AOL launches first mobile game

— -- AOL launches its first mobile game today, one that combines video with word play.

Clucks is a new free game that AOL vice-president Sol Lipman describes as "Taboo" meets "Draw Something."

Taboo is the popular board game that asks contestants to guess the word you're trying to describe based on clues while Draw Something is an online drawing and guessing game.

Clucks is an iPhone app that also lets players challenge their friends to guess a word they are describing. What makes it unique, says Lipman, is that folks use video to supply the answers, and can answer when they feel like it -- the play doesn't have to be in real time.

It should be available in iTunes shortly.

AOL is working with speech recognition pioneer Nuance (maker of dictation software) to ensure that you don't cheat while playing the game,and hot new video app Viddy to post games on its social network (as well as Facebook).

Clucks players get a clue -- like "birthday" -- and have to avoid five "forbidden" words to describe it. Offending words would be things like birth, cake and the like. Players record their responses in a 12-second video describing the word and send it to the opponent.

The games are being sponsored by Sony Pictures, which will encourage stars of upcoming movies to appear in the games as well. No names have been announced yet.

The game was developed by former staffers of the 12 Seconds app, which AOL acquired. "It was a video status update app," says Lipman. "When we saw Viddy take off, we realized we were too early with 12 Seconds. No one had ever combined social video into a turn-based game. It would be fun to see your friends faces and be able to play a game using video."