Game of the Day: Snow Lemmings

Pump It
Music games are rare in the social gaming world and impressive ones are even more elusive, but Pump It on Facebook dishes out what techno fans (i.e. this guy right here) have craving for. Developed by French company MXP4, Pump It is an amalgamation of sorts between Dance Dance Revolution and the Simon electronic game by Milton Bradley, but without the stinky, quarter dropping nerds at the arcade and the need for a bulky device. Throw in some of today's most popular house, trance and hip hop artists and Pump It becomes a refreshing entry into the emerging world of music games on Facebook.

Find more of our trance-induced thoughts on Pump It after the break.

Pump It Main Menu
Before we say anything, let's get one thing out of the way. Pump It is damned hard to find on Facebook. Simply searching either "Pump It" or "MXP4" through Facebook turns up nothing. After doing some intense digging, you'll find Pump It through one of four applications: "Tiësto, Play with it!," "David Guetta, Play with it!," "Lloyd Banks, Play with it!" and "Ministry of Sound, Play with it!" While we do have kind words for the game of Pump It, this needs to be fixed by MXP4 as soon as possible. Quite frankly, it makes absolutely no sense to have the game appear within four different applications for each of the game's four initial artists.

After choosing one of the four artists Pump It--recently released in public beta--currently has to offer, you'll be able to either invite your friends to the game (more on that later) or choose a difficulty. Trust us, go with "Easy" on your first attempt as there a mildly steep learning curve. The game begins as soon as the track does, with what appears to be a speaker as the playing field. In rhythm with the song, purple, blue, pink and orange lights will begin to travel to the center of the speaker within each of its four quadrants. In order to keep the song going, all you need to do is move your mouse into the quadrant that is currently glowing before the beam of light reaches the center.

Pump It Points
No clicking or exact timing is required to successfully score on a beat. Your mouse just needs to be positioned over the quadrant when the light hits the center to score points. However, later on precision will matter as lights begin to appear in multiple quadrants at once, forcing you to discern the correct timing based on their position in reference to the center. The general rule of thumb in Pump It is to always move your mouse to the light that's closest to the center to ensure you're keeping time. Successfully timing a beat correctly in one quadrant five times in a row will double the points scored for good timing in that quadrant until you lose the beat, which will become quite often in the harder difficulties at first. Scoring the bonus in all four quadrants will reward players with an extra 10 thousand points.

Alright, we lied when we said no clicking is required. Keeping a successful chain of 50 consecutive beats will fill up a meter in the center. Once it fills completely, you'll be prompted to "Pump It," hence the name. Clicking on the button before the meter runs out will multiply your score for a time and boost what MXP4 calls Crowd Energy, which serves as a multiplier as well. It becomes a challenge to balance "pumping it" with maintaining your bonuses in more difficult songs, making Pump It one of the more demanding social games out there--certainly refreshing amongst the legion of simulator games.

There isn't much of a social element to Pump It outside of challenging friends and posting your scores, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look at the PopCap approach with games like Bejeweled Blitz and now Zuma Blitz and you'll see how effective it can be. Throw in unlockable tracks through repeat plays and the occasional contest for singed albums and merchandise and Pump It becomes one roaring social game in more ways than one.

Click here to play Tiesto Pump It on Facebook>

Click here to play David Guetta Pump It on Facebook>

Click here to play Lloyd Banks Pump It on Facebook>

Click here to play Ministry of Sound Pump It on Facebook>a
Another day and another game - the game of the day rolls on. Today's game is Snow Lemmings - a game where you control a giant snowball and try to grow it as large as you can. Save as many snow lemmings as you can in the fastest time. Collect snow lemmings, snowmen and snow mounds. Collect five baby lemmings to spawn a Momma Lemming. Avoid Obstacles such as trees and boulders.


Important side note: Just by playing The Game of the Day you will be entered into a monthly drawing to win a FlipCam HD. You don't need to do anything else, just play! The more you play, the more chances you have to win. For more information on the Game of Day check out the official Game of the Day hub.

Play Snow Lemmings Now -->

Zynga wants Mafia Wars designers, coders; creates contest for you

Zynga seems to be taking the "Real World" approach to crowd sourcing its potential hire base for new designers and programmers. The company is looking for new talent to join its Mafia Wars team, and it has created a contest for both designers and programmers to partake in and prove their worth. Design contestants are tasked with creating a Mafia Wars-themed puzzle game and filming the experience creatively. A free-spirited effort, for sure, but programmers must take a multiple choice test to gauge their engineering skills. (Software engineers, now you know where to look.)

However, Zynga is requiring no experience, no resumes--just a display of your creative or technical talents. (At least at first.) This goes to show what Zynga values above all else: skill. That's a comforting approach coming from a multi-billion dollar company, but it's also indicative of what Zynga might be working on. The company is looking for designers to create a board game, and the next Mafia Wars has been said to employ a lot of features seen in Crime City (namely the isometric perspective and world). These two pieces of information fit together rather nicely, no? Surely, this is speculation, but that will be confirmed or denied in due time.

Are you entering Zynga's game design hiring contest? What do you think of the company's approach to finding it's new talent?