Triple Town
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''Triple Town'' is a
freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium", is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical ( ...
strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "troop leadership; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " a ...
puzzle video game Puzzle video games make up a broad genre of video games that emphasize puzzle solving. The types of puzzles can test problem-solving skills, including logic, pattern recognition, Sequence, sequence solving, Spatial ability, spatial recognition, ...
with city-building elements. It is available for social networks and mobile devices and was developed by Seattle-based
Spry Fox Spry Fox is a video game producing company headquartered in Seattle, United States, that was founded in 2010 by David Edery and Daniel Cook. The company produced the games '' Triple Town'', a freemium strategy puzzle video game with city-buildin ...
. The
casual game A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a hardcore game, which is targeted at hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They generally involve simpler rules, shorter sessio ...
was originally released for the
Amazon Kindle Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, Audible audiobooks, and other digital media via wireless networking ...
e-reader in 2010, and was ported to the
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
and
Google+ Google+ (sometimes written as Google Plus, stylized as G+ or g+) was a Social networking service, social network owned and operated by Google until it ceased operations in 2019. The network was launched on June 28, 2011, in an attempt to challe ...
social networks in October 2011. It was published in January 2012 for
iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
and some Android devices. It was released for Windows and Macintosh through Steam on December 6, 2012.


Gameplay

The premise of the
turn-based Timekeeping is relevant to many types of games, including video games, tabletop role-playing games, board games, and sports. The passage of time must be handled in a way that players find fair and easy to understand. In many games, this is don ...
,
single-player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the gameplay. Video games in general can feature several game modes, including single-player modes designed to be played by a single player in add ...
game is that the player must build a new settlement. The game takes place on a 6×6 grid of fields on which some tiles are randomly placed. Players are given random tiles, most often grass tiles, that they must place on the grid. When three or more identical tiles adjoin, they merge into one more advanced tile at the position of the last tile placed: three grass tiles become a bush, three bushes a tree, three trees a hut, three huts a house, and so forth. Merging four or more tiles earns coins or a tile which is held in the inventory located in the sidebar. There are three special tiles: bears, crystals, and imperial bots. Bears move to a neighboring square each turn, blocking building sites until they are trapped. Ninjas act the same, except they can move to any empty square on the board. When they are trapped or an imperial bot is used on them, they turn into a gravestone. Three gravestones make a church, three churches a cathedral, and so forth. Crystals can be used as a wild card to make any match. Imperial bots remove individual tiles, or, if used on bears, turn them into gravestones. The player may keep one tile in reserve in the storehouse, usually located in the top left corner of the screen, and use it when needed. The objective of the game is to upgrade one's settlement's tiles to as high a rank as possible, earning an accordingly high score. The game ends if all fields of the grid are filled. In 2012 the Capital City feature was added to the Web-based version of the game, which acts as a home base. In the Capital City the player can select which
settlement Settlement may refer to: *Human settlement, a community where people live *Settlement (structural), downward movement of a structure's foundation *Settlement (finance), where securities are delivered against payment of money *Settlement (litigatio ...
they want to go to, and also build up the Capital City itself. When Capital City tiles are earned, they are placed in the inventory.


In-game money

In ''Triple Town'' on the Web, there are two types of in-game
money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: m ...
:
coin A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...
s and
diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...
s. Each can be purchased using real money, although coins can also be earned during gameplay. When a user first plays ''Triple Town'', they are given several thousand coins and a small number of diamonds. In the mobile version of the game, there are only coins, not diamonds.


Reception

''Triple Town'' received positive reviews. Reviewers praised the game's innovative extensions of the match-three mechanic as well as its strategic depth, unusual for a casual game, which requires players to plan several moves ahead in order to be successful. Criticism focused on the game's limited content and its implementation of the freemium business model: while the game is free, it comes with a limited number of turns. Once these are used up, they regenerate slowly, or may be purchased with in-game or real money. The turn limit can be permanently removed with a one-time payment. Casual gaming website
Gamezebo ''Gamezebo'' (sometimes stylized ''GameZebo'') is a website which reports on and reviews video games. Founded in 2005 by Joel Brodie, it was billed as the first website to solely cover casual games and expanded its scope to social games in 20 ...
named ''Triple Town'' the best Facebook game of 2011, and second-best game of the year 2011. ''Triple Town'' was also ''
Edge Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...
s runner-up for indie game of the year 2011, and
Gamasutra ''Game Developer'' (known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021) is a website created in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa TechTarget and acted as the online sister publication to the print maga ...
's runner-up for best social game of 2011. During the 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) is a non-profit organization of video game industry professionals. It organizes the annual Design Innovate Communicate Entertain Summit, better known as D.I.C.E., which includes the presentation ...
nominated ''Triple Town'' for " Social Networking Game of the Year".


Copyright infringement dispute

In January 2012, Spry Fox filed a
lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...
against
Lolapps Lolapps was a developer and publisher of social games on the Facebook platform. Lolapps was best known for creating Ravenwood Fair with John Romero which had 25 million players worldwide. In 2011, Lolapps merged with social games publisher 6wa ...
and 6Waves LLC, known as '' Spry Fox, LLC v. Lolapps, Inc.''. The complaint alleges that these companies published, in violation of Spry Fox's copyright, a yeti-themed game ''Yeti Town'' that is substantially a copy of ''Triple Town''. LOLAPPS and 6Waves had previously denied these allegations. A US court noted that while the game mechanics have little protection, the style and expression of the clone are too similar to Triple Town, and thus denied 6Waves' motion to dismiss Spry Fox's infringement claim. In October 2012 they reached a settlement resulting in the transfer of Yeti Town's
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...
to Spry Fox.


References

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External links


Official website
2010 video games Android (operating system) games Browser games Casual games City-building games Facebook games Indie games IOS games MacOS games Single-player video games Spry Fox games Tile-matching video games Video games about bears Video games about plants Video games about robots Video games developed in the United States Windows games