If you're of a certain age, you no doubt remember the endless hours you spent playing some version of Sid Meier's Civilization, a time sucking distraction of such depth and relentlessness that even thinking about it makes some people think about adjusting their crops or building just one more defensive unit. Well, now that level of madness is coming to the modern day's best time suck, Facebook.
"It's been the most dramatic stretch for the game, I'd have to say, so far," [Meier] said.
"We really weren't looking to make a quote-unquote 'Facebook game'," he said. "We were looking at what does Facebook bring us that is unique, that we can leverage and take advantage of with 'Civilization'-style game play."
Meier said there were things that a Facebook game can offer Civ players over a traditional PC game. Connections with friends and a world with potentially hundreds of millions of players provided fuel for the development team to re-imagine the classic strategy game.
"What was really intriguing to us was being able to emphasize cooperative game play, which was something that really hadn't been a major part of 'Civilization' up to now," he said. "A lot of our design in 'Civ World' was taking advantage and using these opportunities for players to work together — teamwork, communication, planning. Those are all the things that become really important to 'Civ World.'"
Meier points out that a typical "Civilization" multiplayer game can easily span 12 or more continuous hours, whereas a Facebook game will take place in stops and starts over days and week.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free
Kiss your productivity at work goodbye. Of course, given the security challenges presented by apps on Facebook, you might lose a lot more …
[Source: CNN]
