A new online game called Ionopolis sponsored by Japanese sports drink Pocari Sweat has Indonesian users signing up in droves ahead of its official launch some time this month. More than 12,000 users have registered for the game in the week that registrations have been open. The game seems to be the first, at least in the country, to integrate Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare as elements of the game that players need to use to complete the tasks that they will be faced with.
The game is presented in a comic book form and places you as the hero whose job is to take down and defeat monsters hellbent on dehydrating the city of Ionopolis. To defeat the monsters, players are tasked with answering questions ranging from general knowledge, sports, history, to certain specifics about Pocari Sweat.
Certain tasks can only be completed by posting status updates on Facebook or Twitter or by checking in to certain locations on Foursquare. If you’ve been seeing #ionopolis tags, you’ve spotted them. While Pocari does have a Koprol account, it doesn’t look like Yahoo’s Indonesian social networking property is part of the game yet.
Each player’s energy level in the game is determined by his hydration level which gets renewed daily. Alternatively, players can request for game vouchers with every purchase of a can or bottle of Pocari Sweat from certain stores to power up, especially as energy levels tend to be depleted after an hour or two of gameplay. Clearly, this ties the game very closely to actual sales.
At some point in the game players will be eliminated and the top 100 players move on to the next stage where they will face another elimination round to select the top 10 and then eventually the top two. Prizes include iPod Nanos, gift vouchers, and a trip to Japan.
Unfortunately, whenever I tried to play the game, it kept spewing out PHP errors all over the site, so I’m not sure what’s going on there beyond the initial stage. However, it’s been active for a little more than a week.
On Thursday morning, 28 Oct, the site was down until late in the afternoon, presumably following a surge of new players as information about the game was posted on Indonesia’s top online community, Kaskus, two days earlier and people began talking about it.
We’ll be monitoring the social media-gaming trend in Indonesia as it develops.
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