Zynga, the social game maker that once made popular games for Facebook, has released an exclusive title for Snapchat. This new title is a battle royale game called Tiny Royale.
Tiny Royale is another battle royale, but with a twist
Tiny Royale, a top-down shooter game, expands the list of multiplayer games available on Snapchat. As can be expected, players will face other players in a shrinking battlefield, and the last man standing is the winner.
“Game developers rarely get the opportunity to create an entirely new experience on an emerging platform so our team was excited to remix the battle royale genre into a fast-paced game designed to rock on Snap Games,” Zynga’s president of Publishing, Bernard Kim, said in a press release. Here is the game’s launch trailer:
A maximum of 30 players can play the game in one round on Snapchat. Players can also team up with friends and form a squad of up to four players. Players will pick up health packs, armor and weapons as they play the game. They will also be able to unlock new characters as they make progress in the game.
One thing that makes this game different from other popular battle royale games such as Fortnite or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, is that each game lasts for just two minutes. Such a short duration makes the game perfect when you are on the subway or bus.
The game is live, and Snapchatters can start playing. The game is easily accessed via Snapchat’s messaging feature. Players can also use the voice or text chat to communicate with their teammates.
Zynga and Snap will also release a new competitive mode for the game called Tiny Royale Leagues later this summer. In the mode, players will be placed in groups of 100 people spread over 20 tiers. Players will have to rise through the ranks in “limited-time windows” while collecting rewards and trophies.
Another new game for Snap Games
Tiny Royale adds to the growing list of games available on Snap’s gaming platform, Snap Games. Snap’s gaming platform is built on the PlayCanvas game engine and features several third-party titles.
“Snap Games is all about exploring new ways for friends to play together and Tiny Royale™ is the perfect example of that,” Snap Games head Will Wu said.
Snap Games was launched a couple of months ago with Snap’s own in-house game, Bitmoji Party. The game can be played by up to eight people at a time, and players can invite friends to participate. The game also includes a spectator mode in which up to 24 people can watch and cheer via group chat.
Other games that were available at launch were Snake Squad (a multiplayer battle-royale game from Game Closure); Zombie Rescue Squad (a game based on zombies from PikPok); C.A.T.S. (Crash Arena Turbo Stars) Drift Race, a multiplayer racing game from ZeptoLab; and Alphabear Hustle (a Words With Friends-like game from Spry Fox). Zynga’s Tiny Royale was also included in the launch list.
At the time of launch, Snap said it is prioritizing quality over quantity, and thus, it is not opening the platform to every developer.
Snap is the latest social platform to embrace gaming to encourage users to spend more time on the platform. Other platforms that offer users a lot of games are Kakao, Line, WeChat, Messenger and more.
Turnaround complete for Zynga
Zynga, the company behind the game Farmville, was a big hit a few years ago. However, the game maker’s fortunes took a turn for the worst after Facebook tweaked its gaming algorithm.
For the past three to four years, the company has been in the turnaround phase and witnessed massive layoffs and a management shuffle. What kept the company alive for those years were classic games like Words with Friends, Farmville, CSR Racing and Zynga Poker.
Now in its most recent earnings report, the game maker announced that “the turnaround is complete.” The company now offers fewer games and focuses more on keeping its older titles fresh. It is also making a few new games, including the Tiny Royale and GoT. Zynga’s GoT will be based on HBO’s Game of Thrones and is expected to be released sometime this month.
Zynga has a daily active user base of 20 million, while its monthly active user base is about 100 million. The game maker primarily makes money from ads and in-app purchases. For 2018, the company reported earnings of $15 million on revenue of $907 million. Zynga expects its revenue to top $1 billion in 2019.
