LittleBigPlanet + Tetris = Billions, Save Them All

Finally, a Facebook game that just lets you play without heckling you to buy things.

Most of the games on Facebook are technically free to play, but the majority of them will interrupt or halt your progress in an attempt to get you to buy something. Billions, Save Them All is different. Because it's basically a tech demo for what can be created in 3DVIA's Studio game engine, this game is completely free, and it's in 3D as well.

The goal of the game is to save little creatures, called Mogaloos, from extinction. You play as a Glow Agent, traversing through levels, collecting as many Mogaloos as you can before reaching the endpoint. In order to get to the endpoint, and any checkpoint in between, you'll need to create a path that will take you to it.

When you collect Mogaloos, you'll gain energy, which can then be spent to build path segments. The segments are a number of blocks strung together in different shapes. You can rotate these blocks in order to make your path go up into the air, or conversely, lead you down. Your Glow Agent won't fall off of the blocks, so the bulk of the gameplay is using your blocks the right way in order to make an efficient pathway to swarms of Mogaloos, and then the checkpoints. It's kind of a cross between LittleBigPlanet and Tetris. If you run out of energy before you reach the end, you'll lose the level.

As you progress through the game, you'll find levels with multiple checkpoints, and your path may be cluttered with spikes, bombs, and other obstacles you'll need to avoid or risk losing energy. At the end of each level, you get a score that is based on how much energy you have when you cross the final checkpoint, and the game displays leaderboards for each level.

Billions, Save Them All is one of the prettiest games I've seen on Facebook, but that's because the game runs in 3DVIA's proprietary player, which is a free download, as opposed to Flash. It's a bright, colorful game that fully makes use of a 3D space. At the same time it's a game that's likely to appeal more to gamers than the typical Facebook game player. It uses more traditional PC gaming controls as opposed to the simple point and click of most Facebook games. The difficulty ramps at a nice pace over the game's more than 20 levels, and should provide at least a mild challenge to more seasoned gamers.

I've enjoyed my time with Billions, and it's encouraging to see that real 3D games are possible on the Facebook platform. Check it out and let us know what you think.

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