Kool KDice

I know what you’re thinking. “GoCrossCampus is so awesome and addictive, why would I ever need to play any other Risk-like game on the Internet?!”

Well, just in case you have a few extra minutes in between placing your armies and strategizing with your teammates, try out KDice or Dice Wars, two simple games inspired by Risk.

The primary goal of the game is similar to GXC, in that the objective is to conquer every territory on the map. KDice and Dice Wars, however, both use dice in ‘battles,’ while of course we incorporate actual armies.

So, if you have some extra time on your hands, check out their games and keep on conquering!

The different aspects of social gaming

We like to pitch GXC as a team-based “social game,” but just what in the world does that mean?

On the Internet, there are bushels of gaming sites, all with their own unique approach towards “social gaming.” Kongregate has chat rooms and leaderboard features embedded into each game that empower community-building and interaction between users. Along with forums and specialized badges for accounts, Kongregate does well in combining the world of games with social networking.

Social Gaming Network also builds on the concept of “social gaming” with challenges and contest features on their games like Jet Man which do well on social networks like Facebook. Combined with the “I gotta beat my friend” mentality, all their games are simple yet addictive. GXC also plans on expanding to Facebook with the introduction of a Facebook app, so look forward to that soon!

Seeing these creations on the Internet, GoCrossCampus brings another level to social gaming by placing the emphasis on both teamwork and rivalries between players. Players chat and strategize with other players, thus the social aspect gets incorporated directly into the game. Recruitment and encouragement to get involved happens both online and offline. Commanders even lead their fellow players to victory. It’s impossible to win just by playing on your own, and we always like to foster more social interaction between all our players, friend and foe alike.

With Longbow fast approaching, we hope to improve the social aspects of our game even more with new chat rooms, improved gameplay, and many enhanced features coming the down the pipeline…

GoCrossBoyBandz

Do you feel an irresistible desire to have it all…or nothing at all? Or are you in the mood for some Dirty Pop? You're not alone. The cure for lingering boy band ailments is here: GoCrossBoyBandz. Our newest game is guaranteed to feed your 90's pop culture hunger.


The game pits fans of 9 memorable bands against each other in one epic battle: *NSYNC, New Kids on the Block, Boyz II Men, Backstreet Boys, LFO, 98 Degrees, 2ge+her, O-Town, and Hanson. Players can chose one boy band team to help conquer the battlefield -- a battlefield adorned with heartthrob faces, teen magazines, and 90's nostalgia.

It appears Backstreet is back for now, so join your favorite BoyBand and fight for control of 90's pop music. Remember, you're all I ever wanted, you're all I ever needed, yeah... so tell me what to do now, cause I want... you... back!

Gaming Constitution

In every GXC game, there are casual players and there are intense players. We know our players can get really into the game, and that’s awesome. We’ve had users create full music videos for GXC, players pull all-nighters during an intense battle, even two students date each other after meeting on GXC. But this is the first time one of our players has written an entire GXC Constitution!

As an act of gaming pride for GXC, Brett Yang drafted a commander constitution to establish a governmental framework for the commanders of each team. In his own words:

Brett Yang: I'm going to draft up what I call a "constitution". What does that mean? Well, I want to give some structure to this whole Commander business (and at the same time make the game meaningful for those who play but aren't in power). What can you expect? Sub-Commander ranks, Division ranks, but all of it far simpler than the US Armed Forces ranking system. :)

Here is a link to view the whole constitution (pdf file).

We at GoCrossCampus admire Brett's ingenuity, pride and ideas. His constitution brings up many unique ideas such as a supermajority and specialized commanders.

Commanders lead teams in all manner of ways, and there are many options for how to structure, organize, and lead your team. We’re working on new features for Longbow that will give even more leadership options for commanders as well as further empowerment for all players, so that everyone has more influence in the game and more to do on-site.

Across the Border, Over the Ocean

After an extremely successful game at Tec de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico, GoCrossCampus is now reaching out to the next superpower – Asia. GXC reached the second most populated country through Muffakham Jah College in Hyderabad, India and is now working to start games in Pakistan, many Singaporean institutions, and even jumping to the land down under for some sweet Australian tourneys.

When Asia is interested in a new novelty, EVERYONE there wants in. Living in Singapore for 4 years showed me the intensity of this phenomenon. Teenagers go to LAN cafés after school to play WOW or CS (Counterstrike) for hours on end, completely addicted. Halo tournaments aren't just popular; you can barely walk through the convention with the swarm of people coming at you. Social networking has had an incredible response in those parts of the world, but incorporating an entertaining game into it will be the new unique blended activity everyone will want to sign up for.

We're all excited to see these games skyrocket with users, so see you in the fall at the Great Wall!

Wow! A Blog Post!

We are now back from a bit of blog-posting hiatus. :D

Longbow is now considerably further along, and thanks to all the beta testers who signed up. With any luck, you will be getting an email in the next month or so.

In other news, we've returned from the land of odd social experiments (see GoCrossStatus) and lauched our next open game, GoCrossZodiac. I think that this will be an excellent open game, and it was urged many times by our users. Not only do many people have an affinity to their birth month, but the teams are (theoretically) balanced. This was a problem with GXStatus, as we discovered that a decent plurality of our users were in some sort of relationship.

If GXZodiac goes on for as long as I think it could, our next open game might very well be launched in Longbow. No promises, though. It's not like we want to go down for a month or anything crazy like that.

We also have an awesome crew of summer interns on board, some of whom you'll hopefully get to know through this blog over the summer. Regardless, it's gonna make our New Haven office at 282 York packed! And I think the building maintenace just turned the heat off a few days ago -- evidently we were still having "some chilly nights."

Want to beta-test Longbow?

Sorry for the radio silence over the past few weeks. We've been focused on our ongoing games as well as some pretty exciting stuff we have coming up on both the software and business sides of things.

I want to post an additional call for people interested in beta-testing GXC 2.0, codenamed Longbow, this summer. If you think you will have some time to play GoCrossCampus over the summer and really bang around with the system, email us at beta-testers@gocrosscampus.com.