Long time reader and commentator, Muckbeast, who actually has a real name I suppose. Let’s call him “Michael Hartman.” Anyway, turns out he’s in charge of Frogdice, Inc., which has been around for nearly a score, and a Mid-West game developer on top of that! He asked if we could shed some light on their new social web game that “is NOT on Facebook.”
It’s called Coin ‘n Carry, and it seems pretty neat. There is a very thorough tutorial/overview on the game at YouTube, which tech-deficient parents might find useful if they don’t understand how to sign up for things. The basic premise is economy and mini-games. Working with the community is helpful, but Frogdice created the game with those implied Facebook games in mind. In other words, things that are wrong and annoying with Facebook games, like mega-spam, they developed away from.
The game is free-to-play, which is what Frogdice have been doing for their games since when I was a lad. Hartman says that:
“Unlike many other F2P companies, we target the long term with our customers. It is our philosophy that deep gameplay designed to entertain people for the long term will result in players eventually choosing to pay something towards the game. We feel that value proposition works best for all parties in the long run. As a result of this philosophy, a significant portion of our customers on Threshold RPG have been playing for over 10 years.”
Kind of refreshing, actually. And, they have years of evidence to prove it. Anyway, supporting developers on the ‘sphere is a good thing, in my humble opinion. Hence the plug. If you check it out, feedback here is most welcome.
–Ravious
“It is our philosophy that deep gameplay designed to entertain people for the long term will result in players eventually choosing to pay something towards the game.”
Great philosophy. Gave the game about 20 min playtime, and the minigames just arent fun enough to grind – literally had to play 9 minigames just to start the crafting/storefront portion of the game. And the UI really makes the whole thing fall apart. The idea of the game though had me interested, it just wasnt fun, again after just 20min. of playtime.
They have the right philosophy. But those games were terribly boring. Recettear has this game beat in spades.
Yes really enjoyed that game. It was what I was hoping Coin n Carry might be when I read this post.
First of all Ravious, thank you so much for writing this. It is enormously appreciated.
Second, let me respond to some commenters. One thing about Frogdice is we value all feedback enormously. We’ve always prided ourselves on being close to our community.
coppertopper/sightless: Were there any mini-games you liked, or did you hate them all? Did you dislike them by their very nature, or the fact that they were designed for 1 minute of “bite sized” gameplay?
We have 12 mini games currently, and are shooting for 20-30 by the end of the year. To give you an idea of the direction we are going we have mini games in development that are similar to Dr. Mario, Tetris, and a few other long beloved arcade or puzzle games. We also have some completely original mini-games with unique gameplay (like one almost done called “Extreme Slemor Makeover”… the name is a bit of a parody, but the gameplay is pretty interesting).
I’d love to hear your thoughts on what specifically you disliked about the mini-games, and where you’d LIKE to see us go. Feedback from people who wanted to like the game, but didn’t like our mini-games is really, really important to us.
ALSO: You said the UI made the game “fall apart.” Can you give me a little more detail there as well? In general, the response to our UI has been extremely positive with people reporting that it is very easy to use and has multiple ways to do most things. I am a firm believer in the vital importance of a great UI, so I am definitely open to improvements.
Lastly, as compared to Racettear: I think Coin ‘n Carry is a very, very different game. There are the multiplayer/online aspects right out of the gate, but also a ton of customization that will be expanding over time.
Competing with friends on the leaderboards is a huge part of the fun as well, so you may have missed out on that if you didn’t join up with friends.
If you’d rather not give all your feedback in a comment, you can email me at mhartman@frogdice.com as well.
I cannot stress enough how interested I am in your feedback. We really want to make this game great, and hearing why someone DIDN’T like it is really important.
I enjoy the mini-games on Coin ‘n Carry. Some I like better than others, but it’s very easy to focus on the ones that are more fun for you. And I think it’s great that there are so many different kind of games. Above, Michael said that there would be 20-30 eventually. I can’t wait to see what the new ones look like!
I agree with Marcia. I enjoy the games on Coin ‘n Carry also and really can’t wait to see the new ones (a Tetris like one? awesome!)
As for having to “grind” the mini-games to craft/open shop – I wouldn’t really call playing 10 rounds of games grinding. It’s just over too quickly, and is just enough mini-games to get the needed resources for the next stages. Grinding would be something on the order of playing mini-games for a couple hours to amass all that you could, playing the same game dozens of times and yes that could get boring – fortunately, with the way the game is designed, that’s just not the case.
And anyhow, I really like the bitesize approach. Every aspect of CNC is something that can be fit nicely in between work, other games, whatever – it’s a fun break, basically.
Marcia and Sarah, glad you are loving the game. Its interesting, but our early research data seems to indicate we’re at about 60% female players.
Guys: That makes Coin ‘n Carry the game to play if you want to meet women! (/shameless plug).
Your experiences echo what we are hearing from a lot of people trying the game. The mini games are a lot of fun and offer “bite sized” entertainment that fits well with their work, schoolwork, other games they might play, or just relaxing and reading (or watching tv) at the computer.
I do hope to hear back from coppertopper & sightless. One of the best ways to improve is to get really solid feedback from people who left unsatisfied.