The Glass Bead Network: There Goes My Productivity

I've been ill now for about a week with some plague that my children brought home from school. As a result, I've spent more time unable to concentrate on anything for long periods of time, but when I stumbled upon a launch announcement at for The Glass Bead Network, it consumed the better part of my morning.

The Glass Bead Network is a social game with a slick interface. Blending a mix of critical thinking, trivia knowledge, and creativity, it revolves around beads, round icons that encapsulate a subject. The creator of a game can choose what categories the beads are drawn from, as well as the size of the game board and the number of beads in a hand. The players move by adding beads in their hand to the game by making associations, which are approved and rated by the other players. Depending on how the game is set up, the amount of time allowed between turns may allow for online research to create an association, or as little time as coming up with something off the top of your head.

In addition to games, the site also features forums, as well as links to new beads that have been created, and the opportunity to review plays others have made during their games to rate the moves made. Game play, ratings, and karma points awarded by other members help you increase in rank on the site, which will help seed tournaments as the site grows.

The Glass Bead Network is launching at an opportune moment, when casual gaming is the latest "big thing." Overall, the game play is fun (and social) with an inline chat as well as the forums. Each move also allows comments to be made regarding the moves for later review.

I had the opportunity to speak with Scott Wiersdorf, one of the site's developers, as he showed me the ropes. The site has been in process for about five years, two in concept, and three in development, so the neat dovetail in time of launch with the social gaming surge is a mere coincidence, but probably a fortuitous one. They launched only a few weeks ago, but are looking at the Facebook API, which may be the next logical step for any social game right now.

What I like most about The Glass Bead Network is that it has more accurately recreated the feel of sitting around with friends gaming than anything else that I've experienced in this area to date. It has an original idea, a truly social and interactive feel, and much more of an interdependence on other players than many casual games. The constant addition of new beads (created by bead editors) and the various options allowed during game set-up mean you'll never play the same game twice. And it allows the huge Internet to feel small during actual game play, no small feat if you've played on any large-scale game sites. I'm not easily impressed when it comes to casual gaming, which I often find boring, but The Glass Bead Network, unremarkable name and slightly cheesy rainbow-fied color scheme and all, has me hooked.

(By the way, I won this game. *wink*)