How cool is this… my pet project Zoikz has made it onto the football pitch on the shirts of the London team, the Greenford Gaints. Yes that red splodge on their shirts is the Zoikz Logo. Interestingly, they were supposed to be called the Greenford Giants but there was a typo on the entry form and it was too late to change it. That’s also how Google got its name… it was supposed to be Googol, but I digress.

The Zoikz are an idea I had a few years back and developed in conjunction with RDF Rights and Digital Outlook Studios. It was then made in to a game on Miniclip called Zoikz Defender, had a 6 episode, double-page spread in Toxic Magazine and then a follow-up game on Miniclip called Zoik and Destroy.

Now I’ve left Digital Outlook, Zoikz is out of my hands so not quite sure where we’ll see them next. Lets hope the Greenford Gaints make it to the Premiership and put the Zoikz on TV. If not, I’m more then happy they’re helping a local team with the cost of their kit. What a great thing to be involved in. If you’re near Greenford, you know what to do…

BOLA SOCIAL SOCCER on Facebook

I didn’t really do the Farmville thing. Loved the game structure and concept, just found the idea of town-based digital types ‘playing’ at being a farmer rather lame. Clearly I’m in the minority but my farming family background just won’t let me do it.

I’m also not that keen of football. And it’s probably the only genre of game that I can’t play either. Never really got past the first few seconds of any console football game. Kinda surprised in Bola though. It has all the hallmarks of something I should hate. Football, management game and a mini-football game to play too. Yet it’s brilliant. It’s very Farming in feel but clearly is trying to tap into the world’s most popular ‘real-world’ game.

Why is this interesting? Well all the people who have been addicted to Farmville just aren’t picking this up. They’re ‘Farmvilled out’. They’ve reached that cliff where they suddenly realise “Hang on, this is absolutely pointless!”… and they go about their normal lives actually talking to real people and who knows, doing real gardening. All the people that stood, dazed at the side line of Farmville tutting seem to welcome Bola. It’s like a ‘Thank god, a game that doesn’t make me look lame” moment. Ding, ding, social gaming round two…

I also notice they are now the 3rd most popular app this month on Facebook. Now there’s your business model…

PLAY IT here.

Split/Second on Facebook

This is the Split/Second Facebook app to help promote the console game. First up I have to confess, I helped make this but what struck me was the simplicity of the game and the power of several robust game principles when they come together in the right mix:

1) Game trailer are the best thing to sell games. Why not use the trailer AS the game.

2) Keep it simple, it’s Facebook!

3) Make the scoring mechanism granular enough to generate varied scores

4) Show your friends in a leader board – this REALLY hikes the replay factor

5) Create a game where YOU fail because of YOUR skills. You are compelled to prove yourself.

6) Stick it on Facebook, the biggest community on the web.

Several people have figured out a way of boosting your scores by gambling everything on guessing the next sequence. It’s infuriating simple but has so many ways to go from hero to zero.

PLAY IT here… my current high score is 8268 btw

Panfu virtual world

I only mention Panfu as it was the first site my daughter (9) actively recommended to me. Her friend had mentioned it at school and she’s seen a few adverts on TV. So I took a sneak peek to see what it was all about. In a nutshell, Club Penguin with Pandas… but not quite so good. The clincher for my daughter was the panda factor, nothing more.

Curious to see what becomes of it. Whether it gains traction and gets better or becomes abandoned. I only met 2 other pandas when I roamed around for 10 minutes or so. Watch this space kids!