FarmVille Unreleased Belted Cow and Belted Calf

FarmVille Community Manager, Lexilicious, mentioned via a FarmVille Podcast that a Belted Cow would be coming soon to FarmVille in the future. FarmVille Freak Martijn found what the still unreleased Belted Cow and Calf may look like.

Continue reading to see the Belted Cow and Calf in action.
   
Note: Unreleased items have no official release date or guarantee that they will make it to the FarmVille Market. Zynga is the sole owner of all their copyrighted images.

Sources:

    FarmVille Freak Unreleased Belted Cow – Zynga FarmVille Image | Animation
    FarmVille Freak Unreleased Belted Calf – Zynga FarmVille Image | Animation


This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

FarmVille Unreleased Black Stallion and Black Stallion Foal

    farmville black stallion foal
Despite reports on other FarmVille websites, the Black Stallion is not part of the prizes featured in the Animal Mystery Crate which is currently available in the FarmVille Market. It is still an unreleased item with no official release date. Thank you to FarmVille Freak Shiori for finding these unreleased FarmVille Black Stallion and Black Foal!

Keep on reading to see the Black Stallion and Black Stallion Foal in motion.
   
Note: Unreleased items have no official release date or guarantee that they will make it to the FarmVille Market. Zynga is the sole owner of all their copyrighted images.

Sources:

    FarmVille Unreleased Black Stallion – Zynga FarmVille Image | Animation
    FarmVille Unreleased Black Foal – Zynga FarmVille Image | Animation


This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

Hello City plots a spot in Facebook's crowded city-building game space

It'd be easy to argue that city building games have reached a saturation point on Facebook. With Social City, My Empire, My Town and Towner, we're involved in more urban planning than the average municipal government.

Now Happy Aquarium creator Crowdstar has decided to enter the fray with its own city-builder called Hello City. Like the other games in this genre, Hello City starts out with a small, sparsely populated town, and it's your job -- as overseer -- to build new properties and transform your space into a bustling urban center. That involves building homes and businesses, and then returning to harvest them for cash.

Keeping the town's coffers full, however, involves a little more manual labor than other city building games. You set the operational hours for the various businesses, opening them with the click of a button and then paying a certain number of coins to keep it open for a set period of time. The longer you want to keep your business open, the most virtual coin you'll have to spend. Of course, this will be balanced out by the rewards collected in the end, in theory, at least.

Right now this game is in its early stages, so it's difficult to give Hello City a fair assessment, other than the fact that the overall vibe is friendly and charming, and the play experience seems a little too familiar.

See for yourself: Play Hello City on Facebook >

Happy Pets Dino Den and Dinosaurs let players create their own Jurassic Park

happy pets dino den
Happy Pets has unleashed a new set of animals to inhabit your homes. Only these animals have been extinct for millions of years. That's right, dinosaurs are now available at the Happy Pets store for purchase. The best part is, though the Dinos don't come cheap, most of them can be bought with Happy Pets Coins.

Continue Reading to see all the new dinosaurs and discover how to own one. happy pets dino den

Owning a dinosaur in Happy Pets requires a few steps, the most important being the Dino Den. The Dino Den costs 800 Coins in the Happy Pets store and is a crucial requirement for buying a dinosaur.

Once you buy it you'll need to collect 80 parts to finish its construction. Ten torches, cement bags, hammers, drills, rocks, rivets, I-beams, and shovels are required. To get these parts, you'll need to enlist your friends, asking them to send you the various parts (pictured below).

You may also skip that process and complete the Dino Den instantly for 320 Facebook Credits.
happy pets dino den
Once complete, you'll receive a free Green Triceratops and finally unlock the ability to purchase Dinos. While there are just two different species: the T-Rex and the Triceratops, they are available in a variety of colors including once with a rather familiar head of hair. See below for prices.
happy pets dinosaur     happy pets dinosaur     happy pets dinosaur     happy pets dinosaur
happy pets dinosaur     happy pets dinosaur     happy pets dinosaur     happy pets dinosaur
happy pets dinosaur     happy pets dinosaur     happy pets dinosaur     happy pets dinosaur
happy pets dinosaur     happy pets dinosaur        

    White Triceratops - 37,795 Coins
    White T-Rex - 37,795 Coins
    Grey Triceratops - 39,795 Coins
    Grey T-Rex - 39,795 Coins
    Brown Triceratops - 41,795 Coins
    Brown T-Rex - 41,795 Coins
    Red Triceratops - 58 Facebook Credits
    Red T-Rex - 58 Facebook Credits
    Black Triceratops - 38 Facebook Credits
    Black T-Rex - 38 Facebook Credis
    Teal Triceratops - 68 Facebook Credits
    Teal T-Rex - 68 Facebook Credits
    Mr. T-Rex - 52 Facebook Credits (We had a chuckle when we saw Mr. T-Rex sporting Mr. T's famous hairstyle.)


I think the dinosaurs make for a pretty swell addition to Happy Pets. It's definitely worth making the effort to finish the Dino Den just because in the end, it's all free! Sure it'll take a little effort, but imagine having a T-Rex stomping around, blowing fire among your dogs and cats. Crazy stuff. Head over to Happy Pets to check it out for yourself.

Click here to play Happy Pets>

Mafia Wars Mystery Animals: Add more fearsome friends to your arsenal

Mafia Wars just released Mystery Animals that you can send and receive from friends. As you may be aware, animals have recently become increasingly important in everyone's favorite mobbed up Facebook game -- these critters are now part of your arsenal and the stronger the animals you have, the more powerful your family. See how these new Mystery Animals work after the jump. To send Mystery Animals to friends:

Head to the Free Gifts page and send Mystery Animals to your friends. Pretty simple!

mafia wars mystery animal

To snag your own Mystery Animals:

Head to your Facebook wall and when a friend sends you a Mystery Animal, click the Retrieve Mystery Animal button.

mystery animals

That will load the game, and in the homepage, you'll see a small window that says Retrieve animal (this kind of works like the Mystery Bags). Click 'Open It' and...

mafia wars mystery animal

... a pop-up window will let you know which animal you successfully retrieved.



Which Mystery Animals have you received so far? Leave a note in the comments below.
(AND, if you have images of your Mystery Animal, please send them to libe@games.com, and I'll feature them here with your name! Thanks!)

Mafia Wars Mystery Animals: See the complete collection *Spoilers*

The new Mafia Wars Mystery Animal collection will most likely have you hunting down a complete list of critters that can be added to your arsenal. See the entire lineup below. *Spoiler*


King Cheetah (rare)
21 Attack 42 Defense

Arabian Leopard (common)
20 Attack 16 Defense

Kangaroo (uncommon)
30 Attack 29 Defense

Electric Eel (uncommon)
36 Attack 20 Defense




Piranha (uncommon)
23 Attack 35 Defense

Badger (common)
17 Attack 19 Defense

Cassowary (common)
18 Attack 18 Defense

Dingo (common)
13 Attack 24 Defense

Buffalo (common)
25 Attack 12 Defense

Badger (common)
17 Attack 19 Defense

FarmVille iPhone version 1.01 crops up in the App Store

FarmVille for iPhone: You just downloaded it, now it's time to download the 1.01 update, which cropped up in the AppStore over the weekend. This new version doesn't introduce any big new changes to the game, just a handful of tweaks designed to fix some bugs that have been plaguing the portable farm game. You can download this update for your phone by clicking HERE or by visiting the Updates section in the App Store on your iPhone and downloading this patch from there.

Changes in the 1.01 update include the following:

    Fixes to allow farms to load faster
    General fixes to prevent crashes
    Improvements to sending gifts
    Fix for plots that get misaligned after plowing
    Fixes to reduce out of sync issues

Ultimate Fourth of July Guide for FarmVille, Mafia Wars and more

The Fourth of July is right around the corner, and you can bet your firecrackers that FarmVille, Mafia Wars and the rest of the big games on Facebook will release special items and events in celebration of this major holiday. Games.com - The Blog! will be compiling all of those special holiday items/events in this post, so check back here soon for a complete list.

For readers who do not live in the U.S., here's the low-down on this American holiday from Wikipedia:

"In the United States, Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, political speeches and ceremonies, and various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the national day of the United States."

FrontierVille
FrontierVille celebrates Independence Day with Firecracker, Liberty Bell
FrontierVille Liberty Cherry trees available for limited time
FrontierVille Independence Day Collection rings in the holiday weekend

FarmVille
New FarmVille decorations and free gifts: Celebrate Fourth of July with fireworks!

Pet Society
Pet Society rolls out Fourth of July items and clearance sale

Cafe World
Cafe World: Celebrate Fourth of July with Sizzling Summer Decor

Mafia Wars
Mafia Wars Fourth of July sale includes five limited edition items
Mafia Wars Fourth of July sale incentives: Elvis impersonator and more

Treasure Isle
Treasure Isle flags return in time for Fourth of July

YoVille
YoVille Fourth of July Fireworks now available
YoVille releases new July 4th items
YoVille Fourth of July items added to the clothing store

FishVille
FishVille creatures and decor flaunt Fourth of July flair

Zoo World
Zoo World celebrates 4th of July with collection game

Happy Pets
Happy Pets pretends Independence Day is Memorial Day

Hotel City
Hotel City lights up the sky with July 4th fireworks

How are you going to celebrate Fourth of July?

Flutter on Facebook takes us on a much-needed vacation from the farm

A few months ago, we wrote about a Facebook game called Flutter, where you steer a butterfly through the rainforest collecting honey dust, watering fruit trees, and customizing a home, aka the Grove, decorating with flowers, leaves and other forest critters. After several months in beta, the game has officially taken flight on Facebook, offering a big dose of creativity in a space that is inundated with me-too games.

Flutter takes mechanics found in other Facebook games -- harvest, collecting and social interaction- and mixes them in with basic adventuring and puzzle solving in a natural environment. Start the game by steering your butterfly through the forest, picking up Honey Dew (the game's virtual currency) floating in the air, stopping to open flowerbeds for Honey Dew and XP and harvesting water, which is used to make flowers and fruit tree grow. There are also seed chests that include mystery items inside and potions that can speed up growth and increase your luck. You can explore on your own, and once you're ready, start picking up quests that keep the game moving forward.
flutter tips
The social components of the game tread on more familiar ground -- visit friends' groves and harvest a social flower that grows by 50 Honey Dew every day a friend logs in. Please note that at the time of this writing, the game was not allowing me to invite fellow Facebookers to play the game with me, so I will loop back on this once that's up and running.

Flutter will have regular chapter updates that will introduce new species, plants, decorations and challenges, and -- as of right now -- there is no way to use real-life cash to purchase extra Honey Dew in the game -- though I'm sure that will be arriving soon enough.

My biggest complaint about the game is less about its unfinished state, and more about the tutorial. Since Flutter isn't just another farm or pet simulation game, it's not immediately clear what you're supposed to do. The tutorial starts out strong and then kind of peters out at some point, which left me twisting in the wind while trying to figure out what to do next. After flitting around the forest for a while (and consulting the Flutter mini-site), I eventually started to figure it out on my own.

Despite any potential confusion, Flutter is still worth taking the time to play The entire game is rendered beautifully with a lush forest setting and spa-like music in the background, and once I started playing, words like 'artful' and 'clever' kept popping into my head -- not terms I usually associate with the standard Facebook fare. Just like the similarly nature-themed 'Flower' gave PlayStation 3 gamers a break from gunning down bad guys, this rainforest game will provide you with a much needed vacation from planting and plowing your virtual farm.

Play Flutter on Facebook Now >

Inception 'Mind Crime': Play the mind-blowing movie game on Facebook

Nearly everyone has heard of Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010) at this point, but I'm willing to bet that most of Facebook's gaming audience were in the dark on Mind Crime, a Facebook advergame created by Escalation Studios to promote the film. It's also one of the most ambitious and lovingly executed advergame projects I've seen since The Expendables: 8 Bit Game of last month.
Inception Mind Crime Facebook game for the movie
Non-casual gamers have noted how Nolan's movie feels very much like a video game, with its fantastically surreal visuals, carefully delineated rules, complex levels, and action sequences. Moreover, the relationship between Leonardo DiCaprio's character and his wife reminds players of the Japanese survival horror game, Silent Hill 2. (Some even go as far to claim that the wife is a female Pyramid Head.) So it must come as quite the surprise to know that an Inception movie game was around since last spring, on Facebook the past month, and even on the Android phone, but there's been no word of game plans set for any consoles or PC release.
Inception Mind Crime Facebook game
You don't need to know anything about the film to enjoy the game. What the game first does though, is put you in the role of the Architect, where you'll design a maze from which a 3-D dream city will blossom (see YouTube clip here or above). You're then dropped into the maze, where you must fight your way out, retrieve items or assets, and avoid the enemy projections. Easter eggs, such as posters, trailers, and production photos, are rewarded to persistent players.

You can get a tour of the action in this video from Nolan Fans. As you can see, it's pretty sophisticated for a Facebook title, and totally not your usual point-and-click operation. Because of this, I highly recommend you read the game instructions.
Inception Mind Crime asks you if you want to Facebook Connect to play as Extractor
Using Facebook, you can share your maze designs, play on mazes designed by other people, and participate in the high score leaderboard.

To play, access the game via its official website, or on the Facebook page.

NOTE: You'll first need to have the Unity Web Player, a browser plug-in that'll enable the game to run in 3-D. It's a pretty simple deal though. Just click Install, Run, then Finish. Launching the game will make it ask you to download the plug-in, so it's a no-brainer.

Why 400,000 players weren't enough to save Street Racing

With social game mega-publisher Zynga recently deciding that hundreds of thousands of players apparently aren't enough to sustain games like Roller Coaster Kingdom, Ponzi Inc. and Street Racing, we've been wondering: How big does a game have to be, exactly, to justify its existence to Zynga. The answer, apparently, is pretty big, as industry expert Nicholas Lovell discusses over at Develop.

Lovell goes through some back-of-the-envelope calculations to estimate just how much a game like Street Racing brings in from players, and how much it costs Zynga to maintain. At first glance, the inflows seem pretty healthy -- if even two percent of players are paying an average of $15 a month on the game, Zynga is bringing in a cool $1.5 million a year.

But one-and-a-half million dollars doesn't go as far as you'd think. To keep the game going, Zynga not only has to hire developers (which can easily eat up over $95,000 a pop annually) but also spend money on marketing, customer acquisition, servers and infrastructure. Lovell estimates these costs could easily exceed $1.5 million a year for a company like Zynga.

Even if a smaller game makes a small profit, though, Lovell argues that those resources might not be worth the opportunity cost to Zynga. After all, why sink millions of dollars into a tiny game like Street Racing when that money could help pump up games like Farmville and Frontierville -- games that easily bring in tens of millions of dollars every year.

In other words, sometimes you have to prune the social gaming weeds in order to afford fertilizer for the social gaming flowers. Or something.

Square Enix engaged in "exploration" of social games business

Japanese mega-publisher Square Enix is best known for sprawling, story-filled single-player RPGs like those in the Final Fantasy series. So it's a bit surprising that the company is reportedly looking into the relatively confined, story-free area of social games as a way to expand.

"There's a lot of exploration that we're doing in terms of social media, and social games," Square Enix new U.S. president and CEO Mike Fischer told Gamasutra in a recent interview. Without going into details on specific projects, Fischer seemed very bullish on the new opportunities offered by social and online gaming. "You talk to the video game industry, and this is all upside," he said. "You can now add DLC revenue to our retail sales, we can now bring online subscriptions into play, we can make new money from social networking. It's such a positive, optimistic view."

Fischer is even optimistic that Square Enix's experience with epic RPGs might actually help the company in the more self-contained social gaming arena. "There's a storytelling component that is continuing to become more important [in social games] over time," Fischer said. "I think that gives us a very strategic advantage." Fischer also noted that the company has experience catering to female players through games like Final Fantasy. "If you look at the people that are playing Facebook games or iPhone games, you see more of the 50-50 gender mix," he said. "I think that speaks to the opportunity to grow our audience."

Source

Facebook stats glitch highlights need for independent stat reporting

Cafe World had been sitting comfortably at around 20 million monthly users for the entire month of July. So it was a bit of a surprise when Facebook's public statistics (as reported by AppData) showed the game's user base shooting up 75% over a period of three days, to a high of over 35 million monthly players at the end of the month. The change wasn't limited to Cafe World either -- dozens of games saw stratospheric increases in the same period.

Facebook eventually confirmed to Inside Social Games that the sudden increases were due to a bug in their reporting. But this temporary problem highlights the risk of trusting Facebook to report on the success of its own games without independent verification.

Facebook gaming stats aren't just a fun way to monitor the popularity of your favorite social games. For the companies that make the games, these stats provide an important public barometer of their success. As Gamezebo's Joel Brodie points out, "Game companies are trying to go public, sell out, and raise money based on these numbers. Many of the great financial minds on Wall Street and Sand Hill Road who are paid big bucks to analyze these numbers take them for face value."

But it's hard to rely on those numbers if they're going to be constantly buffeted by bugs and changes in methodology. Furthermore, it's a bit strange that we trust Facebook to self-report these important statistics when it's clearly in their self-interest to inflate the numbers. It's like letting NBC report how many people watched The Office last week, instead of trusting ratings agencies like Nielsen with that information."
Brodie suggests any "attempt by Facebook to change how game traffic is measured on their network without fixing the actual problem ... could grow into their very own private Antennagate." But that presumes we'd be able to notice and report on any such change. With Facebook in total control of the statistics, we're forced to take their statistics at face value. Absent some patently ridiculous trends (like those shown by this latest bug) Facebook could gently nudge their gaming numbers up and no one would be the wiser.

The solution, as I see it, is some sort of independent verification for these Facebook-reported numbers. I don't mean Facebook should open up their private database to some auditor. I simply mean some sort of third party company should estimate the popularity of individual Facebook games independently, either through surveys or through user tracking software. These estimates would theoretically be less precise than Facebook's own numbers (if Facebook is being truthful, that is) but they'd at least provide a point of comparison to establish trust in Facebook's publicly reported numbers.

There are plenty of companies well-positioned to take this important market role. Nielsen already conducts surveys on internet usage, and companies like Alexa already track usage of thousands of web users through their toolbar. It's time one of these companies stepped up and gave us the third-party statistics we need.

Playfish wants you to name the Pirates Ahoy mascot

You knPirates Ahoy Logoow that parrot that stands just under the logo of Pirates Ahoy, spy glass in hand? Apparently, Playfish feels that it deserves a name. Why? We have no idea.

Not to mention that the company mentions no reward to the winning name nor does the survey record names or e-mail addresses. We can only imagine Playfish is trying to increase the strength of its Pirates Ahoy brand, but at an impressive 6.8 million users we seriously doubt naming a parrot is going to change much. To put things into perspective, Zynga's FarmVille boasts a massive 61.7 million users and its unofficial duck mascot is still nameless.

Want to have a part in naming the mascot of your favorite swashbuckling adventure game? Head on over to the survey page and think up your most fitting name. We like the sound of "First Mate Squawksalot," but we we're no marketing pros.

Mortal Kiss lets tweens get their vamp on this fall

Mortal Kiss Loading page
Considering Zynga's Vampire Wars is home to 2.3 million users and the success of the "Twilight" series, we can safely say this vampire craze has surpassed "fad" status. Publisher Random House has teamed up with social gaming website Stardoll to get their slice of the bloody pie with an interactive story titled "Mortal Kiss."

Starting today, eight chapters of "Mortal Kiss" will be released over the eight weeks until Halloween when the final chapter will be revealed on the biggest day of the year for vamp fans. Stardoll, a social gaming website geared towards teenage girls, will allow users to vote on the outcome of key moments in the story and discuss major plot points as they happen.
Mortal Kiss Home Page
The project goes even deeper (and more capitalizing) than that with items inspired by the story available for purchase in the Stardoll store with virtual currency. With offerings like that, you could have bet your Stephanie Meyer-signed copy of "Eclipse" that this story will be localized in 17 languages around the world.

The story is currently free, but both parties are looking into advertising, e-book editions and subscriptions, said executive vice president of Stardoll Chris Seth.

"Anything that drives engagement and usage on Stardoll will ultimately deliver monetization as well, and there are multiple routes to realizing that," Seth added. "We're a social media business but in some ways we are also an old-fashioned content business, and we have been surprised by the popularity of books in the lives of teens and tweens."

According to The Guardian, Stardoll had 13.8 million users in August, which will prove to be a hotbed for fans of what Random House licensing publisher Fiona MacMillian calls "paranormal romance." If this interactive story model of social gaming takes off, things could get much deeper in the social game space.

NY Jets' Facebook game Ultimate Fan goes head-to-head against Madden (and loses)

Want a place other than the ESPN.com chat rooms to broadcast how much you love football? The New York Jets, with the help of New York-based social game developer Arkadium, want to welcome you into a new home for football fans, Ultimate Fan for Facebook.

The game begins with you choosing your favorite team and pits your pick against with the team it's slated to play next in the NFL season in a game of "Boost" -- essentially a poll that can be revisited every six hours. The team with the most Boost wins, though it's hard to say what happens other than proof that said team has more fans.
Ultimate Fan Match

Since this game doesn't seem to have any real consequences or rewards, we can't say what happens after a team wins more favor than the other. Fans of the winning team will receive Fan Points (think experience points) and Tickets, the game's main currency, which can be used to buy items for a virtual tailgating party. Some examples of items you might buy include drinks, snacks, hotdog cart, lounge chair, an inflatable pool -- pretty much anything you need to make your tailgating party over the top. Users can rate each others' tailgate parties, which increase both users' Fan Points so that they can pimp out their parking lot parties even more.

ultimate fan on facebook


Ultimate Fan's biggest draw will most likely be the Prediction feature that allows players to guess the outcome of the NFL season games (down to final score) for Fan Points. EA Sports' Madden NFL Superstars on Facebook also has a similar prediction feature, which will (if FIFA Superstars was any indication) grow more popular as the football season continues.

Ulitmate Fan Precidtions

While Ultimate Fan does a good job with building team pride and good-natured competition among NFL fanboys, we'd still like to see more of a 'game' evolve, especially in the Boost voting experience. If you're looking for a more robust football experience, we'd recommend EA Sports' Madden NFL Superstars, which has many similar features and gives you the chance to test you skills managing a football team, which, IMHO, is a helluva lot more fun than manning your own virtual tailgate party.

Play Ultimate Fan on Facebook >

The Bible Online enters beta testing, but would you play it?

Contrary to what many of our strict, Catholic upbringings have taught us, it's alright to play video games. German browser game developer FIAA wants to bring the faithful into the beautiful world of gaming with The Bible Online.

While not the first of its kind, The Bible Online is unique in that it's a MMO with real-time strategy elements. Most Bible-themed games are strictly educational, so this is an interesting turn for the sub-genre. The game follows the first book of the Bible, Genesis, and the lives of the original followers of God, Abraham and his descendants. But FIAA takes a much more historical approach to the story with The Bible Online.
The Bible Online gameplay
After creating your custom character from a selection of avatar portraits and username, you'll enter the world and complete a series of tutorial quests that introduce to the main mechanics of the game. While you won't assume the role of the Holy Book's protagonists, what you do will help those figures lead your people to the Promised Land.

To bring your tribe into supremacy and guarantee its safe passage through the Exodus, you'll have to do battle other players' tribes over the land's limited resources of minerals, wood, clay and grain. Your settlement will have to be as equipped to worship as it is to do battle, so barracks with a varied military are a must. With the balance between resource management and procurement as well as settlement building, think of The Bible Online as a less complex (and less enduring) Total War with a heavy focus on multiplayer competition and persistence.

Considering the length of the Bible, the game would have an extremely long lifespan. And you have to agree that the game's final patch, Revelation, would be pretty epic. However, what do you think of a game like this being on Facebook? Would you rather play through a different theology? Let us know in the comments below.

The Bible Online: Would you play this on Facebook?

Yoville: New Romantic Clothing for ladies and gents arrive

New Romantic Clothes YoVille: Gentlemen
New Romantic clothes have arrived to YoVille perfect for any formal occasion. Romantic dress, hair bows, gloves, and heels available to ladies in blue, pink, and purple. Available to gentleman are hats, canes, and suits in blue, red and yellow.

New Romantic Clothes YoVille: Gentlemen
New Romantic Clothes YoVille: Ladies
New Romantic Clothes YoVille: Ladies
This article originally appeared on YoVille Lounge.

Treasure Isle donates to Gulf Coast Recovery in Otters

Zynga has teamed up with the National Audubon Society to launch a new effort to save the Gulf Coast. The last time both organizations formed this partnership was with Charity Pets in YoVille. Now a very similar campaign is being held as "Coastal Critters" in Treasure Isle.

This means that for the next 8 days, there will be a Limited Edition Sea Otter in the Animals section of the Treasure Isle store. This Sea Otter differs from the one shown in the game's news page. Instead of a baby otter snuggling on its parent's belly, the one at the store sports a pink sea shell.

Nevertheless, Zynga has pledged that all money coming from the sale of this otter will belong to Audubon. Each otter costs 40 Island Cash, or the rough equivalent of $8.00 USD (since the game is currently having a 10% discount).
Treasure Isle Coastal Critters
Update: Treasure Isle's pledge amount drops from 100% to 50% on the game's official Facebook fanpage, while the Island Cash discount jumps from 10% to 30% off in-game. Shortly after, Zynga keeps the discount, but retracts the pledge drop.

Treasure Isle does a flip-flop on its Audubon pledge to the Gulf

Treasure Isle changes Audubon pledge to 50%
About two hours after Zynga announced their Coastal Critters donation campaign for the National Audubon Society in Treasure Isle, an announcement to the wall of the game's official Facebook fanpage came up that angered some fans. This is because the original announcement -- and there's proof of it in all the campaign artwork -- said that Zynga was going to donate 100% to Audubon, but the Facebook notice says they're only going to donate 50%!
Treasure Isle Island Cash 30% discount
Moreover, Zynga has increased their discount of Island Cash from 10% to 30%, and while the cost of the Coastal Critter Sea Otter remains at 40 Island Cash, its real world cost has dropped to about $6.00 USD. Lowering the actual value of Island Cash, while maintaining the virtual price would certainly encourage more people to donate. Did Zynga realize that their Coastal Critters idea was going to be a hit and wanted in on the proceeds?
Treasure Isle emphasizes their pledge of 100% again
Zynga has since deleted the initial post on Facebook, and put up a new one emphasizing to folks that they're behind their 100% giveaway, all the way! Not that it's going to stop people from complaining on whether this was a deliberate whoopsie on their part, but if you were confused about how much Zynga actually planned on donating, you now know the score.

FarmVille Sneak Peek: Autumn leaves chase off Germany for Caramel Apple Gnomes

FarmVille Caramel Apple Tree and Caramel Apple Gnome
You know what they say, the FarmVille Caramel Apple Gnome sure doesn't fall far from the Caramel Apple Tree. Alright, so that didn't make a lick of sense, but what sense can you make out of a Caramel Apple Gnome, anyway? Other than that it's cute, and perfect for your FarmVille gnome collection!
FarmVille German Castle, German Castle Ruins, Fall Fence, Fall Gnome, Swan Lake
But that's not all, as a Fall Leaves Gnome with a rake, is also in the works. But from the look of the German Castle Ruins, that gnome's been slacking off. That German Castle Ruins also doesn't look very German. Or at least, it's not as German as the German Castle, which sports little German flags on its towers. To corral off this bunch of upcoming goods, there's the pumpkin-adorned Fall Fence, and Swan Lake, which is more Russian than German in its origins, but one can still make an argument out of it, if you're enough of a literary nerd.

FarmVille Orange Butterfly and Wax Apple Tree Appearing in Mystery Eggs

FarmVille Orange Butterfly and Wax Apple Tree Appearing in Mystery Eggs
FarmVille updated the Mystery Eggs with some new prizes including an Orange Butterfly and a Wax Apple Tree! Most farmers like FarmVille Freak Jens Troger and David LowMiller are reporting that they have received these prizes in Gold Mystery Eggs and Rhode Island Mystery Eggs.

Have you received any new prizes in your Mystery Eggs?

This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

Play Happy Pets on October 4 and get a Giant Blue Hamster

Happy Pets is having a large giveaway, and all you need to do in order to participate is play the game on October 4th. Everyone who logs into Happy Pets between 12 and 2pm Pacific Daylight Time that day will get a free Giant Blue Hamster. Unfortunately, this is right smack in the middle of the day, so those of you who will be at work will be sorely disappointed.

It's clear that Crowdstar is trying to do some load testing to see how many players they can support at one time. Either that, or they are really trying to boost their activity numbers for that day. We don't really care, so long as we benefit with free things!

Facebook and Apple better watch out for Nintendo 3DS' social features

Nintendo has been the most successful of the Big Three--the others being Sony and Microsoft--this time around in both gaming consoles and handhelds, but the company claims that it's more threatened by Apple's iPhone and Facebook games like FarmVille. But have no fear, the 3DS is here... in March, Nintendo's hopeful ace in the hole. And while the 3DS' flagship feature is obviously 3D without the glasses, Nintendo thinks that the system's social features like StreetPass will be what puts the dual-screen handheld ahead of the rest, the Wall Street Journal reports.

StreetPass is a feature that will allow 3DS systems to communicate, exchanging player and game data, even when they're dormant. Not to mention that it will allow gamers--complete strangers even--to play with one another, but there's a catch: WiFi.

Yep, the 3DS' StreetPass only works while in a WiFi hot spot, according to WSJ. Granted that will work beautifully in densely populated areas like Tokyo, but what about middle America, Canada or Europe? Even the most crowded cities in the U.S. aren't up to speed with nations like Japan and Korea when it comes to wireless Internet access. While 3G connectivity is an option, either players would have to pay a monthly fee much like Xbox LIVE or Nintendo would be forced to jack the price up well beyond the expected $250 to $300 for permanent 3G access (similar to the Amazon Kindle option). The company has already expressed its disinterest in forcing its customers to pay a monthly fee, so why the confidence?

Could Nintendo have another solution up its sleeve to compete the unchecked growth of social games and the mobile games renaissance? According to WSJ, its current plan is to add more WiFi hot spots for the 3DS to communicate with--but all over the globe? (We doubt it.) Could Nintendo even hope to compete with the mobile and social gaming titans with StreetPass? Only time will tell, but this is Nintendo we're talking about, so who knows what they might be cooking up. In other words, best be on your toes, Zynga and Apple.

Happy Pets' giant pets will terrorize your guests this Halloween

While it's beginning to seem as if CrowdStar might be labeling otherwise normal Happy Pets releases as "Halloween" items just for the sake of doing so, we're willing to give the developer the benefit of the doubt with this new release of Monster Invasion pets.

These pets are humongous, gigantic, and every other word meaning "large." There are five to choose from in all: Gigante Guinea Pig, Mother of All Ferret, Monster Legend Dragon, Monster Fable Dragon, and Monster Mythic Dragon.

The differences between the three dragons are the colors uses to create them. Each pet is multi-colored, so it's just a matter of picking the color pair that you like. Likewise, all five pets share the same price, at 70 Facebook Credits, the equivalent of $7.00 US.

Whether or not you consider these pets to be true Halloween items is up to you, but regardless of that, if you'd like to pick any of them up, make sure to do so fast, as these pets are limited edition and are currently available only in quantities of 500-1200 units each.

FarmVille: New giftable Halloween Black Rose seeds

The Halloween fun keeps on rolling in FarmVille. A new exclusive crop was released that will only be around for the Halloween season -- the Black Rose. Ironically, this rose isn't actually black, it's more of a navy blue that will, IMHO, look beautiful on your farm.

But, like all good things, you'll have to work to get these roses. The seeds can only be acquired by requesting them from friends, or buying them with Farm Cash them in packages of 20 (they cost 2 $FC each).

farmville black rose seeds market

Black Roses can be mastered, and they give out 100 coins and 2 XP after an eight-hour maturation time.

farmville black rose fully grown

The Black Rose seeds are available on the Free Gift page to send to friends, or you can request them directly from the Market. This will send a message to the friends that you choose, and they can click to instantly send you seeds back. Black Roses will be available to plant through November 17.

FarmVille Black Witch Cat free with any Farm Cash purchase

Zynga really wants you to purchase Farm Cash in FarmVille. How do we know this? Simple - in a new promotion, Zynga is now offering yet another free item to users who make a purchase for Farm Cash.

The next time you login to FarmVille, you may see a pop-up like the one above, offering a free Black Witch Cat with any Farm Cash purchase. As of this writing, the Black Witch Cat is unable to purchase from the game's store, and we're guessing that that's the way it will remain. After all, what better way to entice users to purchase Farm Cash than to reward them with an item that can only be earned through a purchase? Note: Turns out that exclusivity really wasn't, as Zynga has released the item in store for Farm Cash.

If you'd like one of these Halloween kitties, but don't necessarily care about the color you receive, remember that if you own an iPhone/iPad, you can purchase the exclusive White Witch Cat - it's the same animal, only white, and with a purple hat, rather than black.

Mall Dreams releases Haunted House and other buildings

Ravenwood Fair is one the fastest growing games on Facebook, with over a million players joining this cute and cuddly game since it launched earlier this month. While we've already brought you news concerning its Halloween themed decorations, games and buildings, today new costumes have been added to the mix, allowing you to give your in-game avatar a spooky touch to fit right in with the rest of the theme!

The costumes available are the Ghost, Mummy and Skeleton, and each is available for both girl or boy avatars. The costumes range in price from 19 to 59 Facebook Credits, or from around $2.00 to $6.00 US.

To change the look of your forest critter, simply click on them and click on the "Makeover" button, but do it fast! We're assuming these costumes won't be around for much longer.
Mall Dreams has over a million players now, so some of you out there must have been sitting back waiting for more Halloween items. So far, we've only seen a few gift options with no real good in-store items to purchase. Today, Mall Dreams has released a Haunted House in the store that is big, animated, and sure to bring in some scares. The Haunted House costs 1,800 coins, but if you're not yet level 19 you can purchase it for 19 Facebook Credits. It is a 5x5 building, so it's fairly substantial in size and gives out 260 coins.

In addition to the Halloween spookhouse, four new buildings were also released today. The Knack Store is an obvious homage to the Apple Stores nationwide, showing an image of a pear with a bite out of the side. It costs 800 coins, requires level 18, and gives out 240 coins. The Basketball Plaza is 1,100 coins and requires level 21. It gives out 280 coins for collecting from it. The High Steaks building looks to be a butcher shop, and if you're level 24 you can purchase it for 2,850 coins. Finally, the Dr. Nice's Drugstore is the best place to cure your ailments at 65 coins to own it.

Market Street: Toy Story 3 items invade your store

Playdom was acquired by Disney several months back, and aside from a promotion in Social City in September, we haven't seen much of the Disney intellectual property popping up in Playdom games. Today, a Toy Story 3 promotion has started in Market Street, giving players the opinion to make and sell toys and decorate their store with recognizable characters from the movie.

Your store can now be decorated with Toy Story 3 signs, and depictions of characters like Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Andy, and more. There are tons of toys for purchase, like the dinosaur, piggy bank, wagon, toy box, and soldier sign. Toy Story 3 has been out on DVD now for a short amount of time, and it looks like they're hoping that this promotion in game will provide mutual benefits for the movie and the game.

Market Street has been on a slow decline, having peaked at just over 9 million monthly active players and is now down around 3.3 million. That's still a fair number for sure, but they do seem to be heading on a downward trend. Could using familiar Disney branding bring back the spark in some of the Playdom games that's been causing a decline? Time will tell.

Cafe Life releases new decor in time for Thanksgiving

Cafe Life released a large set of new decorations and desserts for Thanksgiving already earlier in the month, but they're back for round two with another few items to add to the collection. This time, these items aren't all Thanksgiving-themed, but they're still promoting them as if they'll make great additions for your Thanksgiving feast. We're not going to complain about new items, even if some of these don't feel particularly festive.

The biggest addition is the two new stoves which were added to the game. The Wrought Iron stove is animated with a beautiful fire inside, which makes it the perfect cozy stove for a chilly fall evening. It costs 40 Facebook Credits, making it the only stove that costs real money at this time. The second new stove is the 50's White stove (shown to the right) which looks like a basic stove and luckily only costs 4,000 coins. For functional items, there is also a new Orange Espresso Maker, which costs 30 Facebook Credits (or about $3.00 USD).

For decorations, we have the new Olive Velvet Chair and the White Wooden Bench, priced at 15 Facebook Credits and 7,500 coins. The Fall Lantern and Fruit Harvest are both 15 Facebook Credits. There are two new wallpapers, the Golden Leaves wall at 2,000 coins, and the Festive Leaves wall at 1 Facebook Credit. There are also two new flooring options, the Dark Oak Hardwood at 3,000 coins, and the Ground at 400 coins.

All in all, this is a nice sized set of additions to the Thanksgiving theme that is already well underway in Cafe Life.

Baking Life introduces a new way to pay with Zip Cash

Baking Life Zip Cash
Baking Life has changed today from just using Facebook Credits for buying premium currency items, to now using Zip Cash instead. While this might seem like a huge change, it will be fairly transparent for players because Zip Cash can only be purchased with Facebook Credits. Zip Cash is named for the game's developer, ZipZapPlay.

Zip Cash is priced at what seems like a reasonable price, and the official Zip Cash FAQ does state that prices haven't changed for items. As an introductory perk, Baking Life have given all players 5 free Zip Cash, which is actually enough to buy some of the cheaper items in the game.

Baking Life are not the first game to do this. Nightclub City, in fact, just migrated over to their own currency a few weeks back. Why do developers do this? Well, the answer is pretty simple. When a game uses Facebook Credits, the official currency controlled by Facebook, they don't have much control over it. They cannot give out free Facebook Credits, similar to the way FarmVille might give out Farm Cash in Mystery Boxes or while leveling up. Having your own interim currency means that Baking Life can now give out Zip Cash whenever they want and it will benefit players. It does mean that if you convert your Facebook Credits into Zip Cash, you will only be able to spend them in Baking Life and not your other favorite Facebook games.

Cafe World Thanksgiving decorations have arrived

Cafe World already has the Thanksgiving catering order and the Turkey Deep Fryer, and now the rest of the decorations have finally made it to the game. We were wondering when we'd be able to turn our cafe into a haven for turkeys and pilgrims. We're in luck, because this is a fairly large collection of great items that are pretty unique from other games. Let's take a peek at the list of items available in the game as we speak.

Thanksgiving Dinner - 15 Cafe Cash, animated
Cornucopia - 3 Cafe Cash
Apple Cider Brewery - 5 Cafe Cash
Little Fox - 6 Cafe Cash
Happy Scarecrow - 13 Cafe Cash
Crazy Turkey - 14 Cafe Cash
Pile of Leaves - 14 Cafe Cash
Squirrel Autumn Tree - 15 Cafe Cash
Turkey Basket - 5,000 coins
Pumpkin Patch - 14,000 coins
Ship in Bottle - 15,000 coins
Pilgrim Statues - 20,000 coins
Stuffed Uncle -30,000 coins
Turkey Chair - 1 Cafe Cash
Rocking Chair - 2 Cafe Cash
Turkey Door - 2 Cafe Cash
Autumn Window - 10 Cafe Cash
Autumn Floor - 1 Cafe Cash
Autumn Wall - 1 Cafe Cash
Thanksgiving Wall - 120 coins

These items will undoubtedly only be available until just after the Thanksgiving holiday, which is next Thursday. We're sure they'll give us a few more days afterwards, but these fall items will have to make room for Christmas items at some point.

Ooh la la! French Week is here in Millionaire City

Millionaire City loves to have week long themes, and this next one is sure to please anyone who loves romantic locations with beautiful architecture and delicious food and desserts. French Week is the next major theme in Millionaire City, and today debuted five new items to kick the whole thing off.

There are two new French houses available. The first is La Maisonnette, which requires level 18 to buy. The second is the Parisian Town House, which is locked until level 21. There are also two new items for decoration, the Art Nouveau Lamp and the famous Moulin Rouge. Finally, there is a new commerce available in the form of the Louvre Museum, which requires level 30.

These items do all state that they'll be around for another 13 days, so it would seem that this French Week is actually "French Almost Two Weeks" but we don't mind. It's fun to have something new and exciting to look forward to each week. Hopefully the next few French items will bring something that everyone can enjoy and get excited about.

Ooh la la! French Week is here in Millionaire City

Millionaire City loves to have week long themes, and this next one is sure to please anyone who loves romantic locations with beautiful architecture and delicious food and desserts. French Week is the next major theme in Millionaire City, and today debuted five new items to kick the whole thing off.

There are two new French houses available. The first is La Maisonnette, which requires level 18 to buy. The second is the Parisian Town House, which is locked until level 21. There are also two new items for decoration, the Art Nouveau Lamp and the famous Moulin Rouge. Finally, there is a new commerce available in the form of the Louvre Museum, which requires level 30.

These items do all state that they'll be around for another 13 days, so it would seem that this French Week is actually "French Almost Two Weeks" but we don't mind. It's fun to have something new and exciting to look forward to each week. Hopefully the next few French items will bring something that everyone can enjoy and get excited about.

City of Wonder Marketplace: Profit off of your friends for surplus goods

In the wake of the Atomic Age in City of Wonder, Playdom has added a fitting feature: Mercantilism. Researching this new school of economic thought commonly known as ripping people off is simple enough. Just research Trade when you reach Level 7, then research Mercantilism at Level 8 and, just like that, you're on your way to becoming a master merchant.

The research unlocks a functional building called The Marketplace, which has a giant golden coin on the roof so your friends can't miss is. And that's extremely important. When players visit each others' cities and that city happens to have a Marketplace, they can buy Surplus Goods from that player's Marketplace at a randomly fluctuating price. These Surplus Goods can drop randomly when you collect from production contracts in the form of Rubies, Tulips, Lumber and Steel.

These Goods will sit in your Marketplace and randomly rise and fall in value daily, but you will only collect profits if you manually do so each day. The idea is to search around for the best prices in Surplus Goods each day while making sure your Marketplace is chock full of them as often as possible. OK, we know, real trade doesn't work like this, but sometimes you just gotta' say, "It's just a game." Besides, don't complain about free--you'll scare it away.

Mafia Wars Holiday Traffic Mission: Everything you need to know

Holiday Traffic
Mafia Wars is a pretty dark game, so it would only make sense that it reflects on the darker side of the holidays with the limited time "Holiday Traffic" Secret Mission. Zynga introduced this short event mission recently for only you and four friends to take on, which tasks your crew with taking advantage of the crazy holiday traffic. That's extremely vague, but we're going out on a limb a guessing it means murder and pillage for profit and glory.

If that sounds enticing to you, then take a look behind the break for a guide on this short-lived mission.

Mission Set up
To complete this mission you'll need the help of four friends to take over specific roles: a Driver, an Enforcer, a Sniper and a Fence. Remember, your friends' performance in these roles depends on their attributes, so choose wisely. Upon accepting the mission, you only have three days to complete it, so get crackin'.

Holiday Traffic Rewards
However, you're in it for the rewards, right? Well, there are quite a lot of items here to win, but even the rare drops are paltry at best compared to the items you can win in this weekend's gifting event, Serial Assassins. With common items like Traje de Balas only providing 10 Attack and 39 Defense and uncommon items like Injury Time packing a mere 38 Attack and 52 Defense, you'd think the Rare items would be seriously strong. Wrong. The first of the rare items, Roaring 20s, is a vehicle with 35 Attack and 62 Defense while the second is simply named Hippopotamus and provides 63 Attack and 43 Defense. Not exactly blowing me away, at least. Especially considering Secret Missions take far more coordination from fewer friends than gifting events. Whelp, at least it's something else to do this weekend. Just don't be too sad if you don't get a rare item--you're not missing much.

Zynga Poker Vegas Giveaway: Buy chips for a chance to win

It's the dream of every dedicated poker fan, isn't it? A chance to walk down The Strip, walk into any given casino and come out a winner. Well, that isn't guaranteed, but Zynga can at least guarantee you a chance to get there in the Vegas Giveaway Contest in Zynga Poker. As of right now, buying any amount of chips gets you three times the amount than normal and automatically enters you in the contest. Getting to Vegas is nice and all, but what's included?

How about a two-night stay for four in a Fantasy Suite at the Palms Resort? If thats' not enough, Zynga is also flying the winners there, carting them around in a limo, feeding them dinner at Simon and tossing them four tickets to a show. (It's not explained which show exactly, but don't assume this is a show of your choice.) Oh yeah, and the contest is only going on for one day, today. So, you might want to pick up some chips even if you don't play Zynga Poker just for the chance to win.

And don't forget, we here at Games.com is also giving away a five-day trip to Las Vegas for playing some Games.com Poker through Dec. 15. Why not play both and double your chances at finally stepping foot in Sin City?

Monty Python will introduce Facebook to something completely different

The Black Knight
Grab your holy hand grenades, because U.K. developer Zattikka has officially nabbed the license to create Monthy Python games on social networks. The first target will, of course, be Facebook. The game will reportedly honor all that is Monthy Python with the Monty Python team overseeing the project, especially Terry Gilliam, whose art style is said to be found throughout, according to Zattikka external producer Jim McDonagh.

"Knowing they are looking over our shoulder has inspired the entire team to create a game that will live up to the standards set by the Pythons themselves and delivers a fantastic experience for the fans," McDonagh says. More details will be given concerning the games this December, but Zattikka CEO Tim Chaney is already confident that Python's first game on Facebook will be a hit.

"By acquiring these rights we will be transporting Monty Python into the 21st Century, with a totally new experience for their unique comedy that will delight old and new fans alike," Chaney claims. "Forget Web 2.0, this is Python two point one and three quarters"

If this game somehow involves launching cows as siege weapons and killer rabbits, then there's no way this game could possibly fail. Stay tuned here for more details next month, because there is no way we're going to let this one slip past.

Mafia Wars Private Zoo: Everything you need to know

Zynga hinted at the release of a Private Zoo in Mafia Wars for a short while, but has finally come through with releasing this new property in the game. The Private Zoo can be thought of like the Armory and Weapons Depot, both of which are found under your New York set of properties, except that instead of producing Armor (defensive items) and Weapons (offensive items), respectively, you'll now be able to "acquire" animals from around the world that will help fight on your side.

You can find your new Private Zoo by heading into your Properties bar while visiting Mafia Wars New York. As you might expect, the Zoo has a level, and yours starts out at just level 1. You'll need to collect various items to level up your Private Zoo and subsequently unlock better animals, so meet us behind the break for all of the details on how to go about that.

For starters, your Private Zoo can eventually end up reaching level 10, depending on how much work you put into collecting the ingredients necessary to upgrade it. For instance, to upgrade your Private Zoo the first time (from level 1 to level 2), you'll need to collect three each of five different ingredients: Aquariums, Big Cages, Bird Cages, Feeding Troughs, and Terrariums.

These can be earned either as loot drops from completely jobs (a fairly rare outcome), or you can ask your friends to send you these ingredients by clicking on the "Ask for More" button associated with a particular item. This will allow you to publish a news item to your wall asking your mafia members to send you that item. Unfortunately, this isn't a situation where you can ask individual friends for items, as that would make this process far easier. As it stands, you'll only be able to ask for help once every 12 hours.

Either way, you can boost your current upgrade progress at any time by simply purchasing ingredients outright for 1 Reward Point each. For the sake of argument, the total upgrade for level 2 would cost 15 Reward Points, if you wanted to purchase it without waiting for any of your friends to help you whatsoever.

And so the story goes - you'll collect more and more ingredients to upgrade your Private Zoo more and more times, each time unlocking new species of animals that can be created in your zoo, just like you create weapons and armor. You'll need to have Animal Feed on hand to "create" the animals, which become progressively stronger with the rise in levels. Here's a full look at what's available to build, and when:

Level 1 - Fennec Fox - 25 Attack and 36 Defense points
Level 2 - Spur Tortoise - 26 Attack and 43 Defense
Level 3 - Philippine Eagle - 48 Attack and 31 Defense
Level 4 - Bobcat - 42 Attack 49 Defense
Level 5 - Secretary Raptor - 51 Attack and 40 Defense
Level 6 - Brown Recluse Spider - 53 Attack and 41 Defense
Level 7 - Tiger Shark - 50 Attack and 48 Defense; +3 Attack points
Level 8 - Black Mamba - 45 Attack and 52 Defense; +1 Skill Point
Level 9 - Gharial - 48 Attack and 57 Defense; +3 Defense points
Level 10 - Warthog - 62 Attack and 50 Defense; +20 Health

While you may laugh at the inclusion of a spider on that list, being from the Midwest myself (their primary location), I can tell you that they are no laughing matter, as bites from a single spider (no matter how rare) can lead to tissue death, scars or worse - now, aren't you glad that you can have these guys on your team, rather than the enemy's?

Back to the topic at hand, for animals at levels 7-10, you'll need to have more than just regular Animal Feed to create these animals, as you must also have Exotic Animal Feed on hand. Exotic Animal Feed can only be earned by receiving it from friends as a gift. It will not drop as a loot item from jobs or fights.

As with other buildings, your Private Zoo will general some generic Animal Feed every 18 hours, which can be collected and added to your stash, so if you ever do run out, but also don't have the energy available to do some jobs in the hopes of receiving Feed as a loot drop, you can always come back when the time is right and collect from the Zoo again.

Let us know what you think of this new Private Zoo. Have you already upgraded your Weapons Depot and Armory to level 10? Will you do the same with your Private Zoo, or do you think the animals that can be created inside just aren't worth it?

Earn 2 free FarmVille Farm Cash in GE promotion

At this rate, Zynga might start releasing new free Farm Cash activities in FarmVille before we can even tell you about the last, as just earlier this evening, we brought you news concerning the new Step Up 3 cross-promotion that will allow users to earn 2 Free Farm Cash, and now, not even a day later (as a matter of fact, merely hours later), we see the launch of a new promotion with GE which offers another 2 free Farm Cash for users that take a few minutes to participate.

As usual, this promotion can be found by clicking on the "Sponsored Link" window that now sits at the bottom of the FarmVille game page. Once you click on the link, a new window will appear, where you'll be asked to upload a photo fitting into one of three themes: Light, Wind, and Water.

You'll see a large "Upload" button, which will take you a page where you can "donate" one of your photos. You can voluntarily do this, as donating a photo that GE deems appropriate for the theme will result in an charitable donation on your behalf. However, once you click on the Upload button, you'll see the famous "You've earned for Farm Cash" text in the top right corner of this new window.

Whether or not you choose to actually upload a photo, simply close this new window and your Farm Cash total in-game should automatically go up by two. If not, a quick refresh of the game should do the trick of adding the Farm Cash to your account.

If you like free Farm Cash - and who doesn't - keep checking back with us, as we'll make sure you're the first to know when new opportunities arise.

FarmVille Festive Cow will make its grand appearance ... soon

The official Zynga Inc Facebook fan page just reached 1 million fans, and as promised, the FarmVille Festive Cow will make an appearance on our farm in the not-too-distant future. There's no word yet on when this wreathed cow will appear and how it will appear -- the hint we've heard so far is that "this special present is under your Holiday tree in FarmVille." Stay tuned.

Game of the Day: WikiLeaks: The Game

Today's game of the day is a bit of a departure for us -- something with fewer cats and more of a political slant.

In WikiLeaks: The Game, you play Julian Assange, and his mission is to steal information from President Obama's laptop. How do you do that? Wait until President Obama falls asleep and then reach over his desk to plug in your USB key and start downloading information. If the President wakes up and catches you in the act, it's game over.

Can you steal all 300,000 secret files from the President without getting busted?

Click here to play WikiLeaks: The Game

Create new plants, and sell your creations in Secret Plant Society on Facebook

I know what you might be thinking - "Please tell me this isn't another game where we're forced to grow things." Unfortunately, it is. However, this definitely isn't your average "farming" game on Facebook; in fact, it doesn't take place on a farm at all. Gamehouse's Secret Plant Society gives each user their own greenhouse, a set of pots and seeds, and then sends users on their way to create, grow, harvest and sell a wide variety of plants, mostly created by the user themselves.

The game's focus on hybridizing your plants to create new varieties is an unexpected, but definitely appreciated twist in the "agricultural" genre of games on Facebook, and it seems to offer a real hook for those that like to "collect everything" in their games.

You'll start with a series of just three kinds of seeds - what you do with those seeds is up to you. You can either try to create new plants, expanding your library and growing your green house to new sizes, or you can specialize in a particular variety of plant, slowing down your progress but letting you customize the game in just the way you'd like to experience it.

Meet us behind the break for a complete look at what makes Secret Plant Society different from the average Facebook game.
The game begins by offering you six starter plants, which you'll learn to take care of through the game's tutorial. The basics here are what you'd expect - you'll plant various flower or plant seeds, wait for them to grow (different plants require a different amount of time to grow), and you can then harvest them for coins once they've matured. However, the gameplay takes on a twist, as you are allowed to hybridize your plants to create new varieties.

For example, your six starter plants are regular Clover Plants. Hybridizing them by allowing Clover to grow side by side can produce a Mystery Seed. Growing this Mystery Seed to maturity (in the same way that you'd grow any other plant), will reveal its nature to you. In our case, this new plant is the Vigorous Clover, which has more than one "flower," if you will, for each plant that is grown. These hybrid plants tend to be worth more coins when sold, so it's worth growing them.

You'll be able to keep track of the many plant types you unlock via the in-game almanac, which shows you detailed information about each plant that you've researched. You'll see how long each kind of plant takes to mature, how many coins it costs to plant them, and how many coins the plant will sell for, along with the experience points that you'll gain for growing it. Plants can be mastered, but depending on the rarity, price, etc. of the plant, the amount of individual plants that you'll need to harvest of each kind varies.

As the real draw of the game seems to be the creation of new plant types, luckily, the Almanac also shows you how many different hybrids you'll be able to create with an individual plant. In this way, after you've filled in all of the blank spots that are shown to you in the almanac, you won't waste time trying to make other hybrids, since you'll know they don't exist, at least within the game.

As for other gameplay elements, you'll be able to decorate your greenhouse, and customize it by expanding it to larger sizes, purchasing storage chests to hold excess decorations (like the recently released Christmas decorations, as an example), adding upgraded Pots to grow flowers, and so on. These pots will hold more water than your standard "Starter Pot," which only holds three hours' worth of water. If you let a plant wilt once it has been grown, you can bring it back to life by using the watering can in the game's menu.

In terms of social elements, you'll be able to visit your friends' green houses, and send them free gifts, which, as of this writing, consist solely of "stake" decorations, so that you can make each individual pot have its own decoration, if you so choose.

The game contains the standard currency of coins, but also allows you to spend Green Bucks, the premium currency, on items like Fertilizer, which speeds up the growth time of plants by a variety of times, ranging from 1 hour to 1 day. Of course, the more time the fertilizer takes off of a plant's growth time, the more it costs, and vice versa. You'll be able to earn more fertilizer, along with coin and experience point rewards by completing a light series of quests, asking to plant certain seeds, purchase specific decorations, and so on.

Wishful Features: Buying Varmints in FrontierVille

Perhaps now, more than ever, our newest Wishful Feature holds a lot of weight. Being an avid FrontierVille player, who has gone through, and completed, all of the available missions in the game (save for one), I've had to experience my fair share of waiting times; that is, waiting for a Snake to appear while removing Skulls or Thorns, or waiting for a Groundhog to pop up while harvesting crops planted specifically to lure them out.

With the sudden disappearance of Bears in FrontierVille stopping most users' progress with the last 12 Days of Christmas mission, this brings about the wish for a new feature that would help in so many ways - the ability to purchase Varmints.

Now, I know that many might call such a thing "cheating," or at least an "exploit" of the system, since you could literally purchase a Varmint, place it on your land, scare it off (or whack it, as the case may be), and have that count for your current mission progress, but when taking a look at the current alternatives - that being to unlock tasks requiring Varmints with Horseshoes, isn't that essentially the same thing?

Why not give users the choice as to when and how Varmints will appear on their land? Sure, keep the randomly appearing Varmints, but if someone (ie: Those struggling with the "Scare a Bear" portion of the above mission) wants to spend a few thousand (or even tens of thousands) of coins to purchase a Bear in order to finish the mission before it expires, we should definitely be allowed to.

One could argue that the ability to purchase Skulls, full grown trees, and the like from the store equates to "purchasing a Varmint" but to that "one" I would remind them - there is no guarantee that you'll receive a Snake or a Bear from clearing these newly purchased debris or tree items. You could very well be wasting Horseshoes to receive absolutely nothing in return. The ability to purchase Varmints in the game would make it an absolute guarantee, which is something I think all users would appreciate right about now.

FarmVille: Could Chinese FarmVille exclusive crops and trees be coming to the original game?

At the end of December, we brought you the news that Zynga had launched a new version of FarmVille for Chinese players. While the game appears mostly identical (the games share the same basic gameplay functions, crop prices, and so on), there are actually a few differences to be found, especially where Chinese FarmVille's crops and trees are concerned.

While the standard version of FarmVille does have more items to offer overall, Chinese FarmVille has four exclusive crops, and one exclusive tree at the time of this writing. We've done a little bit of digging and have found out more about these exclusive crops and the exclusive tree, if you're interested in seeing what our Chinese-speaking friends are experiencing in their version of the game.

The image above displays the four crops and the one lone tree. The first crop is the Peony flower, which is the national flower of China, which obviously explains its presence in that version of the game. Based on our research, we believe the second crop to be Ginseng, an ingredient normally found in energy drinks or medicinal teas. The third crop is something called "dong chong xia cao," which literally translates to "winter worm, summer grass," but is more commonly known as Caterpillar Fungus. Finally, the mushroom crop is the Lingzhi, a medicinal herb found in health supplements. As for the tree, it is known as the Areca Nut Palm, which is found in Asia and the tropical Pacific regions.

Whether or not the original version of FarmVille will ever receive these items as well remains to be seen. However, even if standard FarmVille doesn't receive these items, it's still interesting to see what items are being offered for the Chinese-speaking crowd.

CityVille Expansions: Are they worth it?

When you are first starting out in CityVille, one of the first quests that you are prompted to complete is expanding your city. While I was going through the intro quests, I was especially excited for this quest because I wanted the space to add on to my already packed city. When I went into the build menu to purchase the expansion, I was completely blown away by the cost. 20,000 coins to buy a 12x12 expansion? I found that absolutely ridiculous.

20,000 coins is a ton of coins at the level when you first receive the expansion quest. I had dozens of neighbors to visit to earn coins from and I had to wait several levels before I could save up the money to purchase the expansion. When I finally got to the milestone of 20,000 coins, purchased the expansion and went to place it, I noticed that it was tiny. If placed side-by-side, only 9 buildings would fit in this space. That's not really what I expected with such a hefty price tag.

When reading the CityVille forums, I noticed that I am not alone. Many players agree with me that the expansions are too small and the price is too high. Some people have issues when they place expansions to the left as well. So far, color me unimpressed with CityVille expansions.

Create your own tropical aviary with Bird Oasis on Facebook

If you like the gameplay found in Facebook games like FishVille or Happy Aquarium, but want to raise and sell something other than fish, King.com and Playhopper hope that you'll choose their game Bird Oasis. Bird Oasis allows you to purchase, feed, train, and otherwise raise a wide variety of tropical birds in your own jungle aviary. Once your birds have grown to maturity, you'll be able to sell them, earning coins and experience points, and starting the cycle all over again.

The gameplay here also includes the ability to mate your birds, to produce offspring which can also be sold, among other timed features. Meet us behind the break for a full look at the gameplay of Bird Oasis.
Bird Oasis is one of the more simplistic titles on Facebook, from a pure gameplay standpoint. The graphics are quite cute, and there aren't very many birds to choose from yet (the game is still rather new, after all), but the gameplay is very simple to pick-up-and-play when you have a few minutes of spare time.

The basic gameplay method is as such: Use a small amount of coins to purchase a bird from the store. Birds come in varieties like Macaws, Whistlings, Herons, Tukans, and so on, and birds have different prices and different experience point rewards, based on their price or how long they take to grow. As your birds are growing to maturity, a food icon will appear above their head at routine intervals, and you'll to click on this icon whenever it appears to keep your birds well fed. Also while your birds are growing, you can "teach" them skills, or tricks, like ruffling their feathers. Once the bird is mature, a $ will appear above its head. Simply click on this button and you can sell your birds for a profit. Take this profit and purchase new birds, and you can begin the cycle all over again.

Of course, there's a bit more to gameplay than just those simple steps. Birds must be fed regularly, or else they'll become sick. Sick birds won't grow, and will need to be healed using First Aid. Also, you have a few choices for how you'd like to feed your birds. You can stick with the basic bird feed that is chosen automatically when clicking on a bird - this feed is free, but tends to last only a very short amount of time - or you can buy actual bird feed from the store (called Super Bird Seed) that will fill birds up for four times as long as the traditional food. You can also increase your birds' growth rate by purchasing Vitamins for the store, which make a bird grow up twice as fast. Luckily, all of these items (including First Aid kits) cost nothing but coins (150-250 coins), and not the game's premium currency (Bird Oasis Cash), so you'll be able to more freely use these items whenever you like.

You'll also be able to breed adult birds, by placing a Love Nest, and then moving a male and female of a particular species into the nest to mate. This results in a hatchling that can be raised and subsequently sold in the same way as those birds purchased from the store. In fact, the only real worthwhile aspect of breeding seems to be the fact that you'll receive a new bird to sell without having to pay for it first.

As you earn excess funds, you can customize your aviary, by not only purchasing size expansions (expansions simply allow you to keep more birds at once, but require neighbors to unlock, as well as coins), but also by purchasing a variety of decorative items - bushes, flowers, trees, torches, small buildings like huts, standing bird feeders, and so on. Most of these items will be unlocked as you level up, giving you more incentive to do so.

As we said above, as of this writing, there really isn't much to do in Bird Oasis other than the gameplay mentioned above. There are some slight social elements, like being able to send your friends free gifts, or visit their aviaries, but as of right now, the gameplay is mostly just about buying and raising birds only to sell them and start again. Still, this gameplay isn't new to the Facebook gaming scene - just look at our previous examples of FishVille and Happy Aquarium - so if you're looking for a different animal raising experience on Facebook, this wouldn't be a horrible place to start.

Zynga really wants to see better HTML5 games, but it's a "pain machine'

Pong pain machine
It's like they say: "No pain, no gain." During the New Game Conference in San Francisco, Zynga Germany HTML5 guru Paul Bakaus urged game creators to work past the glaring shortcomings of HTML5 games, Gamasutra reports. You know, because HTML5 is the future of games, and all that jazz. Despite his love for the emergent platform, Bakaus was brutally honest.

"Audio is still broken -- and we need audio to create rich interactive games," Bakaus said. "In addition, there are all kinds of issues with certain devices,: Bakaus said. "For instance, the iPhone can only play one sound at a time." But that's not all: Game makers aren't exactly in love with WebGL, a 3D graphics creation tool compatible with HTML5.

"I have high hopes for WebGL, but if you look at the demo scene today, it reminds me of the Flash demos in the '90s," Bakaus said. "WebGL has another problem, and that problem applies to web developers, because you have to learn a new language, you can't just work with Javascript."

Bakaus then likened HTML5 game creation to a Pain Machine (pictured), an electrified Pong cabinet that shocks anyone that loses a match. But as much disdain Bakaus seems to have for HTML5 in its current state, he still believes it has potential. "What we need are AAA and social game makers to commit to making full scale and beautiful games in HTML5, and not just porting something over," Bakaus said.

"I think we're really getting closer to making HTML5 gaming a reality. I don't think were completely there yet, but we're really close," the designer concluded. And his parent company seems to agree. Just this month, Zynga released three HTML5 games for mobile browsers. With a guy like Bakaus in Zynga's ranks, there's likely more where that came from.

Mafia Wars 2, Facebook's fastest growing app, gets some housekeeping

Selling drugs and killing thugs must be in style this week. Mafia Wars 2 isn't just the fastest growing game on Facebook this week, but the fastest growing app, meaning its 3.8 million new players beat all general apps on the platform, All Facebook reports. The sequel to one of Zynga's most popular game can likely chalk its success up to its recent deluge of cross-game promotions.

Well, that and the fact that the game's team of developers won't stop updating the dang thing. A new update was pushed to the game yesterday, which is rather minor. However, a number of new items have been added: New weapons are in the Boneyard Shop, some fresh ground, water, and air vehicles hit the Global Marketplace along with a few more Halloween items.

Probably the biggest change to the game sounds like the least significant. The Arena leaderboard will now reset monthly, rather than weekly. This gives players a lot more time to excel in the Arena maps and an even better chance at coming out on top. But for the top spot holders, it'll become even more challenging to remain king of the hill.

Zynga recently introduced the Armory to the game, which will be required for the upcoming 5-on-5 battles. This news in growth brings Mafia Wars 2 to 13.7 million monthly players, which for being out for nearly a month is rather slow when it comes to Zynga's games. The original game reached more than 25 million players, so MW2 has a ways to go.

MyTown 2 will (finally) get friendly, with new check-in and social features

In our preview of Booyah's brand new MyTown 2, we pointed out that the game lacked the social features of its competitors. Well, apparently Booyah was listening (or already had this stuff planned), as Pocket Gamer reports that changes are incoming. The developer will soon add social features to the game that allow players to interact with their friends to expand their cities.

"We're wrapping up the first update to the game that will add social features," MyTown 2 executive producer Seung Won Park told Pocket Gamer. "We'll be incorporating interacting directly with your friends, which will allow you to purchase and access business that you may not otherwise be able to reach."

This sounds like a much-welcome change considering the new iPhone game is played all by your lonesome at the moment. However, if we're to rely on our friends to access new places to throw into our digital cities, doesn't that undermine the location-based hook of the game even further? We'll see soon enough, but this sounds like an excuse not to see my friends in person.

Park also revealed to Pocket Gamer that tablet, meaning Android and iPad, versions of the game are under consideration. Well, bigger screens are always nice, and it's not like we need the MyTown 2 to be anymore mobile than it already is. (Zing!)

The mad science behind a Facebook game's success

Before making the decision to invest your valuable time and money on a Facebook game, you might want to take a moment to stop and think, "Just how long is this game going to be around?"

If you've played a lot of Facebook games, you can often go with your gut. For instance, if it's made by Zynga, it will most likely have a longer shelf life than a game from a smaller company for several reasons: Zynga spends a buttload of money advertising its games and it has the most powerful weapon of all -- a loyal group of players who are willing, dying really, to try the company's next big game.

Inside Social Games has published an in-depth piece on how to predict a Facebook game's success that essentially boils down to this: If the game is still attracting new players after three months, it has got a chance in hell of sticking around.

Case in point: Kixeye's underrated Backyard Monsters. The tower defense game is not the most well-known game on Facebook, but in the context of the ISG formula, it's one game that might be worth playing if you're looking for something new to add to your social gaming repertoire.

It's the end of the LEGO Universe as we know it, and we don't feel fine

Really, it's a total bummer. The LEGO Universe team announced on the game's message boards that the recently free-to-play MMO (massively multiplayer online game) will close its colorful, plastic doors on Jan. 31, 2012.

The game launched to fanfare just over a year ago, because, you know, it's LEGO. Unfortunately, even going free-to-play this summer couldn't keep the dream alive.

The LEGO Group chalks the game's death sentence up to something terribly simple: a lack of players to support its new found free-to-play model. Even a game that's free to play needs healthy percentage of players to pay up--just look at how Facebook games survive.

As a thank you to its dedicated fans, The LEGO Group will provide players that subscribe as of Dec. 31 the full game's final month for free. Here's the full statement from The LEGO Universe team:

    Hello Adventurer, today we are very sad to announce that LEGO Universe will be closing on Janurary 31, 2012. This was a very difficult decision to make, but unfortunately LEGO Universe has not been able to attract the number of members needed to keep the game open.

    We are thankful to have had the opportunity to share this adventure wiith an amazing community of players. We hope you will continue to enjoy LEGO Universe for the last few months. As a thank you, if you are a paying subscriber on December 31, 2011, we will provide you the full game for the final month for free.

    Again, we want to thank the fantastic community of players who made LEGO Universe such a vibrant, fun and creative experience.

    Sincerely,
    The LEGO Universe Team

It's always a shame to see an online game be forced to shut its doors, but especially so in this case. LEGO made for some fond and uniquely elaborate childhood memories. Come one, with what other single brand of toys could you make space rangers storm a medieval castle protected by dinosaurs? Don't you even dare say "Mega Bloks."

PopCap's first Zuma Blitz Tiki Talk demystifies the Chain Bonus

Remember when we said that there would likely be more video content from PopCap for Zuma Blitz? Here's just that with the first edition of Tiki Talk from PopCap's Scott Willoughby. From here on out, Tiki Talk be a weekly look into new features, strategies and boards within Zuma Blitz. Scott wastes no time, getting into the nitty gritty in this first episode addressing the new "More Stats" screen, which gives players detailed information of their performance after each session.

Scott focuses mostly on a reliable way to rack up the points: the Chain Bonus. By consecutively making successful matches, players can multiply their score rapidly and be rewarded handsomely for accuracy. He then goes into how to tackle this week's board, a rehash of one we saw in Dec. 2010 that features two winding rows of balls and two skulls. His best hint? Use the explosive powers to knock out clustered areas of balls for big points. All in all, the video is well-produced (a major improvement over the first Zuma Blitz video) and highly informative for those who are serious about improving their Zuma game.

Zynga, LOLapps, TrialPay to make earning Facebook Credits simple

TrialPay has been around for some time. You may have noticed it before when buying Farm Cash from Zynga's FarmVIlle or currency from another game as an alternative to paying up. But now, TrialPay has worked with both the number one developer and up-and-coming LOLapps to make earning Facebook Credits easier for players, Inside Social Games reports. No longer is the option to try out products for Credits buried beneath the direct payment options, but in a tab just above CityVille or beneath the game window of Ravenwood Fair.
Ravenwood Fair Frictionless
Players can simply click on the link or tab and be taken to a list of offers with the amount of virtual cash at stake plainly displayed. While CityVille and Ravenwood Fair are two of the first games to introduce this option, there will likely be more if it takes off. And with Facebook Credits becoming mandatory in July, you better believe that this will become more popular. Another feature that LOLapps is taking on with its RavenWood Fair is Frictionless Credits. This allows you to spend a small amount of your Facebook Credits without seeing any confirmation. Sound shady? That's because it is, but LOLapps CEO Arjun Sethi claims, "We thought a lot of people might do it by accident, but no one's had any issues with it," according to Inside Social Games.

Alright, so maybe these are ploys to get you to inadvertently spend money on virtual goods. But wouldn't you rather buy a subscription to People magazine and get 176 City Cash (or soon Facebook Credits) rather than just pay for 176 City Cash? We thought so. Just remember to keep track of those subscriptions--they're known to get out of hand.

Zynga livens up newsfeed spam with double entendres

It seems that someone at Zynga has been making out with the Blarney Stone since last summer, turning the much-hated and normally insipid Facebook wall posts into fun-loving blurbs of witty puns and double entendres. FrontierVille, especially, loves to talk dirty to players. This is followed closely by Treasure Isle, which sometimes says the darndest things.
Libe's overstuffed chest
We've rounded up all the Zynga newsfeed amusements we could find for your viewing pleasure, so even those of you who don't play the games can judge for yourselves. See some of the most LOL-worthy (and groan-inducing) ones below:
FrontierVille huge taters and udders
Huge taters and excellent udders? Zynga sure knows how to compliment a pioneering gal!
FrontierVille Cowgirl Bess
As part of the "Sure Beats Wrasslin' Steers fer a Livin'" goals, dear ol' Frontier Jack is letting his niece Bess work on your farm. So what do you know about her? She's a redheaded, broken-hearted cowgirl who might have her eyes on Hank while she's shacking up in your barn. Oh, and apparently, she's "Udderly Fantastic!" (there goes that word again...), which I guess, means she's, well, really fantastic...
FrontierVille got wood from neighbors
Isn't that illegal in most states?
FrontierVille Hank has two mighty sacks
Hey look -- those sacks sparkle in the sunlight!
FrontierVille big suds
All the better to shave Hank's Mighty Sacks with.
FrontierVille hard wood
C'mon -- she needs it to finish the dance floor. Perv.
FrontierVille getting business with cousin
It's time for business cuz it's business time.

FrontierVille inseam
Yeah, Monique says you've got a great ... inseam.
FrontierVille wet and wild
Monique must've tried to swim in the water tower again. I mean, what other explanation is there?
FrontierVille pumpkins going soft
Monique needs some help, stat!
FrontierVille pelt you with beaver
If you are offended by animal cruelty, there is a different way to look at this. And on a related note...
FrontierVille shake hands with beef
...this handshake scenario probably has nothing to do with cattle.

Here are some honorable mentions from other Zynga games:
Cafe World filling his drawers
From Cafe World, which says David needs a bit of help in the sizing department.
Treasure Isle snow ball in the face
From Treasure Isle, and if you get it, congrats, you win our 'Dirty Mind' award. If you don't get it, consult Google.

Isn't it great that instead of playing dirty and talking nice, Zynga now plays nice and talks dirty? Next up! Pin-ups of FrontierVille's Miss Fanny Wildcat. RAWR! Who has the hots for teach? Ok, I kid. I kid.
FrontierVille Miss Fanny Wildcat

Top 25 Facebook games - Feb. 2011

The numbers are in from Inside Social Game's Top 25 Facebook games for Feb. 2011 and--gasp--Zynga is on top with CityVille (but likely not for much longer). In fact, the massive social game developer holds the top seven spots with only Digital Chocolate's Millionaire City breaking its streak in the number 8 spot. Playfish and PopCap round out the top ten with Pet Society and Bejeweled Blitz, respectively. Overall, a majority of this month's top games have inexplicably suffered declines in monthly players.

Some games have downright dropped from the list like PopCap's Zuma Blitz, Kingdoms of Camelot by Kabam and CrowdStar's Happy Pets. In light of the sad news, a few newcomers arrive to revel in the limelight. LOLapps and Ravenwood Fair take the 18 spot while Playdom's City of Wonder and Wooga's Bubble Island nab 23rd and 25th place, respectively.

Some takeaways from this month should be that while CityVille is currently dominating, it might not be for long given recent numbers. Overall, it appears that people are playing fewer Facebook games, which could have something to do with lingering New Years resolutions to do more work in the old cubicle. Either that or players are getting tired of asynchronous simulation games like CityVille and FarmVille. Finally, the battle for second place has a few new contenders aside from Playfish and Playdom in Digital Chocolate and PopCap. And given recent results, this battle won't be decided anytime soon.

FarmVille Sneak Peek: Fire Peppers, Double Grain and Jalapenos

    Double Grain     Jalapeno
Three new crops will soon be firing up the farm, FarmVille Feed reports. Fire Peppers, Double Grain and Jalapenos are on their way into FarmVille. According to the official fan site, these new crops are three of the possibilities from using the upcoming Greenhouse feature. It's now confirmed that the building will, in fact, allow players to create their own crops and master them.

The Greenhouse will contain three building stages with each level unlocking more breeding trays for more crop amalgamations like the Fire Peppers. It's unknown exactly when this features will be released, but with Zynga creating so much buzz you can bet it will be soon.

[Image Credit: FarmVille Feed]

What else do you think we'll be able to make with the new Greenhouse? When do you guess it will be released?

Disney acquires Warimals maker Rocket Pack

Disney is apparently hoping to conquer the social gaming space outside of their acquisition of Playdom last summer, as they have picked up another social gaming company in the form of Rocket Pack. According to Games Beat, Rocket Pack is a specialist in games that use HTML5, as their already released Facebook game Warimals was the first HTML5 game to be released on the developer's Rocket game engine.

We brought you an in-depth look at Warimals last December, and showed you that the game is a tower defense title about the everlasting battle for dominance between cats and dogs. The game currently has just over 50,000 monthly active users, and is still playable as of this writing. It is unknown as to whether or not Disney plans to close the game, or simply carry on as it stands.

With this acquisition, Disney will be able to further make up for its console-based interactive division, which has suffered hundreds of millions in losses over the last fiscal year. With Playdom's games losing players by the millions (the company now sits at #7 on App Data's developer leaderboard with 23 million monthly active players across all games), could this be what helps Disney turns things around for the good?

We'll make sure to let you know what comes of this new acquisition in the coming weeks and months.

For now, let us know your thoughts on this purchase. Have you played Warimals on Facebook? Which company do you think Disney should look at acquiring next, if any?

Zombie Lane: Battle the shuffling undead masses on Facebook

If there's one undead creature that always seems to be en vogue, it has to be the slow, but persistent zombie. These slack-jawed, shuffle-footed flesh eaters lost out to vampires briefly during 'Twilight' mania, but quickly took the spotlight back after AMC's excellent 'Walking Dead' series held audiences captive in Fall 2010.

So the idea that Digital Chocolate, the company responsible for Millionaire City on Facebook, will be bringing a zombie game to Facebook should be at exciting as running across a munitions stockpile during an undead apocalypse. In theory, at least.


Zombie Lane, according to the Facebook fan page, starts with creating an avatar that will take up arms (whether it be a shovel, shotgun, or super weapons crafted from collected materials) and keep your virtual neighborhood zombie free. As you whack zombies left and right, you'll be rewarded with items and achievements and you'll be able to call on friends to help you keep the undead scourge at bay. You will also be able to visit neighbors' homesteads and gift each other coins and other virtual gifts.

Gallery: Zombie Lane on Facebook


While you might expect a big gore-fest from a zombie game -- don't. If you take a look at the brand new screenshots from the game above, you'll see that everything is colorful, cartoony and sans bloodshed, clearly designed to appeal to the more 'casual' Facebook gaming crowd.

Zombie Lane has not officially launched yet (though if you go to to the Zombie Lane game page, you can sign up to be notified when it launches), but when it does, I'll be curious to see if Facebook gamers, largely dominated by FarmVille and CityVille devotees, will have an appetite for zombie destruction. Stay tuned.

Looking for friends to play Zombie Lane with when it launches?

CityVille Franchises getting a (much needed) update, Zynga says

Ask and you shall receive. Remember when we ranted a little bit over how CityVille Franchises need an update? Well, Zynga just posted this message on the CityVille Twitter feed: "Keep your eye out for new changes coming soon to help you grow your franchises. Stay tuned!" Vague, yes, but filling us up with wild hopes and dreams nonetheless. Could Zynga be granting us the enhanced control we desire? Will Franchises receive extra income for supplying with Premium Goods? Who knows, but you better bet we'll be all over it when the change comes.

What do you think Zynga is referring to specifically about Franchises? What else about Franchises do you think needs fixing?

Lunchtime Poll: Make any FarmVille English Countryside preparations?

The time to journey across the pond with Duke to the English Countryside is almost upon us. FarmVille forum contributor Karen Gory asks, "How many Special Delivery boxes have you saved for England?" Several players responded with numbers in the hundreds, but there are other ways to prepare, no? How about saving those coins, or mastering what you still can in order to focus completely on the expansion? What else are you packing, so to speak, for your trip to England?

What are your preparations for the English Countryside?
I've saved a metric ton of Special Deliveries.I'm stocking up on coins and free Farm Cash.I want to master those new crops ASAP, so plenty of Fertilize Alls.I've just been working on my accent. You need to fit in, right?
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Angry Birds lands on Facebook in one month, Rovio gives more details

Angry Birds is coming to Facebook, and no, Rovio was not joking. In fact, All Facebook reports that the Finnish company has revealed a few more details as to how Angry Birds will go down on Facebook. First, it will be released one month from now on the platform (mark your calendars!). If you "Like" the fan page, Rovio will remind you the day it launches. According to All Facebook, Rovio dropped a few more hints recently.

Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said, "there will be completely new aspects to it that just haven't been experienced in any other platform," and "the pigs will have a more prominent role." Does this mean players will be able to play as the pigs or build their own pig fortresses? Surely, the game will have some competitive aspect beyond leader boards, but we'll see when the game launches next month.

Are you psyched for Angry Birds on Facebook? How do you think the game will take advantage of being on Facebook?

FarmVille LE English Countryside Buildings: Garden Gazebo, Tudor Cottage & Oast House

Earlier today, we brought you a FarmVille sneak peek over three new limited edition English Countryside buildings, and tonight that trio has been released for purchase in the game's store. The three buildings are the Garden Gazebo, the Tudor Cottage, and the Oast House.

While the Garden Gazebo is a coin-item, being available for 150,000 coins, the other two buildings - the Oast House and the Tudor Cottage - are premium, going for 30 and 20 Farm Cash, respectively. The Oast House might look a bit unusual, and even come with an unusual name, but this is in fact a building that exists in the real world, as it has been specifically designed for drying out Hops.

While you can place all three of these items on your Home Farm, the Oast House, perhaps more than the other two items, looks to really deserve a spot on your English Countryside farm, standing right next to the Pub, as you can find themed beverages to craft inside. Also, if you do choose to have any of these items on both farms, you will have to purchase them twice.

All of these buildings will be available in the game for the next two weeks, giving you plenty of time to gather the coins or Farm Cash necessary to purchase them, if you're interested in doing so.

Check out the rest of our English Countryside coverage right here.

Which of these buildings is your favorite, or do you plan on purchasing all three for your farms?