Filed under: Gaming, Freeware, iPhone, App Store, App Review
Booyah starts off slow, offers $1000 in contest
I've been playing with the hyped-up Booyah Society app for about a week or so now, and I don't think my reaction is too singular: it's not all that great. The idea is certainly a good one: take your real-life achievements and turn them into a game, complete with points and an avatar, but in practice, it's not quite there yet. Achievements are honor-based, which means you can make as many or as few points as you want just by punching anything in, and while the avatar is pretty nifty, it doesn't seem like there's that much to do with the little guy besides spin him around until he gets sick. That's not to say that the potential isn't still there -- the app's "Booyah" recommendations can give you some interesting things to do if you need them, and if they ever get the app using some actual iPhone mechanics (how about traveling a certain distance according to the GPS or playing a certain song or sound into the microphone?), it could be really addictive. But they're not quite there yet, and while we don't have any info on how many downloads they've gotten, the App Store rating is less than impressive at two-and-a-half stars.And they're not giving up yet -- they just announced a giveaway of up to $1000 over on Facebook. You'll have to log in to see it, but if you become a fan of their service and fill out a quick sweepstakes form, you're entered in to win a $500 Apple gift card for yourself, as well as a chance to give $500 to five more friends.
Sure, the contest is blatant promotion (and it might even just be a shot in the dark to try and grab a Facebook audience). But what will be interesting here is to watch and see what happens with the app -- these guys have a legendary game development background (coming from Blizzard Entertainment), and at least $4.5 million in VC financing already. Whether they sink or swim, they're making for a very interesting case study of big-time development on the iPhone.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Binja said 10:57AM on 8-06-2009
I like the idea of booyah. Only problem is, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the app to tell me what the achievements are so that I can go and do them. Plus the large number of people having booyah moments regarding their drug rehab is kinda creepy. On top of all that, how about the desperately upbeat PR lady who trolls every message board that mentions booyah in any way? Does anyone else here find corporate PR people kind of... offputting?
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roy said 11:44AM on 8-06-2009
I tried it, but deleted it. The concept is fun just a bit too tedious to actually do.
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jack sutton said 12:32PM on 8-06-2009
So many games, so little time
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macxprt said 12:58PM on 8-06-2009
My booyah moment was when I decided not to try Booyah.
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Hamish said 6:10AM on 8-07-2009
I tried this, too, but what I was looking for was a motivational tool for real life — to make life's tasks into an Alternate Reality Game or RPG, where I score and reward myself, add up my experiences, (kind of like the Twitter app Plodt, but not so visually sparse).
My issue with Booyah was that it's an awful lot like a game unto itself, making up tasks or following randomly assigned ones just to enter them into the app, reinforcing reasons to interact with *it* rather than getting my real stuff done.
Shame, 'cause it's very well-realised with nice animations. I feel bad that the developers got such a knocking on here. It's too easy for self-appointed critics on the Internet to anonymously kick creative folk in the n*ts. So they don't seem to be getting the response they expected, and I still don't have an app that does what I want.
Ah well.
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underdutchskies said 3:03AM on 8-08-2009
Funny. "Booyah" in Dutch means "so what, who cares?"
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Jonathan said 3:26AM on 8-09-2009
It's annoying that the app requires you to prove you earned the achievements by having your friends comment or like etc etc on Facebook. There's no purpose in me lying, it would be cooler if I could just mark that I had did the task. "Hey! Log into Facebook and hit that you liked my party so that I can earn an achievement on my iPhone!" not gonna happen.
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Jacob said 5:11PM on 9-09-2009
Hi All,
My booyah moment was when I created my AVATAR and found it actively participating it was so overwhelming that it gave the same feeling as when you take your first child in your lap.
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Jacob
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