#YOLOSWAG: the Freeware Twitter Game

If you’re looking for an arena based shooter, but aren’t interested in complicated graphics or weapons, then #YOLOSWAG is the game for you. 

Developed by Aran Koning, the point of the game is to shoot down a bunch of Twitter birds with your own “fighter.” While in the arena you can also collect “@” signs and RT’s, which function similarly to power ups. I’m not 100% sure how the “@” sign functions, but the RT will clear the field of it’s quickly populating birds. 

What makes the game interesting is the use of the Twitter API.

You select the hashtag you want to get chased down by (the default is #yoloswag) and that determines your difficulty. The amount of birds you get bombarded with depends on the popularity of the hashtag you employ. If you want a challenge, for example, you can choose words like #swag or #smh or something really common in the Twitter-verse. But if you want an easier experience, you can choose a less commonly used hashtag. 

One of the most frustrating aspects of the game is that when you die (which happens whenever you touch one of the birds) you are shown the offending tweet that killed you. If you choose a hashtag like #yoloswag you are inevitably bombarded with complete idiocy, which can make you feel like you’ve died for nothing. For me, this drove out a competitive edge that made me want to keep playing. 

The game is fun, and for freeware it’s certainly entertaining.

But unfortunately the controls are a bit too responsive, and you can die exceptionally quickly. I rarely made it past a few minutes of game play before dying. Also the novelty of the Twitter interaction quickly wears off, and it becomes just another basic shooter. If you have a few minutes to kill, I would definitely suggest trying it out. 

You can download the game here at the game website. It’s a fairly quick download, and is especially fun to pull out at parties and watch everyone’s frustration mount.