Kongregate

Kongregate Games

File:Kongregate logo.jpg
Type of site	Gaming website/Chat/Game Sharing/
Owners	Jim and Emily Greer; Gamestop
Revenue	Advertising generated In game currency ("Kreds") Corporate Sponsorship
URL	Kongregate.com
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Not required (however, many features are disabled)

Kongregate is a website that allows users to upload user-created Adobe Flash or Adobe Director games. It features an API that flash developers can integrate into their games which allows users to submit high scores and in some games, earn achievement badges. Badges and local score submissions are only available on games whose developers choose to use the Kongregate API.

History

The site was created in June 2006 by sister and brother team Emily and Jim Greer. The site was initially run through a testing phase which lasted until December 2006. During this time, game developers and players tested the site's interface and functionality. In December of the same year, the site was formally opened to the public. The site formally entered the beta testing phase on March 22, 2007.

The Kongregate website itself was designed by Happy Cog Studios.

As of July 2008, Kongregate has raised around $9 million in capital from investments by Reid Hoffman, Jeff Clavier, Jeff Bezos, and Greylock Partners.

In July 2010, GameStop announced an agreement to acquire Kongregate.

Features

Kongregate provides free online games that everyone can play. It often adds badges to popular games with a rating of four out of five stars or higher, as decided by the users.

Interface

The games on Kongregate all have a main game screen, and to the right, a Kongregate window. Above the window is a little "plug" icon which displays a notification when a game has contacted the Kongregate servers to submit statistics for the game. The plug will turn green when connected to the servers via API, yellow if connected via BOSH, and red when not connected. The window also includes three of these five tabs:

Interface Tab Name	Description of Tab Function
Chat Tab	In the chat tab, players can type messages to other players playing Kongregate games in the same chat room. The chat tab has multiple chat rooms. Multiplayer games, along with a few others, have their own chat rooms only accessible while playing that game. There is also a list of people in the current room. By hovering over a registered user's name, the user can see what games that person is playing. By clicking on a name, users can also see a smaller version of that person's Kongregate profile. Beside names on the list includes the user's Kongregate level, a friends symbol if they are on the person's friend list, and if they are Kongregate staff (marked by a red "K" - for example greg), a room owner (marked by an orange "R"), a chat moderator (marked by an orange "M"), a collabs curator (marked by an orange "C"), or a game developer (marked by a blue "D").
Game Tab	Under the game tab, the user can view details of the game, and rate the game out of five stars. They may also "favorite" a game, report a bug, or flag the game for review of inappropriate material. The game window now also features a new addition to Kongregate: a tip jar. Users may exchange real money for "Kreds", which they can spend on Kongregate bonuses (such as cards) or tip the game's developer.
Achievements Tab	Under the achievements tab, the user can view any badges that they can earn by playing the game. There is also a high-scores link for most games. The conditions of the high-scores are pre-programmed by the game's developer. When the criteria for a new badge, challenge, high-score or achievement is met, the tab changes automatically to inform the player.
More Games Tab	If API integration has not been designed by the developer, a "More Games" tab is shown in place of the Achievements tab. This has a title "Other great games on Kongregate!" and merely displays, as the title may suggest, other games on Kongregate and their star rating.
User Content	If the game supports a level editor, then a "User Content" tab may be listed in the fourth location. The tab lists the top 3 rated levels, as well as the "Browse All" feature. This is illustrated in a few levels, such as Hexiom Connect.

Profiles

Kongregate profiles are similar to other social networking site profiles in several ways. The profile shows a user's location, age, and gender, unless the user chooses to have these details hidden. The profiles also allow for a website link to be entered by the user, a small "about me" section which shows their favorite games on Kongregate, their friends on Kongregate, their interest, and what they have done on Kongregate. The profile also displays any games marked as a favorite by the user, all the games that the user had created, and all the badges and cards the user has earned. Some of the newer features include Level Sharing, a system by which users can share levels that they have created in games with a built-in level editor, and a new Badge layout which shows all recent badges earned by the user.

Any user who adds another as a Friend becomes one of that user's ; If you add another user, and they don't add you back, to you they are your friend, to them you are their fan. Two people who add each other are both friends and fans. A user's profile shows both people they have added as friends and people that have added that user as a friend. Also displayed are comments, consisting of shouts, whispers visible only to the owner of the profile (which are similar to comments on MySpace), and the comments a user has left on games.

Forums

As with other websites Kongregate has an Internet forum section in which users may post their comments on any unlocked topics created by other users.

There are also several Game-Specific Forums for the more popular games on Kongregate such as Kongai, Remnants of Skystone, Seafight and Steambirds.

Rewards

Kongregate has a system of points, which are prizes awarded for performing certain on-site actions. There are many ways to gain points on Kongregate, such as rating games, rating artwork, rating user-created levels, earning achievements, creating games, completing quests, and completing challenges. The site has stated plans to make points redeemable for certain prizes, but the feature is not yet available. Gathering points increases the user's level. The maximum level possible is 65 although the level cap increases when the administrators see fit. Any new player starts out at level 1, and the points required to level up increase with every level. Currently, points are only used for advancing in levels on the site, however certain games in Beta Testing allow all users over a certain level to play the game. Levels can be used to identify the user's activity on the site.

As part of Kongregate's points system, there is a badge system similar to that found on Microsoft's Xbox Live gaming hub. Registered users have the opportunity to win badges upon reaching particular requirements (called achievements), for example killing a designated number of enemies, reaching a certain level, or building a certain number of turrets in certain games. For each badge, a user is awarded a specific amount of points based on the difficulty of the achievement. The "Easy" badges are worth 5 points, the "Medium" badges are worth 15 points, the "Hard" badges are worth 30 points and the "Impossible" badges are worth 60 points. Greg McClanahan, the community manager of the site, is in charge of creating badges. Every rating earns 1 point, and every quest completion earns 50 points. Occasionally there are challenges which, instead of giving points, members are given Kongai cards instead. A maximum of 50 games can be rated each day, as well as 10 media files (art/sound) a week. People can also earn points by uploading games and the ratings they get on those uploaded games.

Also, Kongregate often offer a sweepstakes, giving out prizes such as games, game consoles, and movies. Although these challenges are particularly random, players who complete a certain criteria, usually equivalent to the difficulty of a medium badge, will receive a ticket, and when the sweepstakes is over, whoever received a ticket will be entered, and drawn at random to receive a prize. A list of winners win things, ranging from a grand prize of a game console and a game or movie, to a few other lucky people to just receive a copy of a movie or game that was listed.

In addition, Kongregate offers cards used in the game Kongai as special prizes for accomplishing weekly challenges. The cards were originally designed by UDON Entertainment only, but now Massive Black is designing them too.

A new type of reward, called a quest, was added early November 2009 which links several badges into a collection, that when completed collectively, award the user another 30 points and a medal displayed in the tickets section of the user's profile. Currently, there are five quests, named 'Beginner', which links 6 easy badges in various games, 'Best of 2007', 'Best of 2008' and 'Best of 2009', each linking ten badges of about medium difficulty, and the "Pixel Pack", which links 10 badges from games with "old school" pixel graphics. There has also been a Valentines Day quest. There have been two promotional quests in the past, however: One for Mass Effect 2, and another for Dragon Age: Origins.

Collabs

The Collabs are a feature that allows registered users to upload art and songs they have created to share with the Kongregate community. The collabs were designed for the purpose of allowing users to share their creations as well as connecting game developers with artists and musicians to collaborate and work together in the developing of a game. Also, users may Vote on the selections in the art and songs/sounds. When voting on the selection, they are awarded one point (per vote), which is used to contribute to their overall level, a maximum of 10 points available to earn per week by rating in this way.

Kreds and Tip Jar

Kreds are virtual coins that can be spent on extras for Kongregate and games. Once an account is funded ($5 for 50 Kreds), the user can purchase power-ups, virtual items and is able to donate funds to the developer of a game via the tip jar feature. Games on Kongregate will always be available to play free of charge, however Kreds allow players to purchase bonuses that may not otherwise be available.

Recently, Kongregate increased the amount of ways you can attain Kreds. Aside from paying with credit cards and PayPal^®, you can now pay for Kreds using your mobile phone, pre-paid cards, and third-party offers.

Events

Kongregate has occasional sponsored events. The first of which was the Shootorial event sponsored by Scion. Another one is the Infected Fury Event (promotional event for Left 4 Dead 2). There were three types of users in this event: Zombies, Survivors, or Neutrals. Users, originally Neutral until Infected as a Zombie or Trained as a Survivor could Opt Out of the event entirely or choose to be a Zombie/Survivor. Users could train or infect up to three people daily, earning them one point toward their total points each time. Ironically, the username "Survivor" became a Zombie, and the username "Zombie" survived the event. The most recent event (for Game Developers) which ran from November 5 to December 1 was the Longest Lasting Game Contest in which Developers had to make a game based around the endurance theme. It was sponsored by Stride (gum). Next event was the Dragon Age event - users could forge weapons and give them to other players. Players with all weapons got a points bonus. Sponsored by Dragon Age. Another event - team up event. Users had to complete 6 games with special challenges. After completing all challenges players would get medal.

Exclusive games

Kongai

Kongai, designed by David Sirlin, was the first premium multiplayer game released by Kongregate. Kongregate members can earn collectible cards for use in this turn-based card game. The game was available through a limited beta which started in early 2007. It was released to the general public on July 10, 2008. Since then it has gone through various patches and updates and as of April 1, 2010 it is in V2.4.

Kongai is a multiplayer collectible card game featuring 50+ different cards which are obtainable through challenges. There are weekly challenges for cards, along with new badges for that game. When first entering the game, registered Kongregate members are given the opportunity to choose any three of those cards; these are called Starter Decks and are identical to their counterparts, with the exception that they have the label "STARTER" on them and their colors are darker and less saturated.

Gameplay

In Kongai, two players fight with pre-arranged decks or a randomized deck. Each player's deck consists of a number of character cards (either three or five, depending on the chosen game mode). Each character can be equipped with an "Item" card, which gives a passive benefit to the character it is equipped to (or a negative effect toward the enemy). Cards are not randomly drawn as they are in many other collectible card games; the 3 or 5 cards are initially available for use by the player, though only one character can fight at a time.

There are 4 modes of play in Kongai: Practice, Ranked 3-card, Unranked 3-card and Unranked 5-card. Practice allows players to challenge the in-game AI bot with 3-card decks. Challenging the AI will not let players earn anything except a Kongregate achievement; however, it can be used to try out different tactics and increase understanding of the game. Registered players can play a Ranked 3-card game against another registered member, for which wins and losses are recorded. After winning a certain number of games, a player will increase in "level." At present, there are no benefits for an increase in level, it is simply a reminder of how many games you have won. The game result will also affect your "Skill Rank" which may fluctuate throughout the course of time, this is seen to be a better measure of a player's skill since it accounts for your win:loss ratio and also the skill rank of the opponents you have faced. One can also challenge other players to an unranked 3 or 5-card game, where wins and losses are not added to a player's overall record. Winning a ranked or unranked game may earn the player a random "K" edition card, though it is noted that the probability of earning cards is higher for ranked games.

Kongai uses a simultaneous-movement turn-based model. Each turn is divided into two phases, the Range phase and the Action phase. During the Range phase, players can choose to move their characters in an attempt to change the current "Range" from which their characters are fighting. The range is always either Close or Far, and since certain attacks require a specific range, controlling the active range is an essential part of the game. However changing range uses energy. During the Action phase, players have four options: attack, switch out the active character for another character, "intercept" to block the opposing player's attempt of switching out (which does nothing if the opposing player doesn't actually choose to switch out, giving this game a style comparable to rock, paper, scissors), or rest to recover energy for attacks. A player wins by defeating all his opponent's characters.

Remnants of Skystone

Kongregate's second exclusive multiplayer game. Members of Kongregate play as a character that lives in a huge platform in the sky called Nidaria. The plot of the game is to combat the Mimics which have taken over the world. Nidarian soldiers called Rooks guide the character through the game into defeating the Mimic army. Characters earn currency called Spores while defeating Mimics.

Remnants of Skystone also offers a exclusive membership called the "Nidarian Guard". This allows players to earn another kind of currency in the game called brass and allows the purchase of special equipment.

External links

• Kongregate Official Website
• Kongai
• Kongregate Help Pages