After a successful launch in Finland and Sweden, Grey Area brought their Shadow Cities app to the AppStore in US. Users can download the game for free for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Shadow Cities is one of the first massively multiplayer online games that is location-based. User's location data is emlpoyed to create augmented reality where players can be part of real-time large-scale combat with friends and other gamers. As the company puts it themselves: Shadow cities turns players into mage and streets into game.

The US launch has been going quite well so far. Shadow Cities started building up a critical mass of followers in bigger cities and the app received over 50 ratings in less than a week, most of them assigning the game at least 4 out of 5 stars. As Ville Vesterinen, CEO and co-founder, comments: 'We could not be more excited to deliver our first app, Shadow Cities, to the massively connected generation of iPhone and iPod touch users in North America and literally, turn their cities into a game'.

Apart from having a very unique concept, Shadow Cities is strongly social. So much so that the founders recently launched a platform that players can use to organize local Shadow Cities meet-ups. A few already took place in Finland but more are expected to happen in US and other markets Shadow Cities would go to.

In terms of user experience, Shadow Cities has the beauty of engaging the user on a regular basis. Some players, especially upon the initial discovery of the game, might spend hours playing it. As time goes by the intensity usually slows down but players still engage with the game regularly, if for shorter stretches of time. As one of the game's reviews puts it: '[It] remains accessible to those looking for quick 60 second bursts of play.'

Shadow Cities uses in-game payments to monetize their free app. For now paid features include additional battle tools and potions to refill mana (which saves players time by instantly replenishing their power after the combat).

Shadow Cities' biggest criticism has been over its tutorial. Some gamers found it hard to initially understand what the game was all about. Using this feedback the company improved their tutorial and added more tweaks and features to the game earlier this spring. Whether that made things more clear is up for the new gamers to judge.

Grey Area secured €1.9M in series A funding from Index Ventures, London Venture Partners and Initial Capital in February this year. Since then the company has been aggressively hiring talent, improving the game and working on international launches. What does the future hold for Shadow Cities? Ville Vesterinen, CEO and co-founder, shared that they are planning to open several new markets already this June.

Disclosure: Ville Vesterinen, CEO of Grey Area is also the co-founder of ArcticStartup.

Photo by Karri Saarinen

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eleax March 19, 2012

Hi! We're 2 game developer students from Sweden. We're currently doing a research regarding in-app-purchases. Here's your chance to share your opinion about mana purchases in Shadow Cities!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGdmME1wNW9DbVdiVjl0SzFBeXkyaUE6MQ#gid=0

Thanks!