My name is Lexy Franklin and I am the Community Manager at Booyah. Thanks for your feedback! I’ve noticed your post on a couple of other forums and I wanted to respond here as well.

At Booyah, we care deeply about the single user experience and we will continue to explore different forms of achievement in future releases. This version of Booyah Society is just the first step in a much larger vision. We really want to work with the community and hear its feedback and see where the app might grow. We would really love to hear more of your thoughts on achievements and validation. Please send any thoughts or feedback to feedback@booyah.com. I hope that you have a great night.

-Lexy

I created a character, explored the interface, and quickly discovered that the only way to earn achievements was via Facebook or Twitter. Achievements looked like this:

Food Flicker: Write 1 Food & Dining Post
Industrious Imbiber: Receive 1 Like for a Food & Dining Post within 2 Days
Gourmand of Impeccable Taste: Receive 8 Comments within 5 Days for a Food & Dining Post

…and so on.

Huh.

Now, I’m not a big fan of Facebook because of the whole “social” thing. I’m also reluctant to engage Facebook because of the shocking loss of privacy that it encourages.

But I wanted to explore Booyah, and so I created a dummy Facebook account, and then pointed Booyah Society at the account.

In short order I had ground through all the “Write 1″ and “Write 3″ and “Write 10″ posts for each of the achievement categories (using real content, not dummy posts), and I had earned a respectable 36/108 achievements. The remaining achievements were all “Receive 1 Like” or “Receive 10 Likes” or “Receive 1 Comment” or “Receive 8 Comments”.

And there I was stuck. Booyah Society is unavoidably Facebook, and unavoidably linked to having Facer friends. You simply cannot play past this point without having at least several Facers marking up your entries with Likes and Comments. No, you cannot do it yourself; I tried. The Booyah Society application correctly deduces that a Like or Comment from your own account doesn’t count towards your achievement.

So much for Booyah.

What I was hoping for was something a bit more real-world, and a bit less Facebook. I’d anticipated that the Booyah achievements would be something like:

Reach an Exercise Personal Best
Make a New Recipe for a Friend
Watch a Movie at the Theater on Opening Night
Visit a New Country
Try a New Sport

…and so on. But they’re not. Every single achievement is about posting to (or receiving feedback from) Facebook or Twitter, with nothing more specific than a topic. Sure, you can write a post about making a new recipe. But you could also post “I like carrots”, and call that a food post achievement.

The big trouble is this: you cannot play the Booyah game unless you post on Facebook or Twitter. It’s social-centric, not real world centric.

This is fine for Twits and Facers. But it’s not so good for the more antisocial gamer. The “game of real world achievements” idea is great, but the Booyah implementation is flawed, at least for me. Add in achievements that aren’t slaved to Facebook, and that are a bit more specific with regards to the real world, and Booyah will be a winner.

Oh, and some PvP action would be nice, too.

At Booyah, we started with the iPhone because we are very excited to utilize iPhone technology with the GPS and the 3D engine. Stay tuned for more platforms :)

Thanks for your support with Booyah Society! We would be happy to talk to you.

Please email any thoughts, suggestions, and comments to feedback@booyah.com and a member of our team will get right back to you. Have a great day!

-Lexy

In particular, I’m one of the hosts for the DC chapter of Drinking Liberally as well as an aspiring iphone developer. I’ve been looking at how an mmo could help promote grass roots political events, as well as allow trusted users to set up restaurant, movies, and other weekend social events.

If Lexy or the other Booyahers have looked at this I’d be very interested in your feedback.

My name is Lexy and I am the Community Manager at Booyah. While our co-founders did come from Blizzard, Booyah is a separate company and we are very excited about our first product. We would love you to try Booyah Society! Go to http://itunes.com/apps/BooyahSociety download Booyah Society for Free! We also welcome your feedback. Please send any comments or suggestions to feedback@booyah.com. Thanks! I hope you have a great day.

-Lexy