TUAW's Daily App: ClubWorld

ClubWorld may not exactly be your kind of game. It's sort of a mashup of popular freemium gameplay elements. ClubWorld includes Farmville-style time sinks as you build your club up, social environments to customize and share with friends, and even some music-based mini-games. The look and the aesthetic are more tuned towards younger players than the average gamer, and most people old enough to buy an iPhone for themselves probably won't be too interested.

But that's not really what's interesting about ClubWorld. What is interesting is that it's from Tapulous, the company that's had so much success on the App Store that it was bought by Disney last year. While Tapulous has been moving towards the freemium model with its Tap Tap Revenge series, ClubWorld is a complete embrace of that model. This looks like a Facebook game more than anything else. There are even in-app purchases for "energy items" (called sugar here) and iTunes referral links to music. Looking at this game, I'd almost call Tapulous a social gaming company rather than an iPhone developer.

ClubWorld does take full advantage of Tapulous' music expertise, using lots of fully-licensed tracks in the various clubs you can create and play with, but this is much more a stab in the direction of We Rule and even Booyah's Nightclub City. It's a very interesting turn for the company; we'll have to see how it works out. Meanwhile, if you want to give it a try, ClubWorld is a free download right now.