Facebook Game Looks To Combine Episodic/JRPG Traditions

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The developers at Tista Games are looking to do something new with Facebook games. They want to create a compelling character driven story like the better Final Fantasy titles in a social game with the episodic nature of a TV show like Lost.

“We combine the best of both worlds” a video game medium that lets you get involved and play through the plot combined with a TV show medium that lets us selectively focus on different characters to show a more complete picture,” said Tista CEO Aunim Hossain.

New episodes of Tempus Chronicle will release every Tuesday at 6 PM. Right now they’re looking to get more money from Kickstarter to fund a full season of 24 episodes with $200,000.

“Along the way, the boys will . . . learn about the secrets of time travel and learn to control it, they’ll each fall in love with very different people, they’ll be separated from each other, and they’ll search for their mother,” said Hossain of the story. “We have a lot of other twists and turns that we’re excited to present to you.”

“In our episodic medium, like Lost, we will be able to really flesh out our characters,” Hossain added. “We’ll have episodes that focus on one of the characters and show their histories, motivations, and insecurities.”

While this will be on Facebook, there will be no energy mechanic, you won’t have to invite your friends and it won’t spam your news feed. “Admittedly, Facebook games have historically been focused on the casual market and have utilized very limited (and tedious) mechanics,” said Hossain. “But we think that Facebook games have the potential to evolve into a much better gaming platform. And we want to be at the forefront of the Facebook gaming revolution.”

“We want you to feel as though you’re playing a real old school RPG that happens to be on Facebook,” he added. “We’re creating the old school JRPG that we’ve been dying to play, we’re releasing it on Facebook to revolutionize the way games are made on that platform, and we’re hoping to pioneer a new genre of weekly scheduled episodic games.”

Source: Kotaku

You Are A Hero!

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Kinect Rush is an adventure game that puts you in charge of helping out your favorite Pixar characters like Woody, Lightning McQueen, and others. Your living room is the new playground and Kinect allows anyone to instantly become part of the action. On Facebook, fans can create their own Kinect Rush character from the worlds of The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Toy Story, UP and Cars. Take a quick personality test to get started and save to an album on Facebook or share with friends!

Look Who’s Talking

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A combination of Google+ Hangouts, Skype and YouTube, OnTheAir is a new site that wants to create communities of like-minded individuals via live video conversations. Launched into private beta, anyone can create a live video chat on the site. The idea is to make interactive live video a seamless experience that helps people cultivate groups based on their interests. Here’s how it works: Say you want to host a channel about blogging, you can schedule live conversations at any time and moderate who speaks. If you connect the tool to Facebook and Twitter, the site automatically shares the time of the chat to Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Another cool feature — there’s no limit to how many people can be in the queue to ask questions. To help ensure the quality of the site, the designers implemented “aggressive checks,” including a requirement that anyone who signs up must have at least 25 Facebook friends to ensure they’re a real person and not a spambot. Right now, the site is free to everyone and, unlike Google+ Hangouts, there’s no plug-in requirement (Hangouts requires a 13.6MB install). As the team tests the site with new users, they plan to fix any quirks and add additional features such as the ability to record and save live chats.

Help Don Save The Agency

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Written and directed by Benny & Rafi Fine (The Fine Brothers), this interactive YouTube game lets fans play as Don Draper from Mad Men in an 8-bit inspired adventure and help him complete all 3 tasks to save the company! There are 3 different endings based on the order you complete the tasks. Play the game multiple times to see all possible endings.

Meet Up In The Lodge!

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Welcome to the SSX RiderNet Lodge! You can find SSX riders from around the world to race, trick and survive with. Add your info to see the gamertags/PSN IDs of your fellow SSX fans, friend them, then hit the mountain together!

A Better World Counts

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An interesting new twist to the Nike Better World Campaign entitled Journey, Jason Lester will travel for the next 102 days across the U.S. biking or running the entire 4000 miles. The site will track his journey via photos, a stats dashboard and a map of his location.  A calendar of Facebook events allows users to join the journey in their city.

Take The Inaugural Capitol Tour

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Lionsgate has gone live today with an immersive site for its movie version of The Hunger Games (which is out on Friday 23rd March). The site, The Capitol Tour, uses HTML5 video to give visitors the experience of ‘arriving’ in the Capitol, the fictional city where the brutal Hunger Games are held. There are hidden features for fans to discover, and visitors can also link via Facebook to bring their friends into the site too.

In a partnership with Microsoft, the site also acts as a promotional tool for Internet Explorer version 9. On arrival, visitors are informed that the site is viewed best in IE9 (although it can be viewed via other browsers). If you’re interested in knowing more about the development of the site, a great video has also been posted.

Quests Starting For The Hunger Games

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The Hunger Games Adventures is an upcoming social adventure game that is going to launch on Facebook on March 23, the same day for the release of the film. The game will take players into a new view of Panem, the fictional world in the story, and complete quests offered by Katniss and Peeta, the major characters in the books. With adventure at the core, the gameplay is driven by World of Warcraft-styled quests that send players into a wide range of activities. Besides the outdoor adventure, players can also have their Forest Escape, a personal niche where they restore energy and personalize it with decorations. The in-game world is not that edgy as depicted in the books or the movie, but more child-friendly in graphics and gameplay. Being on Facebook, it adds the basic social elements like free gifting or favor granting for one another, but it’s basically a game played solo. The Hunger Games Adventures is developed under the concerted efforts of Funtactix with Suzanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games, as well as the movie producers.

Join The Parade

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Cadbury have launched the ‘Cadbury Keep Team GB Pumped Parade’ to rally support for the British Olympic athletes in the lead up to London 2012. The virtual parade can be viewed from within a Facebook app on the Cadbury U.K. page which lets users create an avatar to join the parade. Users can select their gender, choose an outfit and accessorize their avatar before they join the march. Everyone that joins is entered into a weekly draw to win tickets to the Olympics. Users are encouraged to invite their friends from Facebook and Twitter to help gain support for team G.B., as well as posting pictures of their avatar during the parade to their Facebook wall.