Flash gaming site Kongregate has a new service launching on Wednesday called the Collabs that lets musicians and artists share their work in the hopes of getting it used in upcoming Flash games. Content creators upload their works directly to Kongregate where it goes into a directory that's curated by several of the site's power users.
The Collabs are not just for developers though. Kongregate users can listen to music and view animations, as well as rate them the same way they're able to do with the service's games. In a phone interview, Kongregate's CEO Jim Greer told me that he wants it to be a place for users to explore and discover new designers and musical artists before they go mainstream. Their input also has the power to get some of the ideas turned into games that they can later play, or sound creations that can go into their favorite games, since the highest rated submissions win cash and the chance to get free home game studio tools.
The new sounds section lets music creators share their work with potential developer clients who can preview a track and maybe license it, or hire them to work on game music.
(Credit: CNET)Casual users who have a game design idea will also soon be able to publish it directly to the art Collabs using built-in tools from Aviary. Using special versions of Raven and Phoenix (Aviary's vector and image editors), which run right on the page, users will be able to create new art that can be sent directly to the Collabs. This functionality won't be live on Wednesday, but Greer says it will be there in a week or two.
To handle all the licensing, each item can be set to one of three creative commons licenses--both for acceptable use and acceptable modification. There is no integrated purchasing system though. Instead, each submitter can be directly contacted by those who are interested in their creations or services. There's also Kongregate's "hook up" forum for developers to hire talent or find testers, or for people looking for work to match up with their skills.
Kongregate continues to grow since launching three years ago. Greer says the site is now adding around 1,000 new games a month, which are entertaining more than 7.5 million monthly unique users. That audience is doubling every six months. The site is still driven by ad revenues, although has recently built in a micropayments system which developers can include in their games. This new system will hopefully generate more Flash game development, which should augment those numbers even more.
User created art, as shown off in Kongregate's Collabos.
(Credit: CNET)
Gaming is one of the greatest uses of Flash technology. There are tons of places to get your Flash gaming on, and one of my new favorites is Nonoba. I found my way there earlier this morning from a link on Download Squad for a particularly fun game called Comboll that's a cross between Breakout and a scrolling level of Super Mario Bros.
The site offers the same communal experience of playing games with others as Kongregate does, with built-in user chat, reviews and commenting, along with achievements and a built-in social network. There's also a revenue-sharing program for publishers looking to make some cash off their work. One of the service's coolest features, however, are the labs.
Like Digg's swarm visualization, Nonoba has its own visualizer called LiveStats to show you what people on the site are up to in real-time. It shows if they're on a game or community page, or when new games have been uploaded. The more users there are in any location the bigger the spheres get. It also shows you user movements of both registered and unregistered users as they zip around the site. This is far more engaging than a simple Top 10 list, and after watching it for a while you can see trends as masses of people hop on to play certain games and small titles become more and more popular.
One small hiccup is that the visualizer chugs to a near standstill when the site is overrun with users. On several occasions it would make my browser hang--so be careful about leaving it on to long.
Track user activity on the gaming site Nonoba with its Flash visualizer.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
(Credit:
nekogames)
It might not have much competition yet, but the most entertaining Flash game of 2008 so far is the inventive puzzler/platformer Cursor*10. At first, the gameplay looks extremely basic. Simply click on the "up" staircases to make your way through 16 levels that contain only stairs, pyramids, and buttons. Exploding pyramids give you 1 point apiece, whereas reaching the 16th level provides 100 points.
I won't ruin the game by explaining how to play, but the basic innovation of Cursor*10 is that you'll most likely need to use each of your 10 allotted cursors wisely and efficiently in order to even reach the finish, let alone collect pyramids along the way. Each of your cursors exists within the same time frame, so that by the time you reach your seventh or eighth cursor, you'll see numerous arrows scattering about the levels, blasting pyramids, pressing buttons, and scampering up stairs. ... Read more
Doof is a new Flash games service that's attempting to give people single and multplayer Flash gaming in one spot with a creative spin. Doof takes a virtual desktop approach to managing a playspace, with floating windows the likes of some Web OS services we've looked at. You can have as many opened up as you'd like, and they can be minimized, organized, and tweaked to look any way you want. When actually playing a game, however, it'll take control of your screen, darkening everything else on your Webtop.
The smattering of games is what makes Doof worth looking at. You'll find many classic clones, along with some first-party classic titles like Asteroids and Space Invaders. Games can be played in a "quick play" setting that jumps you into a single player match, or you can play the odds and go up against another Doof player. Here's where things get interesting--you can incrementally buy into various levels of tournament play against other people using virtual credits. You can either buy these credits in chunks (using real money), or win them with skill against others. You start out with 10, which is enough to get you into a couple of multiplayer tournaments with the chance to win from others.
In addition to games, Doof mixes up a variety of community features. Most notably each member gets their own profile page which tracks game achievements, play history, and can let you pull in your photos from Facebook. There's also a microblogging platform the likes of Facebook's status message, which Doof calls "Pulse," along with an RSS ticker that grabs the latest headlines from a little over a dozen sites. Like everything else on the site, the entire experience is handled through windows, instead of jumping you from page to page. There are also no advertisements.
Where Doof shines is its interface, which is highly customizable and open to a lot of new things that can be built in later down the line. In many ways it reminds me a lot of iminlikewithyou, although with less emphasis on user profiles and more on the games. Compared to a competitor like Kongregate, Doof is treading a slightly different path. Their games may have a bit more immediate polish, but there's not a developers network in sight. Cheapskates will prefer Kongregate for its free multiplayer gaming, which you can't get away with on Doof (unless you're a good gamer), along with a much larger library of playable games.
Play all sorts of games with other people, or just by yourself with Doof, a Flashy new games site.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Mochi Media today is publicly launching a toolkit that serves ads in Flash games and also collects analytics. Since Flash games can spread across the Web rapidly and without the blessing of their designers, having some way to make the games phone home to developers, and send money back while they're at it, is a great idea and killer business model.
The big part of today's public release of the product is the ad network, MochiAds. Mochi Media sells image ads--splashy brand-building ads, not buy-me-now clickthrough drivers--to its own ad base at a $5.00 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Customers so far include Wrigleys, Red Bull, and RockYou. Game developers get half of the revenue from ads, and getting the ads in their games is supposed to be a very simple programming addition. That's what CEO Jameson Hsu told me, but I don't program in Flash.
The advantage, compared to licensing a game to sites to host it, is that once a programmer embeds the ad engine in a game, no matter where the game ends up, the developer stands to make money from it. Even if the game is stolen, even if it runs on a site surrounded by other HTML ads, the ad can still play in-game. You can see a demo of the ad insertion technology on these Flash games.
Mochi's system only plays once per gameplay session, and generally between levels or during loading, so it's not too terribly invasive. Ads are also targeted, by game category (Ford can put ads on driving games) and by location, based on IP address.
Find out what your Flash apps are doing when they leave home.
(Credit: Mochi Media)The company is also helping Flash game developers get smarter about how their their programs are used. The new MochiBot module collects data from Flash apps, much like Google Analytics collects data from Web sites. In addition to reporting on time and physical location for game sessions, MochiBot can tell you where games are being hosted, and it can report analytics from in-game data, like levels completed.
Hsu came to this business model after developing Flash games on contract for big brands. "People used to pay us $125,000 or $150,000 to develop games, and we couldn't guarantee success. With this [MochiAds], you know you're going to get eyeballs." I have not been able to find a competing Flash game ad or analytics service, which surprised me. Given the rapid uptake in these games and the speed with which they spread on the Web, this business appears to be a no-brainer.
Electrocity
(Credit: CNET Networks)Like a mini-version of SimCity, the Flash-based Web game Electrocity lets you develop your own metropolis from the ground up. Rather than existing solely as a entertaining Web diversion, however, Electrocity has a hidden agenda.
The sponsor of the game, Genesis Energy, is an energy provider and retailer in New Zealand. Electrocity was developed to increase public awareness about energy usage, its cost, and its effect on the environment.
Electrocity is a fairly simple, turn-based strategy game. You get 150 turns to create your masterpiece, but the challenge is to allocate resources wisely as you build. One-hundred and fifty turns may seem like an eternity, but many of these will be skipped in the process of gathering cash and natural resources, so it's essential to build infrastructure early. A full game at average speed takes about 30 minutes. It's also easy to save any game in the middle, then restart later using a personalized city code the game assigns you.
Played on a 5x5 grid, Electrocity starts you off with a small urban center, a population of 10,000, a 25 percent tax rate, and one wind farm that provides all the town's energy. Surrounding areas are randomly populated with forests, plains, mountains, rivers, or oceanfront property.
Each area may provide resources that can only be discovered by prospecting. Once you've discovered coal or gas, you can build plants and start selling energy on the open market. You can raise and lower taxes, and upgrade your wind, coal, and gas plants as you see fit. Once you amass enough cash, you can start building luxury items such as sports stadiums, ski resorts, or beaches to attract a larger population. If you grow your population too quickly, however, you'll get crunched on your energy usage and end up paying through the nose on the open market.
I previously thought that I was much better at turn-based rather than real-time strategy games, but after playing through Electrocity, it turns out that I stink equally at both. Aside from building coal plants where there was no coal, my addiction to alternative energy and campgrounds proved to be idiotic.
On my first try, I accidentally went bankrupt in round 68 after building a large geothermal plant that send me plummeting into the red. My population barely peaked above 30,000 people. The second time, I lasted the whole 150 turns, but I couldn't seem to maintain more than 40,000 residents or keep much more than $1,000 in the bank. Good thing I'm not the king!
The city of Heter provides massive energy and numerous tourist destinations for a top rating in the Finished Cities chart
(Credit: CNET Networks)If you make it to the end of the game, you'll receive a score based on your energy management, popularity, population, and environmental prowess. I spent all of my time logging and planting forests, so it's no surprised my environmental grade was "A." My energy management (since it never advanced beyond large wind farms and small coal plants) also received an "A."
My popularity was about 90%, which only merits a "B+" grade, and I dropped the ball completely on population, averaging 34,150 citizens, which received a "C-." Oh well. My overall score wasn't much better: 76 for a "B-." After you've received your final score, you can submit your city to the Finished Cities page, which also enters you into a prize drawing.
The Finished Cities ranking on the Electrocity Web site is determined by final score, though maximum population seems to be a tie breaker. Currently the city of Heter by the player Rong is No. 1, with a whopping population of 3,897,182. Your strategy is determined slightly by the random environment you begin with, but it appears that Rong topped the list by building three large nuclear plants on the edge of town, along with oceanfront development to bring in the tourists. Your mileage will vary. My only advice is don't build a large geothermal plant without the scratch to back it up. Good luck, and happy urban planning!
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