South Korea’s InnoSpark unveils Trendy Town real-time social simulation game

InnoSpark is unveiling Trendy Town as a new kind of take on social networking games. The real-time town simulation game combines features of massively multiplayer online games as well as chat apps such as Line or Kakao. Dozens of players can chat and socialize in each instance of a simulated town, and they can build out their identities in the social space.

If the game takes off on a global basis as InnoSpark hopes, it will be a rare success in the social networking games for casual game players. Daniel Cho, chairman of Seoul-based InnoSpark, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the company hopes to establish the genre of the “MMOSNG,” or massively multiplayer online social networking game. It’s a bit hard to describe, but it looks like a cross between The Sims and FarmVille, except that all of the players are real people communicating in real-time, Cho said.