Why Didn’t I Think of That? – Cow Clicker
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010I'm not sure how late to the party I am on this one, but a student today mentioned a facebook app called Cow Clicker. I don't have a facebook account anymore, so I can't actually check it out, but reading about it on Bogost's site has me rather fascinated:
Cow Clicker is a Facebook game about Facebook games. It's partly a satire, and partly a playable theory of today's social games, and partly an earnest example of that genre.
You get a cow. You can click on it. In six hours, you can click it again. Clicking earns you clicks. You can buy custom "premium" cows through micropayments (the Cow Clicker currency is called "mooney"), and you can buy your way out of the time delay by spending it. You can publish feed stories about clicking your cow, and you can click friends' cow clicks in their feed stories. Cow Clicker is Facebook games distilled to their essence.
Ian Bogost - Cow Clicker. His site features a link to the app, as well as some extended thoughts on the concept (which I recommend reading!).
