Twitter is already a bit like a game, isn’t it? Your score is your follower count, along with your number of retweets. And people can get quite competitive about how popular they are on the social network. However, Japanese developer Marvelous Entertainment is taking the idea a step further with its new iPad game Followars.
It’s a game for two players on one iPad, with each signing in using their Twitter account. You then both browse through the people you’re following on Twitter, to see what scores they’ve been assigned for HP, Attack, Defense, Speed and Intelligence – traditional RPG-style stats. You get to pick two people to go on your team, with their profiles becoming virtual characters.
The two sides then line up, with each character basically a Twitter profile pic with limbs. Then they fight, and you can tweet out the result when one side wins. It’s a bit strange, and the fact that you need two players limits its appeal, since you have to find someone else with a Twitter login to play against.
However, Followars is a really interesting idea that will hopefully be developed. Making a one-player online version would be a great move, so you could play against people over the network. Evolving the gameplay would be good too, so you could maybe develop friends’ skills and abilities over time, or get a better sense of how their Twitter behaviour affects their attributes.
A novelty for now, then. But this idea of using Twitter stats as the basis for a game is hugely intriguing. “I really don’t know why we fight, I just tooka silly concept and made a real game out of it,” writes the game’s developer on the official website. “We’re keeping busy adding new features, and I truly feel that this is a new type of social game.” One to watch.
Leave a Reply