La Chance Tourne is a French Wheel of Fortune on Facebook

Facebook's international growth over the past couple years is truly staggering. Although the Facebook Platform was once predominantly populated by North American applications, we are now beginning see more and more foreign development. We've seen the emergence of the popular German-based game, Brain Buddies, to a handful of revamped Chinese farming titles, and even to titles stemming from foreign, mainstream console developers. In fact, some applications, be they game or not, are even targeting their own country from within the social network such as Italian Famiglia Cristiana. To that end, we discovered yet another foreign application with similar goals: the French game La Chance Tourne. La Chance Tourne, loosely translated as “The Lucky Spin,” is a French-only game that is only targeting a French-speaking audience through the Facebook platform. Despite its audience, however, this particular title has a very American premise to it that anyone that has watched classic game shows should recognize. Spinning a giant wheel in real time, players earn points and purchase letters. Recognize it yet? That’s right, it’s very much a French rendition of the Wheel of Fortune game show that first made its debut way back in 1975. Of course, this isn’t much of a game by itself, and hardly social. Luckily, this isn’t where the story ends. Players actually create their own avatar, and based on the number of points they garner during play, are able to purchase a myriad of new items to further decorate their virtual selves. However, alone, avatars are also not much to behold, so the French developers incorporated a wonderful, live multiplayer feature. Competition has always been the core of the game show, and seeing as how La Chance Tourne takes place within a virtual studio, it fits quite nicely. The game pits the player up against two other users as each of them takes a turn at the wheel; earning points and guessing letters until someone is able to figure out the word or phrase behind them. Unfortunately, the simple fact that the game is entirely in French makes it somewhat… difficult for an English-speaking reviewer to win much of anything... Despite language barriers, La Chance Tourne, at least, seems to be an entertaining game. It does have a decent look to it, and does look like the intended television studio However, it does lack any sort of music or ambiance (just a spinning noise when you spin). Though it might seem minor to the social gamer that is playing it, a great deal of atmosphere is lost without it. Nevertheless, no game is ever perfect. La Chance Tourne punctuates a growing line-up of foreign games. More and more apps like this one appear as the international expansion of the Facebook platform reaches new levels of success. However, with the network’s heavily English (or at least North American) audience, it seems like it would be somewhat difficult to make full use of Facebook’s viral nature and social graph. Nevertheless, this isn’t something that should be much of a deterrent, for all things must start somewhere. It’s not a question of if international apps become a mainstream trend on Facebook; it’s a question of when.

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La Chance Tourne is a French Wheel of Fortune on Facebook

Christopher Mack

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Christopher Mack