Snapchat has added a few more games to its new platform called Snap Games. It’s developed by Snapchat, facilitates “high-fidelity synchronous gameplay” and is based on the PlayCanvas engine. Though it was launched in April initially, the roster has been increasing steadily and now includes both first and third-party titles like Zynga’s Tiny Royale and Snapchat’s own Bitmoji Tennis. At present it has six games including two Bitmoji Titles, a simplified version of the popular word-game Alphabear and some Zynga titles.
It’s very easy to start a game with your friends, just open the normal messaging window and click on the tiny rocket icon. You’ll be presented with a selection of the games and you can launch any one of them and invite your friends with just a few taps. It’s a truly seamless experience and you can also chat conveniently while playing the games, kind of like an overplay a la Steam/Discord.
Bitmoji Tennis
A run-of-the-mill arcade tennis game but with a few tricks up its sleeve. First of all, the novelty of having your 3D bitmojis battling out on the greens is one that has a charm of its own. The controls are simple enough, tap to run sideways and tilt the phone to direct your shot. The more games you win, the more abilities unlock. Starting from curved shots to a racquet which enables farther lobs, you get a number of abilities at your behest. The in-game chat means you can watch your friends rage at you while you beat them.
Zombie Rescue Squad
This is a co-op top down shoot-em-all. You have to mow down the zombies with your autofiring rifles while you can manually lob grenades and call in airstrikes. The aiming is all automatic and you can move by tapping at the location you want to move to. The Gravity Falls-esque environment is replete with power ups and health rechargers. You can team up with up to four players to kill the zombies and clear the stages faster. There are a number of hostages in the area whom you have to rescue by standing close to them for a specified period of time.
Bitmoji Party
Bitmoji Party pairs up to 7 players, either friends or random players found by the matchmaking, to battle it out in a multi-round minigame match. You control your bitmojis in a round of different minigames, each giving you some coins for securing podium finishes. You can use these coins in the in-game shop. The minigames include one where you have to run to stop yourself from falling off a giant vinyl and one which is essentially a turn-by-turn food fight. Each minigame has a player picked at random as the game master which has a special role. It is fun to play but the variety of minigames would get stale after a few plays. Playing with friends would be more fun and ensure that you don’t get bored easily.
