BayView Labs Recreates Past Facebook Genres on the iPhone

Many social game concepts from Facebook have migrated over to the mobile -- most to the iPhone. BayView Labs is one developer bringing over some of the most popular concepts, including farming and virtual aquariums. Their three primary games include Tap Ranch, Tap Fish, and Tap Birds. Each is simple but has iterations and “expansions” that grant virtual currency to main game. Granting players virtual currency for downloading expansions follows TeamLava's model for Farm Story. But with the various Tap titles, receiving virtual currency was unreliable. Tap Ranch Tap Ranch is the most recent title; part of the farming genre, it’s not actually that close to the category leader, FarmVille. Rather, it's more comparable to Meteor Games’ Ranch Town or Country Life. Players use simple tapping to plow land, plant crops and harvest them. Like other farming-oriented titles, better crops take longer to grow and if players takes too long to harvest them, they spoil. This also applies to trees, which normally don't wither. Once harvested, everything is stockpiled in the barn and can either be sold or used to produce other goods. Players are able to purchase a variety of animals and machines to produce better products. This consists of cheese, wine, honey, milk, and so on. Some, such as milk, are simple. It merely requires feeding harvested alfalfa to a cow. Then, from the milk, you can make cheese. Essentially, the more steps a product takes, the more it is worth. After the cash starts coming in, players can decorate their virtual space. The social mechanic involves other random players visiting and watering their crops for experience points and money. A player's experience level determines what they can purchase. Right now, it doesn’t appear possible to visit friends. Tap Ranch: Red Tulips is a recent title released in connection with Tap Ranch. This app is free to download and will grant users access to a new red tulip crop and grant 10 free Ranch Bucks (the game’s virtual currency). Unlike Farm Story’s “expansions,” Red Tulips does not connect to a player's original farm, but players do receive the currency in Tap Ranch. Ranch Bucks are typically used as an alternative means of buying virtual items or to expand a farm, but can also be used to revive dead crops or purchase “Helpers” that automatically harvest crops or care for animals. Tap Fish Tap Fish is the oldest of the three BayView Labs apps and is a mobile rendition of the popular virtual aquarium genre. Every day, the tank becomes dirty and players must scrub the algae off the glass, feed the fish and generally make the best looking aquarium they can. Income is the same in this game as its Facebook counterparts. Players buy fish eggs -- of a wide variety -- and grow them into adults. Once fully grown, they can be sold for a hefty profit. Players can also earn extra experience and money by periodically “loving” their fish. This is all well and good, but it's also rather basic. In order to change things up a bit, players can use another familiar mechanic, breeding their fish. Not all fish can breed, but it does allow users to experiment with cross breeds and sell them for a nice price. Tap Fish has a number of trophies associated with breeding specific fish, so there is an achievement-style reward. Players can add specific friends as their neighbors. If they don’t have any buddies that play with them, they can still visit random users to help clean up their tanks and feed their fish. As with Tap Ranch, this grants a moderate experience and monetary reward. On the topic of fiscal gratification, Tap Fish has the most “expansion” apps, including Tap Fish: Sharks, Tap Fish: Exotic, Tap Contest: Fish and a number of apps that grant Fish Buck (the game’s virtual currency). Tap Fish: Sharks and Tap Fish: Exotic grant a small reward of virtual currency to the main Tap Fish game, but are not significantly different. The play is the same and, once again, they are not interconnected. The only difference is that players start out with more expensive fish (e.g. a shark). However, many users experience issues receiving the virtual currency that was promised. Once the expansion apps are run, the default Tap Fish game is supposed to receive the bonus of virtual currency. The support FAQ says to wait one to three hours. We waited a bit longer and it still hasn’t shown up anywhere. With the Farm Story apps, the bonus was instantaneous. The expansions were free, so it’s not a huge problem, but it is a waste of time. We had bigger problems with the Fish Buck apps. There are at least half a dozen apps along the lines of “Tap Fish - X Fish Bucks.” Players can download one worth five Fish Bucks for free, but the others cost anywhere from $0.99 to $19.99. Because currency can be purchased in the Tap Fish game, it’s a bit odd to give currency for purchasing apps. And it doesn’t seem to be doing too well for BayView’s image -- several players are complaining, heatedly, about not receiving their virtual currency. Tap Contest: Fish is separate free app that creates a pretty cool social element. It’s not really a game, but allows users to easily view all the different players’ virtual aquariums and vote on which are the best. The winner gets Fish Bucks. Tap Birds Tap Birds is the only app of the series that doesn’t have any supporting apps. But it doesn’t really do anything new either. It is almost a carbon copy of Tap Fish (or Birdland on Facebook), the only difference being that everything is bird- rather than fish-themed. It’s a rinse and repeat of buying bird eggs, feeding them (this time via a feeder that the player fills up periodically) and selling them once they reach maturity. As with Tap Fish, players must clean their aviary from time to time and can “love” their birds every few hours for extra monetary and experience rewards. They can also breed the animals and earn new species and trophies to boot. The social mechanics are actually a step down. It doesn’t appear to be possible to add real friends. The ability to visit other random players’ aviaries is still present. Overall, the game is not really a new experience from that of Tap Fish, but is a different flavor for players that prefer birds over fish. As was already noted, there are no “expansion” style apps for Tap Birds yet, but the game does offer virtual currency for downloading new BayView apps, namely Tap Ranch: Red Tullips. Conclusion Overall, each of these games is pretty average, but the issues with virtual currency are considerable. Also, we noticed that if a player already has an app being promoted through an offer, they will not earn currency for running the app. You have to have the original Tap Ranch, Fish, or Bird app first, then download the offers. Our only other criticism is that these apps are just remakes of old Facebook games that are, frankly, more fun on Facebook. It is nice to have the games available on the go, but it just feels like more of the same. Even the three BayView titles feel like clones of each other, just with a different theme. In the end, the iPhone is far too powerful a platform for users to be satisfied with apps that just do the minimum.

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BayView Labs Recreates Past Facebook Genres on the iPhone

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Christopher Mack

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Christopher Mack