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Destination Vodka Facebook Game

Project name: Destination Vodka
Category: Facebook App – Game
Client: Keglevich
Agency: Evolution People
Technologies: Flash, Ruby on Rails, Amazon Cloud
Primary Target: Keglevich’s consumers and Facebook’s users
Main Target Device: Web Browser – Facebook

Alittleb.it has developed for Keglevich the Facebook game named “Destination Vodka”.

The application reflects the dynamic and modern style of Keglevich’s Vodka communication.
Along the six carefully designed levels, users can test their skills immerging in the game thanks to his storytelling similar to a comic.

The use of Ludum technology, alittleb.it’s tool for rapid development of small Social Games, made us possible to create an application within Facebook where users have the opportunity to unlock achievements and badges, challanging other users or friends in a competition to obtain the highest score for each of the six levels.

Users can invite their friends generating a viral circle for the app, exposed to a wider audience. The use of the Ludum technology gives the ability to easily replicate the technical basis of the application, adapting it to the context in which is inserted, so it’s easy to create similar experiences for other companies interested in developing similar applications to fuel their brand awareness and optimize their in-game ADV.

The Seven Deadly Sins and PENS: a comparative analysis

PENS is an interesting research that aims to overlap the concept of “fun” to focus on the psychological needs that videogames can satisfy. This Thesis develops metrics typologies that can evaluate the player’s satisfaction degree, an important issue for game developers that need a profound comprehension of the psychological dynamics in the game activities. Competence, autonomy, relatedness are key factors in a videogame experience and can be linked to the seven deadly sins theory applied to videogames. It’s even possible to move forward in this argument, developing both theories in the social games sphere, true field of application for modern game design.

GameCity at Cartoons on the Bay

GameCity will be presented at the Cartoons on the Bay event, from 7 to 10 April in Rapallo, Santa Margherita and Portofino.

GameCity is the new meta-game produced by alittleb.it for Nickelodeon that will be published on nicktv.it portal. It provides a gaming experience based on a fictional city where players can create a super hero and use a vehicle to patrol the streets, visiting four different districts branded by the Nickelodeon ips: Spongebob, The Penguins of Madagascar , Avatar and The Fairly OddParents.

At Cartoons on the Bay will be available two iMac demo stations dedicated to the audience so everyone can try the game for the first time, challenging other users and beginning to unlock points, gadgets and awards.

Download the italian announcement

GameCity is developed with our Social Game Development Platform: LUDUM.

Rafting is available in Avventura da Paura

Today the social game Avventura da Paura (Scary Adventure) includes the new rafting minigame.

Rafting Avventura da Paura

Avventura da Paura (Scary Adventure) is the social game published on nicktv.it portal, produced by alittleb.it for Nickelodeon.

Play Avventura da Paura

LUDUM – A Platform to Quickly Develop Flash Social Games

LUDUM

Single engine for both social games and Intranet Social E-learning or Productivity Games

Quicker development process leading to faster time to market

Already used on several successful cases (e.g. games for MTV, Nickelodeon, Astrazeneca)

Statistics and Google Analytics connection

Asynchronous multiplayer gameplay

Allow work-in-progress optimization and scheduled update

Alittleb.it introduces its new flash social game development platform: LUDUM

LUDUM is a flexible technology that allows us to quickly develop customizable social games and advergames.
LUDUM joins the existing Alittleb.it & DarkWave Games’ UnderWAVE: a proprietary framework to develop 2D multiplatform games (for iOS, Android, PC, Mac & Linux).

Avventura da Paura – Social Web Game

Following the big success of Camp Orange’s Social Web Games, Alittleb.it has created the social game “Avventura da Paura” (Scary Adventure – Avventura da Paura’s Social Web Game) for MTV Italy and Nickelodeon. The game is published on nicktv.it portal – http://avventuradapaura.nicktv.it/gioco.html.

Avventura da Paura is a Nickelodeon’s Adventure Broadcast-Game that goes on air on Nickelodeon (the Mtv’s teen channel).

alittleb.it created the game concept, the design and the graphics, and made an hard work on writing the Flash (AS3) and PHP5 code of the Web Game Avventura da Paura.

Avventura da Paura is at most a reskin and upgrade of Camp Orange’s Social Web Games: this was possible because of the flexibility of our Social Game Development Platform (LUDUM).

Alittleb.it has developed the entire website www.avventuradapaura.it, too.Read More

Game-Design Evolution – The Seven Deadly Sins Theory

The second of the series of posts about the new objectives of game designers: today, game designers have to consider revenue issues and business models since the beginning of their creative processes.

The lead designer of Settlers Online, Teut Weidemann, maintains that the first step for a game designer is to identify what makes a mechanic funny: it must be able to attract users.
But, at the same time, it is necessary to consider the monetization power of that mechanic, since monetizing has become a crucial and essential part of game design.
The technique adopted by Weidemann is interesting, but it is also cynical. It is based on the exploration – or rather, on the monetization – of human weaknesses, that he called The Seven Deadly Sins. Not only because of his name, it has caused a lot of reactions within the community of developers; however, in our opinion, it is a correct logic.

VANITY
Players love competition, and even more, they love to boast and to show how good they are and the goals they have achieved. Competing and cooperating at the same time is a very powerful dynamic which gets players to try to improve, also considering the progress of the others. This dynamic leads to the next sin….Read More

Game-Design Evolution – Introduction

This will be the first of a series of posts about the new objectives of game designers.
Today, in fact, social-game designers have to consider revenue issues and business models since the beginning of their creative processes.

Games are one of the main reasons why people visit Facebook. In fact, it is estimated that about 40% of users are online to play social games. This means that more than two hundred million people enjoy playing on Facebook every month, and that the top ten titles on social network can boast over twelve million users each.

In the same way as the entertainment industry is rapidly moving toward online business models, for example cloud gaming, digital delivery and social gaming, so game designers need to adapt to this situation too. They have to develop their technical-cultural knowledge in order to link creativity with market laws, which have to be more and more aggressive and innovative; so, today, game designers have to find the perfect mix between fun factors and revenues.
This does not imply a leveling of gameplay in favor of monetizing for its own sake: in fact, gameplay is gaining importance even more than before, because of the fierce competition and the staggering growth of the sector. However, gameplay is increasingly focused on simplicity and on the emotional stimulus rather than on actions to do or on th aesthetic depth of the ludic architecture.Read More

Three social gaming trends for 2011 | Gamasutra: Joost Rietveld’s Blog

Social gaming, both expanding and diversifying the gamer population, has been maturing at rapid pace resulting in heavy consolidation, while at the same time leaving room for innovation. Drawing in part on 2010’s social gaming summit, consultancy activities in the social gaming sector and academic interests, in this article I look at three broad social gaming trends for 2011.

Trend 1. Mobile Social Gaming

’2011 will see the rise of mobile social games, both on Facebook as well as on other platforms such as iOS (Apple), Android Market and HTML5.’

Trend 2. Location Based Social Gaming

‘Backed by location based services, 2011 will see the rise of niche products in which cohesive communities will be served with innovative and meaningful products.’

Trend 3. Social Advergames

When properly executed, advergames are an extremely effective marketing tool. Disney acquired social game developer Playdom in July 2010 with the likely rationale of brand proliferation of Disney’s intellectual property rights through Playdom’s games and reach. McDonalds was one of the first and most visible to actually engage in social advergaming by taking over Farmville for a day in the form of a gigantic in game dynamic advertisement. Whereas Frima has attempted to iterate on the success of Farmville in favor of Mazda by developing Mazda’s DriverVille.
‘As companies have become aware of the strength of social media in 2010, 2011 will see the rise of holistic social advergames.’