Blogger is currently unavailable - for quite a while actually...

"Blogger is currently unavailable" was the message you get if you tried to access Blogger for the past many hours.

Apparently Google's Blogger had been down for between 19 hours to 36 hours, depending on which news source. Guess that means millions of blogs will not have new content for the past day. Someone should investigate if there is a significant drop in new web content as a result, as a measure of Blogger's influence on web content creation.

There were also news that some latest blog posts went missing. According to info from Blogger, there was a data corruption during the scheduled maintenance (see pic below). Hopefully it is just a technical glitch, something that is unavoidable when Blogger is testing new features.

Well at least Blogger is no long 'unavailable'.

iPad Apps by URA - Property Market Info & Master Plan 2008

With the increasing popularity of iPads among the Singapore residents, it is not surprising that we have more Singapore related apps. Nonetheless I am still pleasantly surprised that the government authorities, specifically URA, developed not just one, but 2 apps for the iPad. And both made it to the top 10 free iPad Apps when I checked at the Apps Store.

The 2 apps (in bold red ovals) are the Property Market Information, and the Master Plan 2008. URA's Property Market Information allows potential home buyers to compare prices (including rentals) across private properties in Singapore.

Since URA is only in charge of private properties and not public housing (which is under HDB), the app is restricted in its range of info. Nonetheless the info provided is pretty up to date, since the Property Market Information app can directly draw information from URA's servers.

It will be fun to use this app while while shopping for condos, especially when potential property buyers can compare the condo prices of near by properties in front of the property agents, that might help in their price bargaining.

The other URA app is the Masterplan 2008. Honestly this is less impressive. It is a digitised version of the Master Plan for Singapore, which shows how the different plots of land will be used. This includes the plot ratio and other details.

I am not sure how useful this app will be, other than for specific land developer users. Nonetheless Master Plan 2008 made it to the top 10 apps, so there are others with a different opinion about its usefulness.

WoW - Plants vs Zombies

The recent changes in the World of Warcraft include a lot of new innovative segments. I was pleasantly surprise to see a mini-game of a Plants vs Zombies in the Hillsbrad Foothills. The mini-game is the quest given by Brazie the Botanist.

Seems like PopCap had consented, or even helped Blizzard with this mini-game. There are multiple parts to this mini-game.

Oh, for those who have difficulty completing the quest - try having two rows of sunflowers, it would help.

Group Buy via Internet

I first heard about Groupon when I attended a conference at Jerusalem last year (2010). Groupon, as in 'Group Coupon' was touted as an upcoming trend setter for the Internet commerce sector.

True enough, there was a flood of stories about Groupon and its clones in the subsequent months, and viola, Groupon is now in Singapore!


Groupon entered the Singapore market via a purchase of Beeconomic (the deal rumoured to be in the range of millions). Groupon.sg is now very active and there have been a number of different deals on the site.

But other than Groupon, there are many other Singapore group buy sites. The one that caught my attention is Deal.com.sg. For some reason (perhaps due to different target audience groups), I am more attracted to the deals on deal.com.sg. Maybe Groupon / Beeconomic has young female audience in mind, while travel and food are more attractive to me.


These sites have also utilised the social networks, e.g. Deal.com.sg is on Facebook, to create groups for the viral marketing effect. Afterall, group buy and viral marketing should easily go hand in hand together. Other than social networks, the sites would also send out email alerts of their latest deals, and as I understand, there are even mobile applications on iPhones and such to allow for 'instant buy' via the mobile apps. Innovative!


However, as with any Internet trends, there are also issues about sites dying off and the customers not getting what they bought. We heard about such stories in China, where the concept of 'group buy' a.k.a 'tuan gou' gave birth to hundreds of sites and some have since died. Of course, China is a big market with its own unique set of consumer norms and Internet culture.

Hopefully the Singapore sites can survive well, and continue to offer such attractive discounts for our local shoppers. I think we need alternatives that offer better deals throughout the year, instead of just during the Singapore Sale or year end holiday sales.

iPad - Syndicate: Review & Guide

Ever since iPad was released, there has been numerous games. Some of the games are similar to what are available on Facebook (e.g. Mafia Wars) where players engaged in tasks to build up gold / experience points for leveling and construction of their little empires.

One of the more interesting games in iPad is the Syndicate, a game that focus on building up a commercial empire with workers and a nice commercial building. Here's a screen shot of the Syndicate game on iPad. The building in the centre is built only after much leveling has been done, level 17 to be exact.

Jobs
There are a few activities for the player that are listed on the left side of the screen. The main focus of the Syndicate game is the doing of jobs, that yield experience points and various amount of gold. The jobs come with pre-requisites including number of workers (i.e. staff), the player level, and the facilities that the player has. Facilities can be built and each new addition with have impact on staff morale and productivity. Productivity also affects the monetary rewards for the jobs.

For example, if the job pays $1000 normally and the productivity is 150%, the monetary reward is actually $1,500. The amount is also affected by when the player 'claims' the job rewards. When the job is completed (after a set timing, from 15 minutes to hours), bonus of 25% or 50% will be given if the player can claim the jobs rewards in time. Over time, the bonus drops to zero.

Hire
To hire more workers, just click on the 'Hire' tab, and a list of up to 10 workers will be shown. The workers are given funny games with funnier descriptions, e.g. worker George Skipper - Supposes that he is a ship captain. Some of the descriptions are pretty lame actually. During the initial levels, it costs less to hire a worker, and the cost per worker increases with new levels of the player. At times, the new hire will also cause a decrease in staff morale and productivity. So it is important to improve the facility of the rooms that help to increase staff morale and productivity.

Buildings and Rooms
The player starts off with a single room when the Syndicate is first started; 'Boss's Office' and the player can have as many as 6 rooms - Canteen, Working Area, Warehouse, Guard Desk and Expedition. Each room has many facilities for the player to purchase. For example, there is water cooler, plants etc etc.

The facilities will take time to build. Each facility improvement also costs money, except for one of the item related to human - e.g. the secretary, employee that must be purchased with the gold coin. Gold coins are sometimes given when job levels are completed. Each facility has 3 levels with different types of rewards. Of course, facilities cost more with the higher levels, and in the more advanced rooms.

Other than rooms, the players can also improve their buildings. To me, this is the fun part of the game, where there is some sense of achievement to see the game character owning bigger and nicer buildings. There are two category of buildings, one purchased with money and the other using gold coins. The latter comes with additional benefits. Of course, to have ore gold coins mean the player needs to spend real life money to purchase them.

There are 3 pre-requisites to build new buildings, level of player, number of workers, and of course the amount of money / gold coins available. Buildings too will take some time to complete.

Rewards & Bonus
Rewards are given when jobs are completed, and the player can use these rewards to improve various game statistics. There are bonus that immediately completes all jobs, bonus that affect staff morale, productivity etc etc. Players can also purchase mroe of these bonus using money or the gold coins.

When the player levels up, bonus will also be given. To see what bonuses are given with each level, just tap on the portrait of the game character and the lists, as well as other statistics will be shown.

If you have friends playing the Syndicate game, do add them, and they can be relied upon for the Pyramid function, i.e. the player earns money when their added friends complete jobs. Of course, being a social game, the Syndicate also has the friends visiting function. Players can even visit other Syndicate players who are not 'friends' per se.

Overall the Syndicate game is pretty fun to play with. The jobs get repetitive after a while but since the game doesn't consume too much time, it is good to while away 10-15 minutes every couple of hours or so. Honestly, many games on iPad get repetitive after a while.

One small tip for the beginning player - do the jobs if you have enough staff, even after the jobs have reached maximum level and do not yield any more experience. This will help you gain more money faster.

Playfish: My Empire - Volcano Island, Barracks & Soldiers!

Playfish has added a new dimension to the My Empire game. I guess by now many players have a shortage of land to build new buildings, and the game mechanics of 'Build & Build' is no longer as exciting.

So it is very timely that My Empire has a brand new island - Volcano Island, where players can explore and build their colonies. Of course, the game puts in a teaser in the form of a lost map to be discovered via multiple map fragments. So the players will have to click on the hidden map portions to reveal the entire map.

Everyday there is only 10 fragments to be found, but friends can send more fragments to each other. It takes a few days to reveal the whole map. From the revealed map, a total of three islands can be seen. The centre island is the home island. So far, players can only explore the Volcano Island, and the other island is 'locked'.

An important point to note is that players have more room to expand their empires when more lands are available via Volcano Island.

At the same time, Playfish introduced the Barracks building for players level 6 and above. This is an important building that unlocks the soldiers function. The soldiers are necessary to 'explore' the new islands and fight the barbarians.

The soldiers can be 'recruited' quite easily only time. 4 routes of recruitment are possible with 3 routes using coins over time, while the last option is an instant recruitment using Playfish cash. There is a limit to the number of soldiers that each player can have. This limit can be increased via the recruitment of 'generals'. Generals are basically friends who responded to the player's call for generals. More generals are needed or else the limited number of soldiers will definitely lose the battles with the barbarians.

At the beginning when the map is revealed, the storyline shows that the cousin of the player (i.e. the Greek looking girl) is abducted by the barbarians, and the player is supposed to save her. Thus the player will have to reveal more parts of the islands shrouded by clouds and obstacles.

Every time an obstacle is clicked, the player explores more of the Volcano Island. There are possibility of gold coins and resources to be found, including those needed to build the special wonder found only on Volcano Island. More often than not, barbarians will attack the player, and this is when the number of soldiers become important. As with any battle, absolute numbers is a critical factor. My Empire will also indicate the probability of winning which is based on the comparison of numbers from both the polayer and the barbarians.

When the player wins and also secures barbarian outposts, more generals slots can be unlocked. This means more generals can be recruited. Of course, not every battle will go smoothly, even when the probability of winning is high. Thus after the battle, more barbarians will 'run away', which helps the player's chance to win the battle the next round.

I've yet to rescue the 'cousin' or 'found' the temple of Zeus. So, come back for more updates in future for info about them!

See related post:
- Playfish: My Empire - Simple Guide

Playfish: My Empire - Simple Guide

Playfish has been rolling out lotsa of new games recently, for example My Empire and Pirates Ahoy!

My Empire is as the name suggested, an empire building game. Unlike the PC genre of empire building game, this Playfish version is a relatively peaceful affair, without the war / soldiers / barracks element. The player is given a small island to build up a thriving little town. With higher levels, the buildable area expands and the little township can grown bigger.

Note: Playfish introduced the barracks and soldiers shortly after this post, and thus My Empire is not such a peaceful game afterall.

Game Mechanics - Coins
The game started with a pool of coins for the player to build essentials like housing, storage etc. Thus coins formed the basic currency of the game, and it is vital to plan to earn coins. Coins could be obtained via the following methods:

- Daily log-in. The game reward players with a bag of coins every day. There is also a bonus to the bag of coins when the player log in consecutively over a period of 5 days.

- Daily visits to friends' cities. My Empire rewards daily visits by giving coins as 'rewards for trading'.

- Tax Collection. My Empire has a tax colelction function with 4 options (too little in my opinion) of 5 minutes, 4 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours. Other than the 5 minutes option, it costs coins to hire the tax collector. Of course, the tax collected is related to the population size of the empire.
Note: Do remember to 'collect' the tax after the stated hours. The game will allow for a grace period of equal hours (e.g. 4 hours grace for the 4 hours tax collection), failing which the tax will be stolen, i.e. player loses both the tax collection as well as initial coin payment for tax collector.

- Traveling merchants. Occasionally when the player visits other friends, there will be a 'Traveling Merchant' who can reward the player with resources or coins when the player click on the icon. More about this 'Traveling Merchant' at the end of this post.

Game Mechanics - Building
Since the game is about building of an empire, it is only natural to have many building options. My Empire offers 4 types of buildings, 'Functional', 'Happiness', 'Decorations' and 'Wonders'.

Functional includes the basic housing and mines, and they provide essentials for the game, including population gains and the resources (e.g. wood, ores etc). With higher levels, more elaborated buildings can be built, that provides more housing space and happiness for example.

'Happiness' tab has the more interesting buildings like storage, farms etc. The buildings from this tab provide more happiness, which are essential for the empire. The 'Decorations' has smaller items like animals, flags, flowers etc to beautify the empire. Last but least of all are the Wonders. This allows the players to construct the pyramid, Stonehenge and such, i.e. the old Wonders of the ancient world.

All buildings are constructed using coins or Playfish cash, and some will require additional resources, e.g. gold ores, red bricks etc from the different mines.

The building of the Wonders require a lot of help from friends. Each of the wonder has an additional material that cannot be obtained from the mines, e.g. sulphur, diamonds, tar etc. Thus the player will need to receive such materials as 'gifts' from friends. Thus My Empire basically encourage players to add more friends so as to short cut the building of the wonders. The effort is worth it, since the wonders conferred a lot of happiness for the empire's population.

At the gifting option, it is not difficult to see which of the materials are needed for which wonder. However, the tricky part is that the player needs to know which wonders are being built by his friends or he could be sending the wrong materials. This also requires more effort to activate the gift sending options multiple times (for different wonders built by different friends). Quite troublesome I must say. The gifts could be sent only once a day to the other friends.

Game Mechanics - Research
My Empire also allow for alchemy research when the player reaches higher level. This simply means the mines can provide for more variety of materials to be obtained each day. Nope, each mine type still provides only 1 material per 24 hours. Research option will indicate what type of research is possible, and yes, unlocking of research will require a lot of coins.

Research also allow for enhancement of the market and townhall. This means more coins can be earned by trading between friends and the daily log in.

Game Mechanics - Other Notes
A small note for players of My Empire is that during each daily visit to friends, the player might come across an emoticon of traders with camels (e.g. in the picture below) and a small exclamation mark. Do remember to click on it!

Clicking on the icon means the player will get a chance to earn something more, quite likely additional resources, or sometimes merely coins. Unfortunately this 'trader / camel' icon of the 'Traveling Merchant' seems to appear only once a day and thus there is only a limit to the additional freebies.

Overall My Empire is a nice game, but somehow it is not as attractive as Restaurant City or the Hotel City developed by Playfish. Perhaps the amount of animation for the empire is not sufficient enough to make it interesting as yet. Gamers might already be spoilt by the wide variety of animations found in the PC based empire building games.

Of course, Playfish has announced that there will be new developments for My Empire, including teasers about visits to other islands not owned by the friends of the player. We will see how it develops.

See related post:
- Playfish: My Empire - Volcano Island, Barracks & Soldiers!