QOTD

best social media stategy: be helpful. :)

- Ryan from Certainly Social

 

Oh My!

http://blog.games.com/2010/04/15/memoirs-of-a-pet-society-geisha/

After a grueling few hours getting her hair molded with hot wax, Gretchen returns to her okiya for a quick snack before a lunchtime appointment. No sashimi for you today, Kitty!

THE PINK FUR IS FLYING

Someone needs an IRL Referee Cow!

http://www.destructoid.com/don-t-fear-the-farmville-170067.phtml

Somewhere deep in the subterranean depths of the Farmville stronghold, a dark and forbidden ritual is taking place at this very moment. The game's creators, clad in jet black robes, stand in a circle in the server room, chanting gutturally in unison. The focus of their eldritch magicks is an obelisk of pure obsidian in the center of the room, pulsating with a menacing aura of madness and depravity.

It all makes perfect sense!

kekeke

OMG it is so on. Thank you Farmville for kickstarting April Fools!

I was like "OK OMG WTF" when I first saw this pop up:

I was thinking, is Farmville really going THERE now? Would I continue to use it if it did? Of course, but luckily I was not thrown into a moral quandry as it was just an awesome April Fools Day prank. Boosh!

BUY THIS GAME OR THE PUPPY GETS IT!111

The Zen of Farmville - Your Electric Bonsai

My buddy Ed sent me a link to a funny Kotaku Article about Farmville...it made me laugh, especially the author's description of his farm being a 'pathetic fallacy' (Much like growing plants, it takes a few months to get pimpin...you must bend like the Tall Grass...). Also, until today I'd never read the 'rules' to Farmville, much less the Zynga-reccomended Way.

Well I was aghast. If you play the way the rules would follow to the end of a singular logic chain, I guess you would just want more money and a bigger farm. But that would be the lamest game ever! Gah! No wonder people who are used to the logical rules of a traditional video game don't like it. This is a free for all.

Check out my farm, yo. It's my little country home away from home. I have a ton of decor in storage or sold away because I'm very picky. I also have far less plowed area than I could, because jesus who has time for that? I'd rather jump in my hot rod tractor and plow some corn quickly, then get back to treasure inventory and management. You'll note my gorgeous pink-themed topiary garden, just like the topiary garden I've always dreamed of playing in in real life (probably watched The Shining too often).

You want to keep a Farm that you WANT to come back to every day - a self-sustaining fun farm, not another job. A few weeks back I sold off each but three or four of every tree and animal I had (save for single clicks like my dairy full of cows). Do feel free to run through my topiary maze, I even have a snow blanket I can put over everything to make it more Shining-Like.

Survival of the Fittest

I run a lean, sleek social games bookmark folder. Gone are the days when I dallied with fish, ranches, and flowers - bah! Many of those games quickly run out of rewards or interest within a matter of days or weeks, including many previously touted titles. Here's what's survived all these months...what I would reccomend to you today.

Restaurant Ciitay! (does Restaurant City song & dance) I love this game! My magical restaurant is more mind bogglingly awesome than ever, I've got a love potion, bacon orb and rainbow soup on my menu, I'm starting to reach a good propulsion of levelling up since (glory be!) they made the game easier (more possible to get inredients/'money' for free).

Ponzi just barrrrely made this list! They have failed me. Every time I try to log in I have to replay all my actions over and over and it never saves my play. Argh, damn you Ponzi! But I recently saw an update on FB that said they'd upgraded their servers sooo, I'm willing to try again.

SuperPocus! Oh I bought some Mushroom Shelves for my cauldrons yesterday, they're delightful. Everything in this game makes me squee with glee. I could use more 'friends' for earning money but I kind of like being a lone kitttah magician going to spell university.

Fairyland is still pretty cute b/c the flowers turn into musical notes or something totally WTF funny. Same with Enchanted Island.

Cafe World is really hanging in there with its click-fun food action. The food is amusing and delicious looking and the game is very easy to maintain dropping in every few days.

Country Story rocks! Now that they've made it easier I can grow tree spirits and use them to buy gorgeous awesome magical trees. Man if only they'd let ME make a social game...there would be so many magic trees!

I broke down and added four more strangers to my FB so I could go to the next area of 'The Summoning' as all 500 something of my 'friends' refuse to play that game despite my repetitve begging. FINE. The good news is, people who are so h/c that they will post on the very public Summoning feed "ADD ME joesmith@yahoo.com" (I actually tend to only add girls, I guess I feel safer) tend to play a LOT of other social games. Bam, a new 'friend' in 5 other games too!

Country Story and Sky City are the two most bass-ackwards farm games you could imagine, and yet the higher levels involve buying factories to process the vegetables you grow. This extra level of captialism totally keeps me coming back.

Speaking of Farms, I'm still digging Farmville - ingenius ways to continuously make you NEED gifts or else spend your real money. I saw one of my new Summoning 'friends' BEGGING in my FB Friends Feed for clinging vines and roof tiles so she could finish her Farmville Mansion. Okay she was bargaining, or a bit of both. I didn't send her anything b/c I'm too lazy to send gifts these days...but if she was some old buddy I loved I probably would have heeded her plea.

Farmville Game Bar

Now this is pure frakking genius.

It's also the beginning of the end. Will Zynga be our new Google? I for one welcome our casual game overlords.

SuperPocus

Oh no a new game has me hooked! This one is pretty slow to load, but oh my, THE CUTE!!! Superpocus is TOO adorable, you are a cute lil animal learning spells, hexes, charms, etc. You cook in your cauldron and visit friends to curse or charm them - curses include giving them a moustache and making them moonwalk. In the clothing store I bought my kitty a mushroom wand and mushroom deelyboppers.

I die of cuuute! Come be my friend!!

It's no secret

That I really, really love Restaurant City, probably my most often played FB Social Game - certainly the one that gives me the highest satisfaction levels.

Imagine my delight to discover they've tweaked some of the annoying parts of the game, are now giving away more free 'money,' and are polling players for input - hence more upgrades.

Is WOW like this? What about other online games? Or is this unique to social games, the constant feedback and changing of gameplay per consumer opinion?

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7DKN2GL

Ponzi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

Just today I found out the definition of the word Ponzi and its soo true! Just the other night my friend said to me, "Girl, get to playing Ponzi again!" (Ponzi is a Facebook game where you run a business) because he makes a percentage of my profits! And you really need your friends to earn $ in your Pyramid to boost your starting business. This game is genius, its like W.o.W. for people who don't want a time commitment (it takes about 5 minutes to play, and to properly keep up you check in once or twice a day) - your friends are leaning on you to succeed, and they'll let you know at the coffeeshop they want you to hurry back and play more! What kind of genius marketing is that?

Mostly I'm playing BS2 on mah new Xbox (just got past the Carnie-esque level), but no spoilers here. Wait for our podcast about it! But it was super fun creating my avatar and starting to earn my first achievements and gamer points. I love social games within a platform like gamer points, competing with friends online.

Working for the Weekend

My obsessive Facebook gaming is forced into a more relaxed pace during the workweek. How IS a girl to prioritize when every game fills your Notificications with promises of gifts and threats of expiration, petulant for your imminent return?

Well I'll tell you what I do:

#1 Restaurant City. This game is of serious importance to me, I can't quite say why, a combo of cooking and tracking down the ever missing ingredient I suppose. Every evening it's on my list of things to do - MORE money for MORE ingredients for MORE money!

#2 Farmville gifts. This is just so fun. I'm sad to say it makes me feel so loved and popular to have 15 gifts in my inbox, even if it's from someone I haven't seen since college, and it's an e-heart. I assure you I've never gotten more valentines wishes collectively in my life than I have this year, still a week before v-day, thanks to Farmville. Maybe its wrong but it feels so right.

#3 Ponzi - its just so easy and fun. I admit i have a little crush on the Ponzi girl.

That's all I'm dedicated to when I have pressing life stuff. Last weekend however, I was slacking hard and played the heck out of Happy Habitat, The Summoning, and Zoo World. The Summoning, BTW, is a html-based RPG that is sooo fun! I'm in my first dungeon (after a month of playing), kicking giant spider ass and taking names! None of the other RPG's have appealed to me yet, mostly because you have to fuss with armies and I'm interested in rogue adventuring.

In other gamer news, Clay is playing Mass Effect 2 right now and his dude has on armor with a Dragon Age logo on it, that he got as part of an Xbox download. It is so funny! Like when Mac was on on Lost.

EEE Baby Tigers!

In their mad dash for more players, Facebook social games are giving away all kinds of things you usually have to use your credit card to get (something I will not do!)

Today Restaurant City, one of Facebooks most addictive games, is giving away a SECOND baby tiger for the second day in a row. My life is complete.

We gave away a cute tiger cub yesterday, everyone loved it but these little cubs like company, so we're giving away another one to our fans today! Take care of this tiger and share the news with your friends! Click here to get your new tiger cub: http://playfi.sh/bomrXC

What Did You Play with your Weekend?

This weekend I was couch-bound after an ouchy medical procedure. Not wanting to move much I kept my laptop in it's proper place (my lap) and played Facebook social games all weekend.

Here's a list of what I played with a rating of 1-5 "stars."
One star means 'I didn't get into it' - not necessarily that it's a bad game.
4-5 Stars mean you should check it out and add me as neighbor ASAP ;)

Bejeweled Blitz **
Ponzi, Inc *****
Cafe World ***
Castle Age *
Country Story **
Crazy Planets *
Dragon Wars *
Enchanted Island ***
Fairyland *
Farm Country *
Farm Town *
Farmville *****
Fishville ***
Garden World *
Happy Aquarium **
Happy Habitat ****
Happy Island - will NEVER load!
Happy Pets *
Latte Land ****
myFarm *
Ninja Saga *
Pet Society **
Petville ****
Ponzi, Inc ****
Restaurant City *****
Restaurant Life **
Roller Coaster Kingdom ***
SPP Ranch! ***
Sky City *
The Summoning ***** (JOIN MY GUILD! PLEEEASE!)
Tiki Farm **
Zoo World ***

Changing Social Habits to Get Ahead in Social Games

I just added a perfect stranger to my Facebook friends list because she too is playing Ponzi, Inc. A newer FB game where you run a business and hire workers. It's pretty fun and I need more friends to build my pyramid scheme.

I never add FB friend requests I don't know through at least a few friends or cartoonists, until now. Social games may not make me more social IRL, but I admit I have made a few new "Neighbors."

What I'm Playing - Social Games pt.2

Facebook has a lot of copy cat games. It's pretty entertaining to watch. I don't know which came first but clearly as soon as one game is successful there are 1,000 copycat versions. Like 20 different aquariums! But like I said, I played THEM ALL so you don't have to.

In most cases the 'bigger' and more popular a game is, the more fun of a social game it's going to be. Nothing is more depressing than a farm with no neighbors. Then again, we can't cow tow to sub-par games purely because our friends are. I try to have a healthy mix of both, I'll try to get my friends to join games I like that no one has heard of (THE SUMMONING AHEM), but I'll play some games that aren't so great just because I have 40 neighbors and 10 pending gifts.

PETVILLE vs. PET SOCIETY

PETVILLE IS THE WINNAH! Oh the graphics, game play, server speed and shopping experience are sooo far superior! Pet Society has the additional thrill of a garden, fishing pond, aquariums, food stores, more neighbors, and pretty much everything that should make this game great. But for some reason I don't find the rewards of Pet Society (slowed animations, plain low-tech graphics, poor treasure/coins/shopping rate) nearly as exciting as watching my Petville Pet eat one Ninja Cookie.


CAFE WORLD vs. RESTAURANT CITY

RESTAURANT CITY IS THE WINNAH! I will keep playing BOTH for some time, they are both addictive games in different ways. Cafe World has better graphics and a more satisfying cooking process. Restaurant City makes you scrabble and hunt for each ingredient unless you're willing to pay IRL money (or wait each day to win a free ingredient via the food quiz). The process of combing my friends restaurants hoping they'll trade me a bay leaf for some flour is really fun to me. You can also grow a tree by your Restaurant and go visit random restaurants around the 'city,' as you wonder what on earth gets you good enough ratings to one day make it to "Gourmet Street" - there are a number of articles online with things like Game Play instructions, as it's actually pretty complicated to get ahead in Restaurant City. But I'm happy with my humble, slowly expanding restaurant... I've noticed when it comes to FB games, if I can't figure it out by clicking around, I just won't play.