Faketown
3.83
RATE IT:
.: Style
Faketown is an intriguing hybrid of game styles that have all, in their own ways, become quite popular. One part Sims, one part social networking, and one part, instant messaging, Faketown combines aspects of multiple different web mediums that have in their own ways draw massive audiences.
At first glance, the site is a world building game. You start with your own character, deemed a “Fake ID” – of which there are about 10 to begin the game with. These IDs are all highly stylized, featuring a combination of personas from real life – the chippy cheerleader, the unwanted politician, and the stealthy ninja. You choose a single ID to get started with and then will choose a house in which to live in the new town you have joined. It only takes about two minutes and when you are done you are immediately dropped into Faketown with your empty house and your new character.
You will have no coins, no items, and no friends yet, but that is where the game starts to diversify, offering you an interesting supply of choices to keep you busy. The first thing you will notice is that a lot of things cost coins. You can buy new IDs, homes, arcade games, and a wide array of user created items at Auction with your coins. Coins can be had through a couple methods themselves – by either buying them directly for $1 per 1000 coins or by earning them through competitions the site holds, your fellow players, or in various games offered.
The game’s real focus though is to provide you with a good deal of interaction with your fellow players though. You will spend a good deal of time building up your homes and customizing your profile, but the payoff is only to offer a better place for your fellow players to congregate as you can chat with people in a chatroom style setting from single screens, or areas of the game.
You will have a friends list and contact list very reminiscent of an Instant messenger list and can even interact from your mobile phone. The entire goal of the game is to provide a social setting with alternate, Sims style goals. While those goals are not well defined, the volume of different choices available on the site makes it a great social setting and a game site that gives back only as much as you put into it.
.: Plot
Faketown is not a story based game, and that shouldn’t be surprising to you as it would make little sense for such a social atmosphere to be based around an impartial third person story. However, the lack of general framing and direction can be at times a bit offputting, especially for new players who have only just logged into the game and have yet to meet any friends or make any coins.
What does happen though that makes the game effective in a plot sense despite its lack of cohesive story is the self-narrative that you can create. For the same reason that The Sims has become the number one selling video game of all time, Faketown works because it gives players the chance to make their own choices and affect their fortunes in the game.
For example, when you start you will have one persona, no coins, and a dingy little house. However, if you put the time into the game necessary to make more coins and meet new friends, you will quickly start to build up a bigger, more interactive household. To truly take advantage of the game’s interface though, you will almost assuredly need to become a member of the FT Club. The FT Club is a paid membership service that costs $15 a year (and comes with 15,000 coins, effectively negating the cost of membership) and permits you to become eligible to be the mayor, gives you 2 coins every minute you are online, and gives you access to all the rare items as they appear.
This means that you can be as fully involved as you like, meeting new friends, building a bigger home and partaking of the ongoing, community designed narrative that can help you become the mayor, allow you to own up to 6 properties, or just be a popular denizen of your town.
If you are looking for a BBMMO that provides you with something packaged and ready to play, you might be sorely disappointed with Faketown. This is not a game that tells you where to go or what to do. There are no predesigned characters or achievements to complete. You must make your own path, which for many players will be a huge draw on its own. .: Safety
Faketown’s safety implications are not as straightforward as some other BBMMOs because of how the game is presented. It is essentially a basic chatting interface with adults and avatars. The result is a realm that cannot be easily monitored or checked for content. In addition, because players are actively creating and distributing content, there are many pieces of the game that are not suitable for children.
As a result, Faketown’s registration process requires all users to be at least 16 years of age, blocking registration of any one that is not. After logging in, you will notice that there are very few checks after this point and many times the chat logs and items up for auction freely display the openness of the forum.
Your account contains very little, if any personal information however and because you are hidden behind an avatar (Fake ID), your fellow players will never know anything about you unless you tell them yourself. It is almost entirely an anonymous environment, complete with fake names, houses, and locations. The town you are placed in is never in the same location as where you are actually from, though your home country often is.
While the interface is safe and privacy concerns are dealt with carefully – Faketown does not sell any collected information and maintains a secure database – content and social interaction can be a problem. Parents should ensure children do not use the site or are careful in doing so (if they are over 16) and that chat interactions are closely monitored. Chats are saved in a history file for a few days at a time allowing for review of what has been said. Additionally, though Faketown does not actively monitor what occurs on its servers, it will react if necessary to any reports of abuse.
.: Gameplay
Faketown is not a dedicated gaming site, but the sheer volume of activities available rivals any other BBMMO out there. Currently there are more than 1,000 purchasable arcade games, 1000s more items that can be purchased in the shop or at auction, and dozens of Fake IDs and houses to broaden your social interactions. You can spend hundreds of hours in Faketown and only start to scratch the surface of what is available to do.
One of the primary reasons for such diversity is the sheer volume of user created content. The game provides you, from registration, with a tool to create your own content. At first, you have only the most basic tools, allowing you a simple Paint style interface to make little drawings (see screenshot to the right), images, or basic parts for homes. These items can be sold at auction, some of them garnering large amounts of coins for their originality and creativity.
As you progress and earn more coins, you can purchase additional tools for the ‘create artwork’ tool. To start, you are given 16 basic patterns, and one frame to work with. Later you can earn dozens more patterns, a wide array of brushes and the ability to add frames so that you can create animations. The range of products created in this tool and sold at auction includes everything from chairs and trees to clothing and spaceships.
Faketown often holds contests and rewards players for the content they create in the artwork tool, most recently holding a Sci-Fi scene contest to see who could create the best Science Fiction scene. These contest will reward large sums of coins and additional bots that can be used in the game to showcase prowess.
In addition to creating their own artwork, players can upload their own MP3s from their hard drives, add photos to their profile, or provide links to YouTube videos. You will need to purchase space to store any songs or large photos that do not fit within a free account, but they can be temporarily shared with your friends in the town for free.
In terms of arcade games, the range is quite wide, including over 1,000 flash games, ranging from classics like Ms. Pacman, to scene making tools for artwork creation or Sudoku. While the game themselves are not the highest quality games in the world, the sheer variety and the ability to play them with nearly anyone in your town (plus the low cost of anywhere between 1500 and 4000 coins for most of them) makes it a superb addition to the interface and a great distraction with chatting with your Faketown friends.
For those with a bit of ambition there is even more to do. Building a mansion with units you have purchased or aiming to gather friends to your location is a great way to take advantage of the wide array of objects the game provides. In addition, those who have become FT club members can run for mayor by making a lot of friends and garnering the right support. Each of the game’s five major towns has at least 15,000 members in it, so you will need to be sure meet a lot of people, do a lot of nice things, and even grease a few palms along the way, but it is an interesting way to boost an already deep experience’s enjoyment factor.
Faketown is an incredibly deep BBMMO that combines the best aspects of social interaction and Sims style “create-and-play” mechanics. If you enjoy building yourself from the groundup, this is the kind of online experience you will fall in love with.
.: Community
Faketown is built around community and it shows in much of the game’s design. However, all the design in the world is meaningless if you cannot get people onto the site to enjoy it. Luckily, Faketown does a great job of doing just that, drawing more than 75,000 members to its environs where they can chat, create, and interact with each other in a way that is both unique and highly entertaining.
You can view each other’s profiles, with basic information, all uploaded content, and photos that a member decides to add. Additionally, you can save your friend lists, chat histories, and mobile phone information to the site so that you can keep track of who you’re chatting with and even do so when not at a computer.
Chat interfaces are all within the game, and will appear mid-house, with grey box and floating talk bubbles. The game’s map is made up of hundreds of little blocks, each representing a square that belongs to a player. These blocks can be visited directly by clicking on them or by clicking on a friend’s name. You can also explore the community by walking from street to street by just moving forward. When you reach a block with other players on it, you can stop and talk to them by chatting directly on the screen. Your avatar will interact with theirs the same as you would in AIM or GTalk, and the conversations will save to your lists.
The online community is generally very lively as well, though it can be a bit blue at times, another good reason why there is an age requirement of 16 for all new players – however, this is the same as any other online community. Some people will be respectful – others will note. Largely, the people you interact with is up to you.
5.00
At first glance, the site is a world building game. You start with your own character, deemed a “Fake ID” – of which there are about 10 to begin the game with. These IDs are all highly stylized, featuring a combination of personas from real life – the chippy cheerleader, the unwanted politician, and the stealthy ninja. You choose a single ID to get started with and then will choose a house in which to live in the new town you have joined. It only takes about two minutes and when you are done you are immediately dropped into Faketown with your empty house and your new character.
You will have no coins, no items, and no friends yet, but that is where the game starts to diversify, offering you an interesting supply of choices to keep you busy. The first thing you will notice is that a lot of things cost coins. You can buy new IDs, homes, arcade games, and a wide array of user created items at Auction with your coins. Coins can be had through a couple methods themselves – by either buying them directly for $1 per 1000 coins or by earning them through competitions the site holds, your fellow players, or in various games offered.
The game’s real focus though is to provide you with a good deal of interaction with your fellow players though. You will spend a good deal of time building up your homes and customizing your profile, but the payoff is only to offer a better place for your fellow players to congregate as you can chat with people in a chatroom style setting from single screens, or areas of the game.
You will have a friends list and contact list very reminiscent of an Instant messenger list and can even interact from your mobile phone. The entire goal of the game is to provide a social setting with alternate, Sims style goals. While those goals are not well defined, the volume of different choices available on the site makes it a great social setting and a game site that gives back only as much as you put into it.
.: Plot
3.00
What does happen though that makes the game effective in a plot sense despite its lack of cohesive story is the self-narrative that you can create. For the same reason that The Sims has become the number one selling video game of all time, Faketown works because it gives players the chance to make their own choices and affect their fortunes in the game.
For example, when you start you will have one persona, no coins, and a dingy little house. However, if you put the time into the game necessary to make more coins and meet new friends, you will quickly start to build up a bigger, more interactive household. To truly take advantage of the game’s interface though, you will almost assuredly need to become a member of the FT Club. The FT Club is a paid membership service that costs $15 a year (and comes with 15,000 coins, effectively negating the cost of membership) and permits you to become eligible to be the mayor, gives you 2 coins every minute you are online, and gives you access to all the rare items as they appear.
This means that you can be as fully involved as you like, meeting new friends, building a bigger home and partaking of the ongoing, community designed narrative that can help you become the mayor, allow you to own up to 6 properties, or just be a popular denizen of your town.
If you are looking for a BBMMO that provides you with something packaged and ready to play, you might be sorely disappointed with Faketown. This is not a game that tells you where to go or what to do. There are no predesigned characters or achievements to complete. You must make your own path, which for many players will be a huge draw on its own. .: Safety
4.00
As a result, Faketown’s registration process requires all users to be at least 16 years of age, blocking registration of any one that is not. After logging in, you will notice that there are very few checks after this point and many times the chat logs and items up for auction freely display the openness of the forum.
Your account contains very little, if any personal information however and because you are hidden behind an avatar (Fake ID), your fellow players will never know anything about you unless you tell them yourself. It is almost entirely an anonymous environment, complete with fake names, houses, and locations. The town you are placed in is never in the same location as where you are actually from, though your home country often is.
While the interface is safe and privacy concerns are dealt with carefully – Faketown does not sell any collected information and maintains a secure database – content and social interaction can be a problem. Parents should ensure children do not use the site or are careful in doing so (if they are over 16) and that chat interactions are closely monitored. Chats are saved in a history file for a few days at a time allowing for review of what has been said. Additionally, though Faketown does not actively monitor what occurs on its servers, it will react if necessary to any reports of abuse.
.: Gameplay
5.00
One of the primary reasons for such diversity is the sheer volume of user created content. The game provides you, from registration, with a tool to create your own content. At first, you have only the most basic tools, allowing you a simple Paint style interface to make little drawings (see screenshot to the right), images, or basic parts for homes. These items can be sold at auction, some of them garnering large amounts of coins for their originality and creativity.
As you progress and earn more coins, you can purchase additional tools for the ‘create artwork’ tool. To start, you are given 16 basic patterns, and one frame to work with. Later you can earn dozens more patterns, a wide array of brushes and the ability to add frames so that you can create animations. The range of products created in this tool and sold at auction includes everything from chairs and trees to clothing and spaceships.
Faketown often holds contests and rewards players for the content they create in the artwork tool, most recently holding a Sci-Fi scene contest to see who could create the best Science Fiction scene. These contest will reward large sums of coins and additional bots that can be used in the game to showcase prowess.
In addition to creating their own artwork, players can upload their own MP3s from their hard drives, add photos to their profile, or provide links to YouTube videos. You will need to purchase space to store any songs or large photos that do not fit within a free account, but they can be temporarily shared with your friends in the town for free.
In terms of arcade games, the range is quite wide, including over 1,000 flash games, ranging from classics like Ms. Pacman, to scene making tools for artwork creation or Sudoku. While the game themselves are not the highest quality games in the world, the sheer variety and the ability to play them with nearly anyone in your town (plus the low cost of anywhere between 1500 and 4000 coins for most of them) makes it a superb addition to the interface and a great distraction with chatting with your Faketown friends.
For those with a bit of ambition there is even more to do. Building a mansion with units you have purchased or aiming to gather friends to your location is a great way to take advantage of the wide array of objects the game provides. In addition, those who have become FT club members can run for mayor by making a lot of friends and garnering the right support. Each of the game’s five major towns has at least 15,000 members in it, so you will need to be sure meet a lot of people, do a lot of nice things, and even grease a few palms along the way, but it is an interesting way to boost an already deep experience’s enjoyment factor.
Faketown is an incredibly deep BBMMO that combines the best aspects of social interaction and Sims style “create-and-play” mechanics. If you enjoy building yourself from the groundup, this is the kind of online experience you will fall in love with.
.: Community
5.00
You can view each other’s profiles, with basic information, all uploaded content, and photos that a member decides to add. Additionally, you can save your friend lists, chat histories, and mobile phone information to the site so that you can keep track of who you’re chatting with and even do so when not at a computer.
Chat interfaces are all within the game, and will appear mid-house, with grey box and floating talk bubbles. The game’s map is made up of hundreds of little blocks, each representing a square that belongs to a player. These blocks can be visited directly by clicking on them or by clicking on a friend’s name. You can also explore the community by walking from street to street by just moving forward. When you reach a block with other players on it, you can stop and talk to them by chatting directly on the screen. Your avatar will interact with theirs the same as you would in AIM or GTalk, and the conversations will save to your lists.
The online community is generally very lively as well, though it can be a bit blue at times, another good reason why there is an age requirement of 16 for all new players – however, this is the same as any other online community. Some people will be respectful – others will note. Largely, the people you interact with is up to you.
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