Logo Game review

Logo Game is a Facebook game from Canadian developer Media Sense Interactive. It's available now for anyone to play on the social network, and is presently showing up in the Trending section of the App Center. Logo Game is a very simple and straightforward game that tasks players with identifying brand logos. In the case of logos which have distinctive text, the words have been removed and only the basic graphic design left behind. In the case of logos which are nothing but text (such as Google), certain letters have been left behind. The player's job is to identify the logo from the clue given and then type it in using their keyboard -- this means they actually have to know what it is rather than hoping they get lucky from a multiple-choice question. If the player isn't sure what a particular logo is, they can expend an in-game currency known as "Hints" to get some help. Each logo has three possible "help" options -- the first hint costs a single unit of the "hints" currency, the second costs two units and to reveal the answer completely costs five units. If the user purchases one of the lower "tiers" of hints first, the price is deducted from the others, so for example if the user purchases the first hint for one unit of currency, the second hint drops in price to just one unit and the opportunity to reveal the answer completely drops to four units. As you can probably tell from this description, the use of the word "hints" to describe the currency is a little misleading, since some "hints" actually cost more than one "hint" to unlock. It would have been clearer to use an unrelated word (like "coins" or something similar) as the name of the currency, since at present it's not made entirely clear that one "hint" (unit of currency) does not necessarily equal one "hint" (clue). The player is given just three "hints" to begin the game with, though additional units may be acquired through in-app purchase. Free hints may also be acquired by completing special offers and asking friends for help in the typical social game manner. Aside from this "gift" function, social features are limited to inviting friends to play and comparing performance on a leaderboard -- though the latter is more a reflection of how much players have played the game rather than any real measure of skill. The game also posts every single game event -- completed levels (though not the answers), completed level packs, level ups and when the player is actually playing the game -- to Facebook's Activity Feed, which can be rather obtrusive depending on privacy and News Feed settings. The game monetizes through the sale of hints and also through allowing players to unlock new "level packs" early. Normally, the player is required to attain a certain number of correct answers before the next pack of levels will unlock, but this may be bypassed if they find themselves stuck and want to move on to some other logos. There are three types of level -- regular levels feature easily-recognizable logos, bonus levels feature logos on a theme (currently fashion brands and UEFA soccer clubs) and Expert levels feature less commonly-known logos. Logo Game is a reasonably competent experience, though the lack of sound and music leaves it feeling rather unfinished and unpolished. There are a couple of nice touches, though -- the best being the fact that the answer-recognition system recognizes alternative spellings of various brands ("Spiderman" is accepted as well as "Spider-Man," for example) -- but ultimately it's just not very interesting, and ends up feeling more like an experience that gives players the opportunity to pay money to have advertising thrust in their face. There's no real "game" here; it's just an idle diversion. It might have been more fun with an asynchronous competitive element in which players have to identify as many logos as possible against a strict time limit to beat their opponent, but as it stands it's another game in the "4 Pics 1 Word" mold that doesn't really have much point to it beyond just playing for the sake of it. Despite unlocking new question categories with correct answers (and through a largely-superfluous level-up system), there's no real sense of "progression," of getting better at the game or opening up more exciting content -- ultimately you're still just proving how much of your brain is saturated by prominent brands. Logo Game currently occupies the 500,000+ MAU tier with a rank of 522 and the 50,000+ DAU tier with a rank of 619. Follow its progress with AppData, our tracking service for social games and developers. Skip Little more than conclusive proof of how pervasive these brands are in the public consciousness; the game itself is unpolished and rather dull.

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Logo Game review

Pete Davison

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Pete Davison