''FunOrb'' was a

casual gaming A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a hardcore game, which is targeted at hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They generally involve simpler rules, shorter sessio ...

site created by

Jagex Jagex Limited is a British video game developer and publisher based at the Cambridge Science Park in Cambridge, England. It is best known for ''RuneScape'' and ''Old School RuneScape'', both free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playi ...

. Launched on 27 February 2008, and closed on August 7th 2018, it was the company's first major release after their successful

MMORPG A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

, ''

RuneScape ''RuneScape'' is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Jagex, released in January 2001. ''RuneScape'' was originally a browser game built with the Java programming language; it was large ...

''. All of the games were programmed in

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

. Jagex had announced that this site was targeted towards the "hard casual", "deep casual" or "time-pressured" gamer market and that it intended to expand into the

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

games market. On 3 December 2009, Jagex released its first mobile phone game, Bouncedown, for the iPhone and

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...

, followed by StarCannon on 15 April 2010, Miner Disturbance on 8 June 2010, and Undercroft on 16 September 2010.

Summary

''FunOrb'' offered

single-player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the course of the gaming session. A single-player game is usually a game that can only be played by one person, while "single-player mode" is usuall ...

and

multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

games. Multiplayer games allowed players to communicate with each other through a public lobby, game chat, which could be used while playing in a game, or through private chat, which could be used to talk to people on ''RuneScape'', and vice versa. In all released multiplayer games, players received a separate rating for each game, which symbolised their experience with the games and could rise or fall based on their rated game performance. In all released multiplayer games, with the exception of the persistent-world game, Dungeon Assault, players could play "rated" games, which found random opponents and adjusted their rating based on their performance, or they could play unrated games with people of their choice, which had no effect on their rating. The site included an achievement system which gave awards for completing challenges in single-player and multiplayer games. These included "Orb Coins", which players were able to spend on a variety of game content including desktop wallpapers, music, icons, and more. Also awarded were "Orb Points", which could be compared to those of other players. The site was launched in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

, French and

Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...

. Jagex stated that ''FunOrb'' would be updated every two weeks, either with a new game, an update to a game or an updated site feature, but the last website update was on 2 December 2014. Jagex stated in 2008 that they were considering adding third party games to the site, but at the time of the site closing only Jagex created games were ever released.

Cost

Limited versions of all ''FunOrb'' games were available for free, with costs covered by

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. Some games were completely free, with the exception of fullscreen mode. Players had the option of becoming paying subscribers, which gave them access to more ingame content, among other things the option to play games in fullscreen mode and an increased number of achievements. Subscribers were also granted immediate access to the ''FunOrb'' forums, whereas non-subscribers were required to have obtained at least 42 achievements before being allowed to post.

Holiday events

From 22 October 2008 to 5 November 2008, special

Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...

Achievements were spread across 10 games, with each of those games having a temporary Halloween theme. These were re-released on 28 October 2009, along with Achievements and Halloween themes for several other games. On 18 December 2008, an update for the game Arcanists was released in celebration of

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

, in the form of several costumes that players could buy with Orb Coins.

Shutdown

On 9 May 2018 Jagex announced that ''FunOrb'' would be closed down on 7 August, stating that "advancements in software and hardware have made it increasingly difficult to access and play the games on the portal, and that’s ultimately led to our decision." On the same day, Jagex Moderator "Mod Meadows" started taking applications for free three-month FunOrb memberships as "a great way to say 'goodbye'". Applications were taken until May 11 with memberships being sent out the following week. While the shutdown announcement had said "we’ll be keeping the servers online until 7th of August 2018", the servers were not immediately shut off as they still remained online throughout the morning as each game was slowly shut down.

Awards and accomplishments

In November 2011 the ''FunOrb'' game Arcanists won game of the month on MPOGD.

References

External links

* {{Jagex 2008 video games Browser games Browser-based game websites Browser-based multiplayer online games Jagex Java platform games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Inactive massively multiplayer online games Internet properties established in 2008 Internet properties disestablished in 2018