Kongai

July 23, 2008

Apparently I’ve been busy, because Kongregate released Kongai at some point, and nobody told me. Kongai, if you recall, is an online collectible card game. Cards are earned by gaining achievements at weekly featured games, and remain linked to your account. It’s a neat way for a casual game portal to raise the barrier to exit, while at the same time increasing the value prop.

When did I start to sound like a corporate whore?

Kongregate

November 5, 2007

Kongregate will consume your soul and cause you to swear Oaths of Fealty.

As mentioned previously, I’m a huge achievement whore.  The concept of badges has entranced me since I was a wee Boy Scout.  I don’t take particular pride in showing them off to anyone, I just like having a record of tasks I’ve accomplished.  If you’re a fan of Newgrounds, which is the cradle of humanity for cool flash games, you’re going to lurrrrve Kongregate. 

Additionally, and this bit is kind of weird, Kongregate is the future home of a digital collectable card game.  The current manner for aquiring these cards is to complete an acheivement for a particular game for that week.  Presumably when the game is actually launched there will also be some mechanism for purchasing/winning additional cards for your deck.  Final judgement is reserved for when the game comes out.

On top of all that, It’s just clean.  Clean like Facebook used to be, you know, back in the day before they started plastering shit all over your screen like this was 1997.  Cleanliness is highly appreciated and improves the usability story tenfold.  Go check it out.