GameHouse's Collapse! Blast for Facebook is a match-3 puzzle game built as a follow-up to the developer’s original title, Collapse!, which has seen multiple releases on casual games portals. The style of gameplay very likely inspired other Facebook games in the genre such as Wooga's Diamond Dash. Collapse! Blast launched in mid July and topped our list of fastest-growing Facebook games last Friday.
According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Collapse! Blast currently has 647,036 monthly active users and 107,712 daily active users.
Like its predecessor, Collapse! Blast presents players with a game board that slowly fills with multi-color blocks from bottom to top. The player must click on groupings of three or more blocks of the same color in order to clear them from the board. Points are awarded for clearing blocks; the larger the grouping, the higher the point total. Blocks are added to the game board one row at a time, a process that can be accelerated by pressing the space bar. If the board fills completely, the game ends.
Clearing the board before a new line of blocks is added doesn’t end the game, but it does provide “Clean Sweep” score bonuses. A score multiplier activates after players destroy a certain number of lines, and the adding of lines to the board can be accelerated by pressing the space bar. At the conclusion of each game, players are awarded coins and experience points, the latter allowing players to level up. Each turn a player takes exhausts one heart from their stockpile shown in a meter at the top of the game board. These hearts are the game's "tokens" and are restocked after a few minutes. Increasing in level refills the heart stockpile and adds additional capacity to it.
What sets Blast apart from the original Collapse! are the power-ups. These range from bombs that clear a set radius when clicked to those that explode in two directions, clearing entire horizontal rows. Others eliminate all blocks of a certain color, flip the block locations, or explode in four directions, clearing vertical and horizontal rows simultaneously. These power-ups become available for use after players level up sufficiently, with the capability to select more than one power-up unlocking at levels 10 and 15. Once selected and placed in a slot, a power-up requires a certain amount of coins per play for use.
Should the player exhaust their heart supply, they can request one heart from each friend they have playing the game. Players can also send a gift of one heart to those friends. The game has a scoreboard that displays the player's current high score and ranking versus their friends. Accomplishments such as leveling up and beating a personal high score can be shared via viral channels for friends to see.
Collapse! Blast is monetized through the sale of power-ups and additional hearts, should players not wish to wait for them to refill over time or ask friends to gift them. Some power-ups become available for use once players reach a certain level, or can be bought at any time using Facebook Credits. The social network’s default currency can are also be used to buy hearts and a soft currency that players accumulate through play. The soft currency can be used to purchase power-ups.
GameHouse has issued several updates to the core game since it went live last month, in an effort to address bugs and gameplay balance. As it stands, the game contains several "coming soon" placeholders, for what appears to be a new game mechanic and some additional power-ups. GameHouse could not be reached as of posting time to shed more light on its future plans for the game.
You can follow Collapse! Blast’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.
Source: Inside Social Games
Tuesday, August 2, 2011