I haven’t previously covered newly launched Facebook applications since there are just so many of them. But when you see something promising and innovative, why not? Navajo is a word based multiplayer game on the Facebook platform that you should check out. Built by an Indian startup, they are hoping to replicate the success of Scrabulous (built by another Indian team). The game is similar to the jumbled words puzzle that we see everyday in our daily newspapers. Except that you are playing in real time, synchronous mode in an interface that is just like your regular IM. The system throws jumbled works at the players inside a Navajo room, who have to take cracks at rearranging the letters to come up with the real word. You can have public rooms (open to all Navajo players, with a limit of 10 per room), network rooms (open to all people in your network) and private rooms (where you can play privately with friends). A useful extension of this concept is specialised rooms that one can have for exams like GRE, MCAT etc. The game currently has 1k users but its growing fast.

Future plans include porting this to OpenSocial & the IPhone App Store.

I tried out Navajo and it sure is addictive. And I feel it has three distinct advantages- Firstly the playing interface is just like your regular IM, which everyone recognises; secondly the jumbled words puzzle is something that everyone has played before.. (hence time to learn should be fairly low); thirdly, you can actually play short fleeting games back & forth without having to stick out for long durations. All these factors should help in getting users hooked!

Overall it look very promising… add the app to your Facebook profile and get started right now.