DrawMania
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Charadium resets, rebrands as Draw Mania
The Pictionary-like iOS game Draw Something has been a huge hit on the App Store, so much so that it claimed millions of users in a shocking amount of time, and was even acquired by Zynga for the trouble. But Draw Something was hardly the first app out on the store to borrow an idea from Pictionary. Ngmoco published Charadium long before Draw Something ever appeared, and while it never did as well as that other drawing title, it was doing the online guessing game thing early on. Now, Charadium (which appears to be free of Ngmoco's influence and is now being run directly by On5) has pushed the reset button and has essentially been re-released as Draw Mania. The new app, available for $1.99 right now, is described as an update, but it's really a whole new app. In addition to the rebranding, players can now use custom words and there's a friend management system included in the game. The title's even borrowed a page from the Draw Something book, in that games are now endless, and players are competing for points for as long as they like. Charadium has actually gone through a few different stages in its life -- Ngmoco also attempted to rebrand the title as "We Doodle" at one point, to fit in with its popular freemium series. But hopefully this last change is what the app has been needing for a while. It's hard to see any app experiencing Draw Something's huge burst of success, but On5 is definitely trying its hardest to keep this game going on the App Store.
