“Tycoons” in facebook

Have you played a web browser text game before? Are you familiar with this point and click style of games that allows you to continue playing, even if, you are already logged out? Have you played any tycoon type of game on your PC and online? Do you enjoy managing little farms, building cities, providing transportation, either in modern or ancient times and places like Rome, Egypt, or China? Do you love creating and providing industries, developing economies, or simply gleeful to watch how livestock and agriculture become a necessity and an important part of a burgeoning city?

If you have a facebook account, and chances are you have, you know what I am talking about even if you don’t play much of the free online games. The Tycoons game in facebook was a recent addition—it is still in beta format as of this writing—and it already made good impressions even among those who are not into the business management genre. As an avid fan of tycoon games, either a pc game or a web browser game of economic simulation, city building and management, farming or gardening—ho-ho!, I played Capitalism 2, Railroad Tycoon 3, Sim City 4, Monopoly Tycoon, Restaurant Empire, Patrician 3, Children of the Nile, Transport Giant, Locomotion, Caesar 4, Molehill Empire, Industry Tycoon, Tycoon Online, etc., on my PC—I find the facebook game taking a big leap, learning its lessons from the older browser games.

Let us look at some developments incorporated in “Tycoons”:

1)    Lag time:
“Tycoons” short-circuited the wait time to five minutes (!) and the game moves at a fast pace, requiring more attention and thus, increasing player interest, as he or she micro manages his or her businesses in a climate that becomes more challenging and attractive with trading prices changing in mere seconds (!), as compared to the ambling, grumbling dinosaurs of other games.

Most of the browser text tycoon games are so slooow, that even if you can play them simultaneously with other browser games, the lag time to acquire, say a farm land, takes about an hour or so. Thus, your game interest may soon fail due to long waits, just to see your choice of industry starts to develop or improve. Bottom line: It takes days to see that you have finally started to earn from your wheat farm!

2)    Visuals and Graphics:
“Tycoons” has a candy style approach to its graphics, and though the older facebook aficionados may find it too childish for a serious game of commerce and trade, it enhances the static appeal of the game genre, not unless, it is compared to animated pc games. The colourful icons toned down the plainness of what a player does with web browser games, i.e., point and click, wait, repeat, wait, point and click, repeat, etc., you get the idea. The colours and designs of the industry “animate” the icons in the player’s imagination, as he or she hurries up to acquire a solar power plant or a beach resort, while waiting to level up and get more business partners.

Thus, it points to the poor visual approaches or graphic designs of most of the other browser games: unimaginative, static, plain, and sometimes too spare and uncreative to enrich or tickle, attract and hold one’s interest. Tie it up with the long wait, and only the hardcore player may stay behind in the game…And that is sad.

3)    Leveling up:
“Tycoons” allows the player to level up in quick, easy steps; either with hard earned cash grabbed from selling or trading, or with “Mastery” of sectors and government reward points—all available to you through the help and blessings of your facebook buddies and none-buddies (yet!) ready to assist, be a business partner, or send you gifts (resources you are in need of) or cash—every day! (In less than 24 hours, I was already level 6 before I went to bed, and I was not playing all the time. I took breaks and naps in-between, dropping on the game only from time to time to keep my businesses running. Yes, there is upkeep to maintain. Remember, everything moves every five minutes!)

For other browser games, leveling up are a chore, and one must constantly monitor and check after long waits if the requirements have already been met. Yet, here is a hard fact: Players of some these online browser games sweat it out every day, devouted and religiously following and completing every step required, because there is real money waiting to be had, i.e., by selling artifacts, loots, etc., and keeps the gamers locked tight in the game. That which makes Tycoon games different, since virtual popularity is the only carrot or the cake dangling on a click.

But before I totally veered off from what I wanted to point out, lost in my own enthusiasm for the Tycoons game on facebook, one important thing is missing to complete the excellence of the game: Transportation Sector. As the game offers the player varied business sectors to choose from and start the game—agriculture, automotive, housing, entertainment, utilities, raw materials, etc.—Transportation is missing. Economies grow and develop because of transportation, as the raw materials are carried to factories and the goods delivered to distributors and then to users. To have missed on Transportation as an integral part of an economic or business simulation game is a mortal sin, tantamount to running a factory without manpower, or as glaring a mistake as creating a city without roads.

Yet, I hope the developers of the game can amend it, since it is still in the beta format. Although automobiles are in the game used as an upkeep requirement for several housing businesses, how would I love to see under the Transportation Sector the availability of vans, trucks, trailers, trains, boats, ships, and airplanes to jets, hauling and delivering the goods and raw materials, as each one becomes a necessity for each and every sector in the game.

What do you think? Are you with me on this? You can help by voting on it as you comment whether you like the game or not in the pop up. Include the line “Where is Transportation Sector?” and pray the developers hear us—thousands of facebook members clamoring for its inclusion in the game (I hope), as we enjoy commerce and trading, racing to be a billionaire Tycoon—and maintaining it!—in the Ladder of success.

Here’s a toast to your first billion!

Play, Little Devil, Play

Ever since the idea of playing video games in the console and the PC became the physical exercise and serious occupation of most youths during their pastimes, stolen or otherwise, different age levels from very young children to overgrown consenting adults were targeted also by game designers, together with their developers and publishers. And who wouldn’t? It was a healthy and profitable mix of creative release and financial success, with most of the kids graduating in a hurry from the arcades of gaming to the comforts of their own homes, enjoying quick battles with their friends, family, or relatives. And if they happened to be playing online, why, even the strangest of the strange can be found, get introduced to, and socialized with in friendly competition of skills, stamina, and mind-boggling speed of fingers with both hands caressing the controls. (Just watch the gamers play the oldies Tekken, Counter Strike, or Street Fighter, or the latest Unreal Tournament and God of War, and you’ll understand what I mean).

That was well and good for everyone playing the games, at least, for quite a while. Yet, the stiff commercial competition encouraged by the video game industry for its developers pushed them to game overtime and demanded from everyone engaged in the business to create and produce something really, really irresistible, fantastic, and so arresting that the only rest and relief available to a gamer is a quick, stumbling trip to the john. (I have experienced in one, maddening LAN game to play from two in the afternoon up to seven thirty the following morning–straight, without sleep, with only biscuits and nuts to keep us going, and hurried game pauses to relieve ourselves–Whew!! And yet, I felt it wasn’t enough! I was not yet spent, still wide awake during the day, and never relinquishing my seat in front of the PC monitor). The games indeed, have become addicting to a dangerous level.

Thus, the unavoidable controversies started to materialize and crept in: embedded sex scenes, brutal fighting combos, gory ways of killing; too much of everything from splattering blood, flying decapitations, overly-sexy character designs, to subliminal suggestions and innuendos to commit crimes, to kill and murder, to have sex, and play again, and again, and again, so the cycle goes. The cries and angry laments of the militant and the active against the “bad” influences of video games were heard all over the world. The narrow-minded cried wolf and passed their self-serving papers; the broad-minded smiled and shook their heads; the gamers community imploded in disgust and disbelief, while the kids and the adults continued to play in the privacy of their beds, shooting each other while trash-talking online until exhaustion claimed the unworthy one by one to sleep and rest, ignoring whatever was brewing, till the concerns fizzled out and died of natural obsolescence.

As a gamer, I am guilty of indulgence, as charged. Yet, as familiarity of the games set in, I tended to drift in favor of more subtle games, those with intellectual exercises and brain manipulation for strategy and control. I played RTS, empire building, business sims, tycoon games, and enjoyed them equally as I have enjoyed the fast, rock and roll phases of FPS, combat sims, and RPGs. But after awhile, the repetitiveness of the gameplay began to surface again, so that I chose and played only what I felt would sustain my ebbing interest while nourishing still my addiction.

Then something else happened: my nephew introduced me to web browser text based games. Though very slow in action and developments, and lacking the glamorous presentation and animation of video games, my curiousity grabbed my attention by the tail to play and explore its fun possibilities. And while experimenting to do other things due to the virtual slowness of the gameplay (I can play several games simultaneously at any given time), I was browsing the net. I tap into the social network sites. I read in the blog sites. And I found, as I dug deeper and harder into the wonders of the net, a gem of a gaming site: ORISINAL.

Excellent subtlety. Two words that best describe the site, where various graphic icons of flash games for young and old stayed subdued, clothed in a soft, washed-out background, each one ready to load and start playing, once clicked with the mouse.

The games are engaging, with simple and easy gameplays made more interesting, arresting, and captivating by the wonderful harmonies of color, graphic design, art, animation, and music. I was immediately transported by the hypnotic sounds and music to my childhood days, to memories of my earliest crushes in school, as I watched the pastel shades blending so artistically well in mild contrasts and unique color schemes, pumped up by graphic designs, fonts, and character animation designs–cute, cuddly, lovable creations that should be copyrighted less someone gets the idea for stuffed toys! (Not unless, ORISINAL already had engaged in the business of diversifying their games a long time ago).

The gameplay, though simple and elementary, are not only addicting, interesting, and wholesome in an LOL way, but most of all, it offers enjoyment, fun, and satisfaction without shedding a drop of blood, causing pain to anybody, or destroying property; no tearing of life or limb, or ego-boosting, ear-splitting cries of “MULTI-KILL!!!” each time you earn a high score. (One game though about a samurai warrior hacking his way through a series of ninjas running fast towards him, thus, splattering red in the small window of the game, seemed the only one out of place in the themes presented by ORISINAL in their site).

These dainty, delicate, and amusing games in their own little ways, can be played by a four year old, and together with a parent or grandma or pa playing alternately to compete for a better score, long hours of wholesome fun is expected. (Not unless, the four year old declines to give the seat in front of your PC monitor!) Yes, I played the “bugs” game for more than six hours, and played it again the next day. Sorry, kid…got to sleep or play outside.

Yet, it doesn’t mean the games are shallow, mellow, or low in the intelligence and skill points. The flash games are exquisite in its neat presentation; funny and addicting in itself that a player may not mind losing at all so he or she can play the games again and again. The site offers quite a variety, and with easy loading and simple controls of mouse clicks or the up and down arrows in the keyboard, the games deserve a quick peek if you’re looking for a wholesome time to play with family and friends.

But for me, as an artist, my wonderment was caught and satisfied by the art, graphic design, color schemes, font choices, and the expert and professional handling of harmonizing and blending all of these with music, movement, and gameplay. My most humble praises to the designers and everyone responsible for a wholesome game site like ORISINAL: May your creativity never falter or wane, and your site’s appeal grow and prosper. Here’s looking for more new games added to your subtle interface. More power!

Now who says all video games should be brutal, gory, and sexy to be fun?