Coin ‘n Carry: The social web game from Frogdice
The upcoming release of Coin ‘n Carry is a huge milestone for my company, Frogdice. It is our first mass market game, our first social web game, and our first non-RPG. That’s a lot of firsts, but I’m just getting started.
It is the first game where I did not write a single line of code. It is the first game playable by people of ALL ages. It is our first game without built in chat!
This article explains the basics of Coin ‘n Carry while also delving a bit into some general aspects of the social gaming space and why putting your game on Facebook is not necessarily the best move.
Coin ‘n Carry: Putting the GAME back into Social Games
Check out the article, and then give our game a try please! 
Your avatars are more than a little in the uncanny valley. Any plans to update them in the future?
Really? We’re of the impression that our avatars are so blatantly cartoony that Uncanny Valley isn’t an issue.
Maybe it’s not uncanny valley, but I do find them incredibly creepy looking to the point where it is off-putting. Zombies, infectious diseases, and developmental issues come to mind when I look closely at them.
lol. Well that’s not good at all Geoff. Do you hate all of them, or just specific ones.
The Male Peasant is well known to be creepy as heck, and that’s pretty much intentional. Basically, you don’t want peasants in your shop, and the graphical design of the male peasant enforces that.
Also, how much of it is the speed/jerkiness of the animation. Our characters only have 4 frames of animation in order to keep load times super fast. We like that our game runs decently even on phones and tablets.
We’ve recently discussed adding a few more frames to make the animation smoother. How do you think that would affect your impressions?
Also, there is the speed. We did not originally intend for them to have to walk so fast, but when they walked slower the shop session took too long and got boring.
I am off put by all of them. “Block-Head” and the bald guy are the worst of them, IMO (but only by a small margin). I haven’t seen their animations; I am going purely by static appearance on the website.
Before adding more frames, I would suggest mucking with the appearance to either make them more cartoonish, or simply take away some of the shading/definition you give them. The head shapes, disproportioned arms/hands, and oddly spaced eyes also notable points.
For another angle on this topic, what it seems like you are doing is blending baby features (enlarged head, limbs) and adult features (distinctly adult facial structure). I think late medieval / early renaissance painters did this when depicting angels in artwork, and it generally came across as… icky:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv6beuVq3W1r6f0d9o1_500.jpg
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv4ym7XaLB1r6f0d9o1_500.jpg
Are two pictures I found when I google image searched for “renaissance baby angels”.