By William Bernard
The Smurfs & Co. is not terribly original. A reskinned Frontierville at best, and a blatant marketing shill for the new Smurfs movie at worst, The Smurfs & Co. The game is also quite restrictive in that it essentially requires you to have other friends to play or to cough up cash. That being said, The Smurfs & Co. does have some fun in it and is a great use of the Smurf’s license. Whether or not the game will continue to be supported however remains to be seen. As with most movie licensed social games, they tend to slowly wither and die out once the initial hype has gone through.
The Smurfs & Co. places you in charge of creating a budding new Smurf village. It seems Gargamel has discovered the original Smurf Village and a potion must be created in order to erase his memory. The plot never really comes into play however, and your attention is mainly focused on clearing out land, building structures and attracting more Smurfs to your village.
The graphics and sound are all appropriate to the Smurf license, and everything is nice and colorful, as any Smurf would probably want it.
Sound familiar? It should, because the game is essentially Zynga’s Frontierville with a Smurfy twist. The designers however have done a good job of making clearing out land feel satisfying. Simply because it really does feel like you are a tiny smurf trying to eke out a living in a giant’s world. Instead of clearing trees, you simply clear out blades of grass, small rocks, mushrooms and shrubs. As you clear land, powerups and material will spring forth from your freshly cut area, including coins and building materials.
Clearing land allows you to place new structures, including houses, decorations and workshops. The more developed your town is, the more Smurfs you attract, including “Celebrity” Smurfs which include such figures such as Brainy Smurf, Handy Smurf, and others. These special Smurfs can provide you with bonuses as long as you fulfill their requests. This is simply another line of questing for player’s to follow, but it’s quite well integrated that it feels more like you are actually doing a favor for these Smurfs than anything else.
The problems begin after you start playing for a couple of hours. Without any friends, a “no friends” tax is imposed on you that make it very, very difficult to make meaningful progress. You can bypass this with real world money transactions, but it really doesn’t need to be there at all – a purposefully designed flaw that is more of a cash grab than anything else.
Overall, Smurfs & Co. is a decent attempt at a licensed game that although has its fun points, is really bogged down by an unnecessary friend tax that limits progression. This really seems like a cop out from a design point of view, as if the designers were rushed to figure out a way to monetize the game. There’s some fun to be had here, but don’t stay too long unless you have a lot of friends who are fans of the license or have money to spend.
Click here to play The Smurfs & Co.
[Download the file here Tukko Rating | The Smurfs & Co]
[Tukkolabs]
Tukko Rating | The Smurfs & Co
By William Bernard
The Smurfs & Co. is not terribly original. A reskinned Frontierville at best, and a blatant marketing shill for the new Smurfs movie at worst, The Smurfs & Co. The game is also quite restrictive in that it essentially requires you to have other friends to play or to cough up cash. That being said, The Smurfs & Co. does have some fun in it and is a great use of the Smurf’s license. Whether or not the game will continue to be supported however remains to be seen. As with most movie licensed social games, they tend to slowly wither and die out once the initial hype has gone through.
The graphics and sound are all appropriate to the Smurf license, and everything is nice and colorful, as any Smurf would probably want it.
Sound familiar? It should, because the game is essentially Zynga’s Frontierville with a Smurfy twist. The designers however have done a good job of making clearing out land feel satisfying. Simply because it really does feel like you are a tiny smurf trying to eke out a living in a giant’s world. Instead of clearing trees, you simply clear out blades of grass, small rocks, mushrooms and shrubs. As you clear land, powerups and material will spring forth from your freshly cut area, including coins and building materials.
Clearing land allows you to place new structures, including houses, decorations and workshops. The more developed your town is, the more Smurfs you attract, including “Celebrity” Smurfs which include such figures such as Brainy Smurf, Handy Smurf, and others. These special Smurfs can provide you with bonuses as long as you fulfill their requests. This is simply another line of questing for player’s to follow, but it’s quite well integrated that it feels more like you are actually doing a favor for these Smurfs than anything else.
Overall, Smurfs & Co. is a decent attempt at a licensed game that although has its fun points, is really bogged down by an unnecessary friend tax that limits progression. This really seems like a cop out from a design point of view, as if the designers were rushed to figure out a way to monetize the game. There’s some fun to be had here, but don’t stay too long unless you have a lot of friends who are fans of the license or have money to spend.
Click here to play The Smurfs & Co.
[Download the file here Tukko Rating | The Smurfs & Co]
[Tukkolabs]