FoursqWAR turns Foursquare into a turf war

TNW Quick Look

FoursqWAR is a strategy battle game built on top of Foursquare’s API.

Hits:

• Imaginative use of the Foursquare API.
• Nicely presented.
• “Civvy” features let you use it for standard Foursquare checkins too.

Misses:

• Only works well when friends are playing.
• Finding occupied buildings to challenge can be tough.

The details:

It’s great when developers build something a bit different with a popular API and FoursqWAR from Irish developers Project Zebra is one such example. This iPhone game sees players compete to reach the top of a leaderboard by ‘attacking’ and ‘defending’ different Foursquare locations.

Selecting a location from the map view, you can occupy it with troops if it’s empty or you can attack if it’s occupied by another player’s forces. Through winning battles and occupying more buildings you gain points thus nudging you up the leaderboard.

Although you start the game with a small number of infantry troops, you’re able to swap them for stronger forces like humvees, a mortar team, bomb technicians and even John Rambo himself. In-app purchases can be used to boost your squadron further if you want a further boost.

The game is nicely presented, with a fittingly smart, military look and Apple Gamer Center medals to earn as you gain experience. Handy ‘Civvy’ options allow you to check in and view normal Foursquare data for each location in addition to playing the game.

The only real problem with FoursqWAR is that if you’re in an area where there aren’t any other players, it’s not much fun. While testing the game I found one location that had already been occupied, and there’ currently no way of telling enemy occupied locations from vacant ones without tapping on each one manually.

That said, if it sounds like fun and you can get a few local friends involved, FoursqWAR could be great fun.

The game is currently available for free, although a charge will be applied soon. So, it’s worth grabbing quickly if you’d like to give it a go. [iTunes App Store link]