Last month, a number of new (free to play) games signed up for our WGF topsites list. One of these games, Crime Valley, has moved swiftly in an effort to get their members to vote for them. Thanks to this effort, they've managed to climb the rankings untill reaching top position.

That's why we think it would make sense to look a bit closer to Crime Valley, as the Jan'10 Game of the Month.

First things first, so we need to figure out what CrimeValley is exactly. So, we registered an account, and started to look around, in the meantime harrassing the admins to get some information from them. In their view,Cime Valley is "a diverse community built around a crime based RPG".

Note how the admin who answered this question phrased his answer: they consider it a community around an RPG. Not a game, which happens to have a community. It's not common for game owners to put the community aspect before the game aspect, so this is promising something new.

Next, we asked who is behind the game. It turned out that the game is made by three gamers, who "became bored with other multi player games currently established and some of the politics that have come to ruin their game play".

Setting

Next, we look at the setting of CrimeValley.

Again, we ask the admin (Alexanderborovk). He replies: "the setting of Crime Valley is based on well, Crime.
But we work to make the options in the game relate to our user base such as ourfirst mission which is an interactive boxing match against Muhammad Ali".

Again, an interesting answer, for two reasons: 1) they adapt the game to match the wants and needs of the community, 2) the community either wants to beat up Muhammed Ali, or Muhammed Ali is part of the community and asked for this moment of glory.

But so far, we hear stuff which is different than the way many games are run, but so far it is mostly promises, that others have made as well. So we ask directly: What makes CrimeValley unique?

The answer to this question comes as a surprise: you could make money playing this game!

Alexanderborovk:There are really too many things to list but one of the options that we are really excited about is the option for our users to cash out in the game. I know this might be confusing as it isn’t an option found in other games but, we have built a economy into the system that allows our users to collect diamonds, once the user has enough of these diamonds they can get a cash payout to their bank account."

This statement sure sparked our attention, so we ran around the game, trying to find out how this works. But no matter where we look, we have not been able to find this option. We've asked the admins to find out when this feature would be released to the general public. Of course, such a feature needs to be extremely thought-through and well-coded, so we can't really blame the admins for not having them available. 

Besides, with diamands costing 295K a piece, and basic crimes paying $12 each time, buying a first diamond is not something you'd expect to be doing anytime soon.

But, if you're in it for the fun, and not the money, there is another reason to choose CrimeValley. Alexanderborovk: "Some other reasons would be a dedicated and attentive staff, regular updates and a fair environment."

And indeed, from first glance, staff in CrimeValley is less corrupted by power than the staff in some other games we've played. As far as we can see, staff members don't get any real benefits from their role (not even the colored name, that draws so many people to staffpositions in other games). 

The admins have been very relaxed about the forum, not deleting threads where CrimeValley was compared to other games. Not even deleting threads which are about how other games are better, or how CrimeVally would be a rip-off from other games. Instead, they actually reply, pointing out why the game may have certain resemblances to other games on the web, but stating that it is only normal to be inspired by others. Rumours of lawsuits do not worry the development team, as they say the game is built up from scratch, not using any of the commonly available scripts.

Playing the game

So what is it like to actually PLAY the game? 

The first thing we've noticed is that the entire game, everything you do, is flash-based. This makes the game look quite a bit nicer than comparable games, but it also creates some disadvantages. As an example: each click you make loads a "layer" which is on top of the main site URL. So wherever you go in the game, it is always crimevalley.com. This also goes for the forums, making it impossible to grab the URL to a thread and use it to refer to another thread. Making a link to your profile to put in your forum sig is also an impossibility, making it a bit harder to advertise your services. With a small community, this is not a problem, but as it grows, the community may face a huge amount of similar threads, just because of this impossibility.

Gameplay itself is pretty straightforward, and won't surprise anyone who has ever played a crimebased RPG before: you go to the gym to use your energy to build up battle stats, you use nerve to commit crimes and make money. You can buy houses which give you more happiness, which probably has some effect on crime-successes and gym-gains. In the meantime, you become friends with some, beat up some others, gain experience and level up.

While levelling up, you will unlock missions, like the Muhammed Ali mission mentioned before. Unlike what we'd expected, this mission is not some "go to the city, read a screen, click something, go to another screen, read, click, done"-type of things. The first mission "Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee" is a bit more than that. First, you have to collect some items, which you should use to build certain stats. Once you've trained enough, you go to "Las Vegas" to box against the greatest boxer of all times. 

Big surprise: this is not textbased. It's a flashgame! And, I got to confess, it took me quite a few tries to get through this mission! The effort it took made completing the mission just the more rewarding. But at the same time, it's dissappointing, because after you've beaten the hell out of Ali, the possibility to go boxing dissappears. Such a pity, because it really looks nice. But perhaps, at some time, they will make it possible to select another player to box against, like a second battle engine. It could be another option, with different outcomes than the regular attacks (if the admins are reading this: hint, hint)

Future developments

So what does the future hold for CrimeValley and its players? The answer to this important question is shrouded by a veil of secrecy. All that we can get out of the admins we spoke is that there are many, many great updates planned. So we ask again,and again. We offer them cookies, free beer, vodka. But nothing that we offer is enough for us to get any more information about the future other than: "We would never spoil those secrets".

Guess it will be a surprise.

The ambitions, however, are set high: "We plan on being the leading MMORPG available on the internet. All your base are our belong to us!"