在推出恶搞版社交游戏《Cow Clicker》之后，游戏设计者Ian Bogost日前又发布了一个Cow Clicker平台，面向大众提供一个可编程的API、一款新的Facebook游戏和iPhone应用，以及一个Moogle搜索引擎等服务。

Cow Clicker

据游戏邦了解，为讽刺社交游戏的肤浅，Ian Bogost于去年7月推出了《Cow Clicker》，让用户每隔六小时点击一只虚拟牛，然后将自己的点击积分发布到Facebok上与他人分享。玩家还可以用这些点击积分换取个性化的小牛以及游戏道具。

这款小游戏自登台以来已吸引了5万多名用户，他们点击小牛的次数已经超过了500万次。Ian Bogost表示自己从中发现，多数用户喜欢获得更多点击小牛的机会。鉴于这种情况，Ian Bogost在Cow Clicker平台中增加了Cow Clicker Connect网页小工具，支持发行商在自己的游戏内容中添加“可点击”的属性，并在自己的网站中绑定可点击的小牛；可编程的Cow Clicker API则支持开发商创建自己的小牛点击应用。

Ian Bogost将这种现象称为“小牛点击化”，即将点击小牛的机制移植到非小牛点击的应用内容中，他认为这种游戏机制可以为无趣的产品和服务添加更多亮点。

游戏邦还获知，为了证明Cow Clicker API的可用性，Ian Bogost还宣布推出Facebook益智类游戏《Cow Clicker Blitz》，以及iPhone手机应用《Cow Clicker Moobile》（该应用的Mac App Store版本也即将发布），以及一个名为Moogle的搜索引擎，支持用户通过点击虚拟小牛搜过网页内容。除此之外，他还表示将推出“牛圈”应用商店（The Stockyard），让开发商和发行商投放自己的小牛点击应用产品，为热情的用户创造新的点击乐趣。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Bogost Aggressively Expands Cowclickification Platform

Building upon his popular social game satire Cow Clicker, Ian Bogost has launched a Cow Clicker platform offering a programmable API, a new Facebook game, an iPhone app, a Moogle search engine, and more.

Initially designed as a parody of shallow social games and launched last July, Cow Clicker “challenges” users to click a virtual cow every six hours to earn clicks and publish their accomplishment onto their Facebook feed. Players can then spend those clicks to buy custom premium cows and in-game items.

The game has since taken off and convinced more than 50,000 people to click over 50 breeds of cows at least 5 million times.

Game designer, professor, and author Bogost says he’s realized through this success that people want “as many opportunities as possible to click a cow every six hours.”

Thus he’s expanding the Cow Clicker Platform to include a Cow Clicker Connect web-widget that allows content publishers to “cowclickify” their properties by integrating clickable bovines into their sites, and a programmable Cow Clicker API allowing developers to build their own cow clicker applications.

“It’s called cowclickification — the application of cow clicking mechanics to non-cow clicking applications,” Bogost explains. “Now everyone can graze on the sweet grasses and step in the pungent pies of Cow Clicker’s pasture. Businesses can employ new cow clicking mechanics such as clicking a cow to distract customers from the vapid pointlessness of their products and services.”

To show the Cow Clicker API in action, the developer announced a new Cow Clicker Blitz puzzle game on Facebook, a Cow Clicker Moobile iPhone app (Mac App Store edition forthcoming), and a Moogle search engine enabling users to search the web by clicking on their own virtual cow.

He announced that companies will be able to “moonetize” their cowclickified application with an upcoming app store called The Stockyard, which will provide a hub “where developers and businesses can publish their cowclickified applications, and where eager cow clickers can find new opportunities to click.”（source:gamasutra）