So, I’ve been hesitant to admit that I like some Facebook games. I was afraid that I’d have to turn in my “hardcore” gamer card and just start playing Bejeweled for hours on end. I couldn’t get invested in a game that was all about clicking things at set intervals. Then I found Tetris Battle, which feels like the first game that uses Facebook effectively.
I’m a huge Tetris fan. I played Tetris DS until it stopped being a game and became more of an exercise in maxing out the game’s score (it stops counting lines at 999). Tetris Battle’s premise is that you and an opponent both face off on two separate Tetris screens. For every two lines you clear, one more is added to the bottom of the your opponent’s screen with a bigger bonus for clearing multiple lines at the same time. If you can make the other person reach the top of the screen, you get a knock out added to your score. The person who has cleared the most lines or achieved the most knock outs in the time limit wins.
The game currently has three modes, each with their own leaderboard and ranking system. The 2-Player Battle is your basic fight to get the most lines in two minutes. The 4-Player Sprint is a race to reach 40 cleared lines before three other players. Finally, the 6-Player Battle is a throw down between you and five other players to clear the most lines while fighting off the lines from opponents. Using Facebook as a social graph, the game matches you with other similarly ranked opponents within the network. As you play matches, you work your way up through the ranks, continually gaining experience and money. Imagine the ranking system from Call of Duty meeting the addictive game play from Tetris and you can start to see the appeal.
The Facebook advantage comes into play as you see the rankings of your friends right beneath every action that you do in the app. If you have a competitive streak, it pushes you to play just one more game so that you can outrank them.
You can then issue challenges and post wins and losses to the public. This brings trash-talking to a whole new level. If you can get your Facebook community invested, the game becomes a social experience much like sitting around a board game.
Tetris Battle proves that not every game on Facebook needs to be just clicking on crops every five minutes. You can have a game that requires real interaction and uses the social elements as an added bonus but not as the main draw. If more Facebook game designers focused on solid design rather than employing annoying social invitations, you would be able to ensnare more people in a not-so-devious way. Next week, we’ve got the best games around the Internet that don’t require a Facebook account!
