Add Me

A while back, I promised to tell all about Facebook games.

It has been a hard road, full of sacrifice.

I can say there is something new about Facebook games - the "add me" effect.

This is largely by design. Facebook encourages developers to incorporate some social aspect into games.

It's also apparent that this is often done with little or no thought or effort.

The net effect is that "Add Me" games can vary from annoying to unplayable - based on your willingness to add yourself to huge chain lists of email addresses on the forums.

Most games are built on a single dynamic - building. The other distinguishing feature is PvP.

When I say "building", it is basically grinding on your character/empire/whatever. There is little or no danger of loss. It is just a matter of you putting in the time. It can still be fun, especially when there is a wide variety of things to optimize for, and you can build spreadsheets to determine the optimal path (because a good game leads to building spreadsheets! I'm serious!)

The most popular games fall into what I call * Wars (pronounced Star Wars). That is the glob *, meaning "match everything". You have Mafia Wars, Mob Wars, Dragon Wars, Vampire Wars, Fashion Wars. I have played a handful of them, and they all play the same. A lot of other games use the same dynamic, but don't have Wars in the name - Street Racing, War Machine (now called War Metal), Star Conquest, even the RPG Hammerfall is really the same.

More later...