RockYou Aims at a Younger Audience With Toy Land

Social developer RockYou! recently launched Toy Land, a new game for Facebook. Appearing last Friday on our top emerging apps list, the new beta-build title has already found itself with close to 600,000 monthly active users. Despite its hodgepodge of virtual space, treasure hunting, and board game elements, Toy Land feels very different from other current games. But though it's unique as a whole, many of Toy Land's aspects are yet to be optimized or fixed --perhaps to be expected at this stage. Long story short, an evil scrooge has destroyed the toys of the world, and it’s up to the player, as the “toymaker,” to bring happiness back to the land. Of course, doing so is hardly free, but seeing as this is a sort of children’s fantasy premise, cash is replaced by hearts, and jobs by promises. As the toymaker, the user’s “employees,” as it were, are a collection of elves. These are the primary source of income for the user, fulfilling contracts called “Promises.” Just like other games, such as Social City, that use contract system, players pay a small cost to fulfill a promise, which will pay out a profit after a set amount of time. The longer the promise, the higher the payout, dubbed “Hearts.” Once a fair amount of Hearts are collected, the user can then build any number of children’s toys including cars, board games, doll houses, and so on. Each toy also has a set amount of happiness it provides, so the idea is to make enough high quality toys to keep the children of one’s land happy. The happiness level is pretty easy to discern, as an emoticon in the upper right displays the current mood. Furthermore, the player’s virtual space -- creatively portrayed as a game board -- has random children popping in to play, and their thoughts can be viewed via thought bubbles. If the children are bored, they will flat out tell you, but they have a few other quirks as well. For one, if they are happy, they’ll produce extra Hearts, or if they are looking for specific toys, they’ll ask you to direct them to them. They can also produce even more Hearts when they are fed treats like ice cream. Nonetheless, it's worth noting that this is hardly a lot of income, and is only a bonus. As the virtual space is a game board, players also get to play a mini-game in which they periodically earn “Rolls.” Using these rolls, the user can move about the game board and earn extra items such as toys, more hearts, more elves, or even collection items. This is where the treasure hunting element of Toy Land comes into play. Players are able to visit a handful of themed locales and search for “treasure” in a similar fashion to Treasure Madness and Treasure Isle. Consuming a small bit of energy each time, users can search houses, trees, and various fantasy creatures for collection purposes. Like in the noted games, certain objects require certain tools to be purchased before they can be searched, but rather than a monetary reward, completing a collection will earn a new type of toy to be placed in the virtual space. Unfortunately, the virtual space itself can be seen as a negative elements. Usually the key to virtual spaces is being able to decorate so that it feels aesthetically pleasing to the player. In Toy Land, this becomes a daunting task, since the items that can be purchased and placed are randomly selected. Granted, some are nostalgic spoofs on things like Gumbi, which is amusing, but placing them just makes the space look like a cluttered mess. There are also “decorations” like blocks or toy trees, but they still feel like everything else. But this complaint may be irrelevant, since Toy Land does appear tailored to a younger audience. The only other issues with the game are those that one might expect from an early beta build. As it stands, not all the features are rolled out yet, including the social mechanics. Thus far, we have been unable to invite any friends to play. As for any remaining features of note, it’s all fairly standard. The only other aspect is a quest type of system that gives the player direction in what toys or tasks they should specifically build or do. Other than this, toys also tend to get dirty and worn after a while, which lowers happiness, and must be "cleaned," at the cost of energy. RockYou does appear to have a nice new app on its hands. Though Toy Land is a little clunky in its current form, it feels like it could appeal to the younger crowd effectively and seems rather different from most other Facebook titles despite having many familiar mechanics. Although there are issues for RockYou to work through, Toy Land seems like it could turn out to be a decent title.

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RockYou Aims at a Younger Audience With Toy Land

Christopher Mack

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Christopher Mack