Torn Lite

Not to be confused with the 3rd party application of the same name

Torn Lite (also known as Facebook Torn) was an official simplified Social Network Game version of Torn that could only be played on Facebook and is now defunct. The game went online on 1 September 2011 and was shut down in April 2018.

History

Torn Lite was first announced in a forum post and a blog post on 11 August 2011. The purpose of Torn Lite was an attempt to grow Torn's main player base, with the blog post mentioning "[trying to] infiltrate the huge market of over 750 million Facebook users and bring those who sign up to the game, eventually over here to Full Torn."

An option to "like" a Torn player on Facebook was added at about the same time as Torn Lite as part of Torn's strategy to integrate features with Facebook. This was removed from the main game almost a year after the shutdown of Torn Lite on 2 April 2019. ^[1]

A follow up blog post from December of the release year states that Torn Lite had 18,598 players sign up within its first four months, with 15% of those players making it to level 5. Only 800 players were still active four months after release.

Torn Lite received sparse updates for most of its life, with most of Torn's resources going to the full game. On 15 August 2018 the Goodie Bag and Book a player would receive from migrating their Torn Lite account to Torn was removed due to players leveling multiple accounts to level 5 on Torn Lite and sending the rewards to their main Torn account. Players who migrated their account after this update only received the honor bar and experience boost.

Chedburn mentioned in a February 2018 forum post that Torn Lite only had 67 active users per day and that he did not "feel a big necessity to divert resources away from Torn toward Torn Lite." He also believed that the game no longer served a purpose, due to full Torn becoming more accessible and Facebook changing how games worked on its platform.

Torn suffered a large DDoS attack two months later in April of 2018, and Torn Lite was shutdown by the attack. A statement was put up on the main page of Torn Lite, stating:

After an attack on our main servers, we were forced to drastically change our systems and configurations to the point where Torn Lite ceases to work any longer due to its old codebase and lack of support over the years. After investigating, it appears we cannot make Torn Lite operational without a substantial (almost complete) rebuild. Due to the extent of the work involved and lacking popularity of Torn Lite, we feel it's unwise to divert significant resources from TORN to revive it.
It was never our intention to ever close Torn Lite, but fate has forced our hand. We're very sorry if this news upsets anyone.
We noticed a just couple of players have bought Torn Lite points in recent months, we're investigating how to refund these purchases.
Thank you.

Gameplay

Torn Lite had many of the same features of Torn, but most features were simplified to appeal to the general audience on Facebook. The game included Crimes, Attacking, a Gym, a Bank, Properties, Factions, items, a Jail, and a Hospital. ^[2] Nerve and energy refilled at the same rates as the main game.

The maximum level in Torn Lite was 10. At level 5, players could migrate their account to full Torn- players who did so would be given a small boost to leveling and crime experience, a Goodie Bag and Book, a small amount of cash and the "The Socialist" honor bar. The honor bar was unobtainable after the shuttering of Torn Lite, but was added to the Token Shop on 13 September 2022. ^[3] A player's Torn lite account could still be played concurrently with the main Torn account after being migrated.

Torn Lite had a limited number of items and crimes, closely resembled earlier versions of Torn, and reused some assets from earlier builds of the main game- the best body armor in Torn Lite, the Bodyguard, had not existed in Torn for over three years at the point of Torn Lite's release, having been renamed the Outer Tactical Vest in 2008.

One of the few areas of Torn Lite that was more complicated than full Torn was crimes. Some crimes in Torn Lite required multiple items, such as the Through Convenience armed robbery crime requiring a pistol, balaclava and a car. Prior to the release of Crimes 2.0, no crime in Torn required more than one item to attempt.

Criticism

Torn players rarely continued playing Torn Lite after obtaining the "The Socialist" honor bar, and many viewed the game as a mere marketing scheme. Torn Lite had around .4% of Torn's daily active user count by the time the game was shut down. ^[4]

Torn Lite had a security issue where a person could use the "inspect element" option in a web browser on another player's profile picture to obtain that player's Facebook ID, which could be used to see their Facebook profile and any information on it, which often included a real name and city of residence. ^[5]