around 20-40% because if you use too little the multiplier will not give any significant rewards and if you use it with too much power any and all excess in the event of potions will be lost.


Choose your trinkets and other bonus effect items carefully, for example ones that give higher chance of finding potions and energy or that decrease the chance of finding nothing. If you are lucky enough to loot sufficient amounts of potions and energy you could just keep going around and around with the right luck and well managed resource distribution. 

Tips & Tricks

Check for any quests you're able to start before going to whack bushes, because a lot of the time the quests involves finding loot in an area you are about to hunt in and finding the quest items will let you finish the quest sooner and also gain additional experience from the energy you are about to use.


NEVER use a power attack with only one power in the meter, because it will have no effect.
1 X 1 = 1


When using Power attack, use it on a target that has the highest level, because the difference in energy consumption might just be a few points but the rewards will be better by a great deal.


When casting Mana Whack, use it in an area that has opponents equal to the Mana Whacks level. Because every area has six opponents (excluding special areas that have less), Mana Whack hits all opponents and costs the same amount of mana no matter the case. Opponents that are a higher level than Mana Whack will not be defeated thus the Mana Whack will destroy less than six opponents are yield diminished rewards. 

Screenshots

Bush Whacker 2 Facebook

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Dungeon Rampage

Genre: Role-playing

Publisher: Rebel Entertainment

Welcome to the Dungeon… Join your friends and battle your way to victory in this multiplayer action game. Unlock characters, earn powerful weapons and level-up as you rampage through a gauntlet of enemies and destruction – enjoy!

Overview

Fight your way through dungeon after dungeon doing battle with creatures such as; skeletons, knights, sorcerers, dinosaurs and more. The only characters available for free are the Warrior and Ranger, all other characters such as; Magician, Barbarian, Vampire, Chef, etc. must be purchased with Facebook credits. Other items can be bought in the shop with Facebook credits such as premium weapons, pets, character costumes, etc. Free characters are by no means inferior to their FBC comrades. Lots of monsters to fight and loot to grab.

Game Play

Battle

Here is where you select which dungeon you wish to challenge. Completing a dungeon successfully unlocks to next dungeon(s) so you will progress from challenge to challenge to your hearts content.

There are currently four leagues of dungeons:

1) Rookie League

2) Gladiator League

3) The Grindhouse

4) Champion League (Coming soon)

And currently 37 dungeons available to players with the Champion League dungeons coming soon.

Tavern

View and manage your characters':

• levels
• equipment
• likes/dislikes
• stats
• biography 

Training

Allocate character skill points here, also available to reallocate points. View each characters' Dungeon Buster special which becomes available when Buster Bar is filled by collecting orange stars, very useful in a tight situation.

Shop

Purchase; heroes, styles, weapons, potions, pets, coins and gifts here.

Two forms of currency in DR;
Coins - obtained from defeating monsters and selling loot/equipment.
Gems - Purchased with Facebook credits, used to buy exclusive items in shop.

Storage

Where you stash your Weapons, Potions and Pets when your not using them. Each of the three start off with 15 storage slots, which is more than enough for any rational adventurer but for the hoarders storage expansions can be purchased with gems.

Typically Stuff

And of course we cant forget there is a gifting feature, friend invites, friends leaderboard and Share.

Analysis

I like that the game play is fun, you can level up different characters and set them up with weapon setups.

There is no need to wait between game play because you don't need to use energy or stamina or anything in order to play unlike most games on Facebook.

The monster slash and bash game style is fun and cutesy with everyone having big heads, eyes and short anime bodies. I enjoy the element of strategy that is essential in surviving dungeons later in the game, whether it be using the environmental hazards as protection from monsters or advancing on enemy swarms with berserkers/samurais in the front and rangers/magicians laying support fire from the back.

The only game killing aspect of Dungeon Rampage is the lag problem. It was a slight issue a few months back when I first played DR, it wasn't so bad because everyone just refreshed the game between battles and everything was fine. Now the second time I'm playing, the lag is worse because it starts moments into the game and ruins the whole game play. If this isn't resolved it could spell the downfall of Dungeon Rampage.

Strategies

Teams

In order to make it to the end of the dungeons you'll absolutely need to team up with some fellow adventurers.

Diversify your teams classes, this means dividing your team into rows.
People in the front with big health, so Warriors and Samurais, they have the most health and defense so they can hold their ground, especially during an ambush.
Back row needs to be the artillery players, so Rangers and Magicians, these guys are capable of doing lots of damage but have no health to speak of so need to keep distance from monsters. Artillery units are able to attack enemies from a distance so this is very useful when picking off loose monsters that the front line cant afford to chase after. And artillery units are able to engage the enemy before most enemies can engage, therefore artillery units will be able to thin out the enemy forces before the battle begins.

Support units are worth considering, rangers are able to use healing scrolls to heal themselves and nearby team mates, but mana is limited and rangers are more valuable as attackers. So the chef is worthy of consideration since they can make food to heal and can provide some attacking support.

Friends With Benefits

Add Dungeon Rampage friends that you can send gifts back and forth, ideally health bombs because it is a major inconvenience to battle through a dungeon just to be taken by surprise by an ambush, so having a supply of health bombs on hand come in very handy.

Also experience boosters are helpful to raise levels faster.

Tips & Tricks

If you don't have health bombs and everyone has died in battle, having a friend in the dungeon with you gives the opportunity for you or your friend to leave and rejoin the dungeon, the returning player will spawn on top of the fallen comrade and will be able to revive him/her instantly and have a second chance to win the battle.

Note: The player that leaves will forfeit his/her experience/coin bonus obtained prior to leaving the dungeon, but everyone who stays will retain their full bonus'.

Video

YouTube Direct

 

Screenshots

Dungeon Rampage Facebook

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Ninja Showdown

 

 

 

Genre: Strategic City Building

Publisher: NoriTown Studio

 

Overview

Build your Ninja Town, research technology, construct new buildings and train ninja warriors to defend yourself and raid enemy towns.

Ninja Showdown is a new strategic city building game on Facebook, launched in April 2012 by NoriTown Studio. You can rule your own ninja town as a great Kage. Defend your town from your enemies, and revenge them by attacking their town in return!

Rule your own ninja town. Train the best ninja skill ever. Invade other clan's town to get more resources and spoils. Be the Kage!

Game Play

A traditional City Building game set in an old world Ninja land where you act as the Kage of your own town and must lead it to power against the other Kages that wish to take your land by force.

Launch attacks against other players and computer opponents, and defend your home against incoming invaders.

Build your town's housing, research buildings, training, defensive installments, storage and resource production supplies, strategically position and upgrade buildings to make them more powerful.

Research Tree is a nice feature, using resources and points gained from destroying opponent towns you can research new unit types and powers for the units such as fire damage, accuracy, speed, etc.

Analysis

Leading ones own Ninja Village is fun sounding premise for a city building game, and always having to compete with the other Kages is a challenge indeed. Ninja Showdown brings to mind the anime Naruto, I remember he always wanted to be Hokage. Although Ninja Showdown don't incorporate as much of the ninjutsu or other 'magic' skills but you can play around with units such as; archers, samurai, animals and more elite human ninjas that can be upgraded as you see fit. 

The unit control features in battle are a challenge to say the least, some units run around with a mind of their own ignoring your commands and get themselves killed. So using brute force appears to be the only way to complete those more difficult battles especially with the five minute time limit. So just let your warriors run in there,  swords ablaze and slash your way to victory and unify the land, under your control of course.

Strategy

Between battles I highly recommend taking a few moments to allow your units to rest in the town and regain their health points. Doing this will allow you to keep your regiment well stocked, avoid unneeded expenses such as buying new units and ultimately let your units gain more battle experience to level up and grow stronger.

When researching unit abilities choose units that work well together, such as a heavy unit and a ranged unit, because the heavy units will be the front line, dealing big damage and intercepting enemy blows, while allowing your ranged units to strike from a distance and remain safe. Also by focusing on developing specific units you will be focusing research time/resources on only the ones that  need it, so in stead of going into battle with 6 different poorly enhanced units, you will have 2 or 3 much more powerful unit types that will make quick work of the bumbling army.

For an army build featuring heavy melee and ranged units, please consider adding a few healers, they wont provide damage support but can assist in healing the front line keeping it strong and saving any rangers that might have taken some unexpected damage.

Consider using:

Front line - Siroco (The Firefox)

Ranged - Archers or who ever has highest ranged damage

Support - Healers

Tips & Tricks

Space in your town is valuable and limited, so pay special attention to where your buildings are positioned. 

For starters, the town hall is the most important so place it in the center or guarded by defensive installments.

Structures such as houses and mills cannot attack enemies so you will want to bundle them together and save space, if you have lots of these structures consider putting space between them so your units can travel between them without having to walk around. Another good idea is to position your non-combat buildings on the outside of your town as use them as barricades for enemies, this will make enemies need to walk around your structures in order to reach your defensive installments, but be sure you have structures with sufficient range to attack enemies while they are moving around houses, etc. 

Crates are also a great for fending off invaders, they are small a inexpensive:

Basic crate method:

Wall off your buildings from invaders using crates and use your units to engage enemies.

Advanced crate method:

Build a lot of crates and use them like a tunnel so the enemies must walk up and down, left and right in order to reach your buildings. This will eat up the enemies time. To make this much more effective build plenty of long range towers and units that can deal constant damage to the enemies while they march to your base (aka. their demise), the enemy will be defeated before they deal a single damage. Also build lots of traps on the pathways, the enemy will have no option but to walk over them and extra damage will be dealt because the enemy units will be bunched close together.

Now what if the invaders try to destroy your crates and go straight for your city center? You can prepare for this also by deploying all of your units at the center of your town and organize your great big power house of ninjas, traps, towers, walls and warriors the enemy will be walking right into a slaughter that you were more than prepared for. 

Recommendation

Fans of city building games, RTS or Naruto should consider giving Ninja Showdown a try, it is an easy to understand game and is entertaining. It's only been out for about a month (released in April 2012) so there isn't a whole lot of PvP features right now but the first generation is still being created and that is always cool. I think it would be great if they added more unit types and decreased the waiting time on buildings and research and the like.

Video

Direct to YouTube

Screenshots

Ninja Showdown Facebook

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Superball

Genre: Action & Arcade
Publisher: Cookapps

SuperBall! Shoot colorful pegs to complete challenges and discover hidden treasures!

Overview

A flashy arcade game by Cookapps, the more you score the flashier it gets, of course. Shoot the Superball down from the cannon with the objective of destroying pegs. Destroy all the red pins in order to win the match. Smashing more pegs for a bigger score that you can brag to your friends about.

Game Play

Maps

The Superball world is broken up into 10 continents with 10 challenges for each continent. So thats 100 unique match set-ups. Starting off on a sunny little farm and ending on a desert with a crashed UFO.

Power-Ups

As you progress through the first few levels you gain access to nifty power ups and other become accessible through purchase of game money and Facebook credits.

Graphics

The map is visually appealing and easily navigated through a side scrolling design. 

The games themselves look good to, very flashy when you score combos or other bonuses and calm when it needs to be.

Strategy

Combos are key in outscoring all your friends. Angle your shoots so they take out as many pegs as you can. 

Use your super balls sparingly, because with only so many points available to collect from breaking pegs, after you've taken out all the red pegs the game ends and all the left over balls drop from the sky and fall into one of 5 ball catchers, two with a 10,000 point bonus, two with a 30,000 point bonus and one with a 50,000 point bonus.

When you need to break a lonesome peg you should try to time the shot so it falls in the ball catcher, this will all the ball back to your stock so you don't loose a ball that shot. 

Tips & Tricks

Share your favorite tips & tricks or post them in the comments below.

Video

Direct to YouTube 

Images

Superball Facebook

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