The Meat and Potatoes
PackRat Is Hoarding My Attention
If you haven’t already heard, Firewheel (under the moniker of Alamofire) has finally released their long-awaited, ultra-top-secret project. Since they first announced the new project under a veil of secrecy, I’ve been chomping at the bit to find out what it is. Well it’s here, and boy is it a doozy!
PackRat is a very simple MMO built on Facebook’s Platform. The basic goal is to collect sets of icons (a la IconBuffet) by stealing them from your friends or buying them from the game’s market, in an effort to increase your level indefinitely. You can find a full description of the rules here. While the basic premise is very simple and fairly status quo as far as MMO’s go, it’s Firewheel’s magical touch that really sets it apart. The icons are joyfully tasty and the user experience is rock-solid. PackRat’s brilliantly executed and rather deep integration into Facebook is something unlike anything I’ve seen. PackRat has dramatically increased the time I spend on Facebook (which I have steadily been losing interest in) and I’ve even started to add new friends solely for the purpose of playing with them! I’m sure Facebook would agree with me when I say that PackRat embodies the type execution they had in mind when they developed Platform. PackRat couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I am obsessively interested in game mechanics and how they are applied in different environments and PackRat has me really pumped. It has rejuvenated my interest in Platform after watching countless poorly executed applications slowly chip away at it’s potential.
Being that I am a pretty hardcore player, I wanted to share a few tips and strategies for those of you that are already playing. These tips assume a basic understanding of the game…
NPC (Non-Player Characters) Friends
If you look at your list of friends within PackRat, you may notice a few avatars that you do not recognize with names like Pirate Rat, Security Rat, Rat Cassidy, etc. These appear to be automated, or possibly played by the Firewheel staff. You are not permitted to steal from people who are not your friends (but you can see their packs…brilliant) but you CAN steal from these guys. While only a couple will show up in your list at a time, you can bookmark them and come back to them whenever you want. Have these open at all times. Since every player has access to these NPCs, they are your global link to the icons of every player in the game. Icons move through them very quickly, so make sure you snatch any goods ones immediately.
Wiki
There is already a wiki going that details all of the different icon sets as well as the current recipes. You can find it here.
Credit Farming
Need credits? Go to your friends list and open all your friends in tabs. Then run through each tab collecting the dropped credits. I hesitated posting this one as it is a bit sneaky, but given that I do it manually and not via some sort of script, I figured it was ok.
Stealing High Point Icons
Unless you’re really lucky, the only way to steal a high point icon is to drop one of similar value. So how do you get that 4000 point icon if you only have a 100 point icon? It easy…run a circuit through your friend list, stealing icons that are 100 points higher than the one you have. For example, if you have a 100 point sticker, steal a 200 point, then 300, then 400, etc, until you reach a icon that will provide you with a good chance at the icon you seek. You can push it and go for icons higher than 100 points from the value of the icon you have, but this number has proven very reliable.
Extend Your Pack Space
Your pack can only hold 15 icons at a time. If you need more space, steal from friends that you know are not active in the game (or have only a few friends), then go back and get your dropped icons when you need them. It can be a bit risky, but if you watch a person’s pack for a bit you’ll get a feel for which ones are safe.
That’s all I have for now. I’ll write another post once I’ve gathered another batch. In the meantime keep an eye on your icons, I’m ruthless!
Wow. Just, wow.
And I mean that in the worse way possible.
Well its not for everyone I guess. But in terms of serving as a model for Facebook apps and what they are capable of, not to mention just a being a brilliant way to implement a game overall within an existing social network, it can’t be ignored.
Yeah, I get sucked in by about 2 online games a year (last year it was WeeWar and a back-from-the-dead UrbanDead), and PackRat’s got a hold on me. For now.
I am already an avid World of Warcraft player, so that and PackRat (and a girlfriend) is about all I can swing
Totally addicted like I was with IconBuffet for a while.
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