New York Times reviewer compares FrontierVille to Diablo and casinos

New York Times FrontierVille
On the New York Times website, filed under Television, then Arts, is a review of FrontierVille by video games reporter, Seth Schiesel.

Schiesel, who admits to having "played Mafia Wars off and on for at least a year" and actually "paid $20 for 170 virtual horseshoes [in FrontierVille]", has this to say on the popularity of the game:

    In its infectious appeal FrontierVille borrows liberally from the sound and visual iconography of games from Diablo to slot machines. Every time you clear weeds or harvest crops or animals, little stars and loot pop out à la Diablo, and your rewards are tied to how quickly you click to pick them up. The bloops and beeps are straight off a casino floor. FrontierVille is very intelligent in how it gets the player into a rhythm of clicking and receiving little rewards, always with the possibility of hitting the jackpot with a rare item or piece of a collectible set (like the oak-tree collection, or some such).

Though he concedes that Zynga's games feel more like "lucrative business models" that manipulate its users into ponying up real cash, Schiesel also believes that "perhaps Zynga games like FrontierVille are not manipulative at all in the sense that they are so transparent about how they operate." And in the end, people do have fun playing them, and that's the whole point of a good game.

This isn't the first time that the Grey Old Lady has written up FrontierVille. On June 9th, the New York Times Bits blog, located in the Business and Technology sections, reported on the game's impending launch.

Happy Aquarium Lost Expedition Crew Collection Prize Revealed: Scuba Parrot

Happy Aquarium Scuba Parrot
Happy Aquarium's Collections feature was released early this March with the "Super Sea Shell Hunt" for players Level 10+, which awards a Seashell Temple upon completion. A few weeks later, the game added the "Egg Hunt!" just in time for Easter. That Collection unlocks at Level 13 and gives out an animated Glowing Egg.

The third and final Collection is "Lost Expedition Crew!", which unlocks at Level 15 and requires you to collect 9 crew medallions. As with the first two, the last collection item always takes a long time to reveal itself and item drops are completely random. In this case, the Captain medallion was the culprit. But once everything's collected, players will get a Scuba Parrot dropped into their primary tank. The Parrot is animated and can be sold for 360 Coins, while the medallions go for 16 Coins each.

Playdom's new game Fanglies brings innovation and fun

Tonight, Playdom quietly launched their new game Fanglies to the public. Fanglies is an adorable combination of city building games, mixed with a bit of pet care and some elements of FrontierVille thrown in for good measure. It is one of the more feature-complete social game launches we have seen, and raises the quality bar for engagement, depth of gameplay, and whimsical fun. Read on for a preview of Fanglies, brought to you by Games.com - The Blog!

Like most Facebook games, Fanglies starts you out by letting you create and customize your avatar, which is a sort of unrecognizable mix-and-match animal with fangs. After you create your avatar, you step through a guided tutorial that shows you how to get started in playing the game. If you name it, this game has it. You are given your own little village and are prompted to both increase the size of your village and buy yourself another Fanglie. The number of Fanglies you can have is directly related to the size of your village. Each Fanglie has a set of desires that you can view by clicking on them, and these desires cost energy but give you XP and coins so that you can level up. Clicking on their desire will make whichever Fanglie you chose perform a little emote and animation and will earn you XP. This appears to be the most obvious way to level up in Fanglies.
On your village, you can do a number of things. Random dig spots will appear on your village occasionally and you can harvest them for collectibles. There is also a fishing hole in which you can fish for collectibles (which requires energy to do so). The collection system is robust, allowing you to trade in your collections for rewards and create wishlists to share with your friends. Villages can also hold decorations, and this is the city-building element of the game. Shops and attractions can be built on the island that can actually be used to create other items. For example, if you purchase the shop titled "Cheap n Nice", you can then create furniture for your home. Purchasing the Parks & Gardens building allows you to make items like birdbaths or park benches. These all require coin and a particular length of time to complete, but actually give you a tangible reward when they're completed.

Every village also starts with a den, which is a building on your village that allows you to enter the inside if you click on it. The inside of the building is an isometric room that can be customized with a ton of furniture. For the shopoholics, the store has everything you could ever want to buy to decorate your house with. For those who are more thrifty, they can create their own furniture through the village shops. Having an interior and an exterior to decorate is sure to satiate any creative appetite.

Fanglies also has all of the standard elements of social games, such as gifting, neighbors, inviting, purchasable avatar additions, and the ability to buy a secondary currency (gems). Everything is bright, slick, and polished. The game feels more done than almost any other game we've tried, and the fun is instantly shown to the players. The added mechanics of an interior space, finding collectibles, gaining energy, manufacturing decorations, and fishing make Fanglies stand out from the crowd. We think we're looking at the next big thing for Playdom, for sure.

FarmVille slowly rolling out 26 x 26 farm expansion

Tonight, observant FarmVille players may have noticed a new banner below the game tonight that proudly announced that 26 x 26 land expansion is being released. The message does say that this new feature will be rolling out over time to all farmers, however, so you may not actually have the expansion just yet. Many players on the official forums have confirmed that they have the Grand Plantation in their Market, and many others do not have it yet.

Once the Grand Plantation comes to your market, you'll need to shell out a bit in order to purchase it. Here are the requirements for purchase:

    Must have 35 neighbors, with 5 new neighbors
    80 Farm Cash or 2 million coins to purchase


This price is quite a bit higher than the 24 x 24 expansion, which only cost 500,000 coins. Don't go to hog wild with planting and taking up all of your new space, you'll want to leave room for the crafting stations and buildings that are undoubtedly coming soon. There are also a ton of new Swiss Alps decorations available that you may want to leave space for.

FarmVille releases Swiss Alps themed items

FarmVille released a huge set of new Swiss Alps items tonight, including many animals, buildings, decorations, and two new crops. These items are all available for anywhere from 16-21 days depending on the item, and some are available for Farm Cash and others are coin items. There are plenty of nice looking items for your farm in this set, even if you aren't familiar with Swiss culture. Check out the full list of new items below!

Crops:

Alpine Roses
Cost 145 to plant
Sell for 250 coins
Harvest in 10 hours
XP Gained: 1

Swiss Chard
Cost 35 to plant
Sell for 100 coins
Harvest in 14 hours
XP Gained: 2
Animals:

Hampshire Lamb
Cost: 12 FV
Harvest in 3 days
Sell for 90 coins

Simmental Cow
Cost: 14 FV
Harvest in 1 Day
Sell for 18 coins

Breton Horse
Cost: 22 FV
Harvest in 3 days
Sell for 140 coins
Buildings:

Swiss Cottage - 32 FV
Swiss Farmhouse - 36 FV
Swiss Cabin - 250,000 coins
Swiss Barn - 30 FV
Swiss Tool Shed - 24 FV
Swiss Chalet - 85,000 coins


Decorations:

Swiss Alps - 42 FV
Miss Swiss Gnome - 18 FV
Mr. Swiss Gnome - 18 FV
Evergreen Tree II - 40,000 coins
Rocks with Lichen - 25,000 coins
Firewood Basket - 5,000 coins
Shaded Picnic - 8 FV
Floral Fence - 10,000 coins
Oval Planter - 8,000 coins




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