CastleVille Beastie Lab Quests: Everything you need to know

A new quest series has launched in your Kingdom in CastleVille, which sees Beasties trying to overrun your land (as usual). Now though, you'll really have a way to fight back by constructing the Beastie Lab through these quests. There are eight quests in all, and we're here with a guide to help you know what to expect and how to finish each one. Let's get started!

The Good Fight

    Banish 2 Gloom Rats in your Kingdom
    Visit 2 Neighbors
    Tend 5 Buildings in your Neighbors' Kingdoms


This one's pretty simple. You can either complete tasks around your own Kingdom with the hope of randomly drawing out a Gloom Rat, or you can head into the market and purchase a Gloom Rat potion for just 5 Reputation points. As for the tending jobs, you'll need to actually collect from buildings - not just accelerate their progress - for them to count towards your five. When you finish this first quest, you'll receive 500 coins, 10 XP and two Gloom Rat Potions.

Weird Science

    Buy a Beastie Lab
    Construct the Beastie Lab


The Beastie Lab costs just 2,000 coins in the market, and can be constructed using three Wood Planks, 10 Stones and five Beakers. The Beakers come from asking your friends (via individual requests), or they can be earned at random by tending buildings in both your own and your neighbors' kingdoms. When you complete the Lab's construction, you'll finish this quest and will receive 1,000 coins and 20 XP.

Here, Beastie Beastie

    Collect 6 Gloom Rat Tails
    Craft 1 Rat Decoy
    Place 1 Rat Decoy


The Rat Decoy can be crafted inside your newly constructed Beastie Lab. You'll need three Shells (earned by fishing), two Gloom Rat Tails (defeat Gloom Rats) and a block of Moldy Cheese (ask friends) to craft it. It takes 12 hours to complete, and afterwards can be placed in your kingdom as you do with any other item. When you complete this quest, you'll receive 1,000 coins and 20 XP.

Wolf's Bane

    Ask friends for 4 Longbows
    Craft 5 Silver Arrows
    Use 2 Silver Arrows to Banish Gloom Wolves


The Longbows come from a general news post that asks your friends to send them to you. Meanwhile, the Silver Arrows are crafted inside your Beastie Lab, and can be thought of as Wood Clubs or another weapon that allow you to take off more health per energy point used to combat the Beasties in your Kingdom. A single Silver Arrow requires four Gloom Wolf Hair, two Silver Ore and two Arrowheads to craft. Arrowheads come from friends, or by tending flowers. A single Silver Arrow takes four hours to craft.

Morphing Time

    Collect 3 Thief's Cloaks
    Craft 4 Thief Morphers
    Use 2 Thief Morphers on Gloom Thieves


Gloom Thief Potions can be purchased in the market for 10 Reputation Hearts each, and you'll have a chance to receive a Thief's Cloak when banishing them. The Thief Morphers, meanwhile, are crafted inside your Beastie Lab. You can use them from your inventory on extra Gloom Thieves to turn them into chickens. when you finish this quest, you'll receive 1,750 coins, 35 XP and a Alchemy Table decoration.

Clucked Up

    Ask friends for 6 Chicken Feed
    Tend 15 Chickens in your Neighbors' Kingdoms
    Craft 3 Hard Boiled Eggs


Hard Boiled Eggs are crafted in your Kitchen using five Pails of Water and 10 Eggs each. You can get Eggs by tending your own adult Chickens. Finishing this quest gives you 1,000 coins and 20 XP.

Secret Ingredient

    Ask friends for 6 Philosopher's Stones
    Collect 8 Gloom Goblin Ears
    Craft 5 Alchemist Powders


Even though you can earn the Alchemist Powders for free by simply helping out in your friends' Kingdoms, they can also be crafted within the Beastie Lab. The Gloom Goblin Ears, meanwhile, come from banishing Gloom Goblins. You can purchase their potions in the store for 12 Reputation Hearts each. When you complete this quest, you'll receive 1,750 coins and 35 XP.

WMBD

    Have 15 Alchemist Powder to Make Beastie Bomb
    Visit 10 Neighbors
    Use Beastie Bomb


The Beastie Bomb is special item that will immediately banish all Beasties currently active in your kingdom. You'll craft one within your Beastie Lab. When you finish this final Beastie Lab quest, you'll receive 2,500 coins and 50 XP.
How far have you made it in these Beastie Lab quests?

Missing Facebook news feed posts? Zynga's on the case

With Zynga's many Facebook games, one of the easiest ways to get things done is to ask your friends to help you out, typically through general news feed posts you'll place on your wall for all of your friends to see. What happens then, when those posts suddenly stop showing up? Mass pandemonium, that's what! Unfortunately, the above has indeed happened this weekend, with most of Zynga's major games - Cafe World, CityVille, CastleVille, FarmVille and so on - suffering.

Essentially, this glitch has caused some news feed posts to not show up, with no in-game indication that anything has gone wrong. That is, you may ask for a Wood Plank in CastleVille, and the game tells you that your news feed request has indeed been posted, but when you go to check for it elsewhere on Facebook, it simply doesn't exist. Needless to say, this halts your progress, as some of these items can only be earned through news feed posts, and if they aren't showing up right now, you're stuck.

Since this issue is so widespread, you can be sure that Zynga knows what's up. Moderators across the company's official forums are reassuring users that the issue is being addressed. Even the game's support site has been updated accordingly. Under the CastleVille section, for instance, we can see the following:

"Players of multiple games have reported that they are having issues seeing their own Zynga game feed posts or posts from their neighbors. In some cases, older posts for these games have disappeared as well. We understand that posting and collecting from feed posts is an important part of our games. We have notified our engineering teams and they are working on a fix."

Unfortunately, until the fix can be rolled out across Zynga's network of games, we'll just have to take our chances when posting things to our walls. Remember though, if you're posting a news feed request in a game that limits how often you can do so, I'd personally suggest holding off entirely. Sure, you may be lucky and have your news post show up normally, but what if you don't? You'll then be stuck waiting hours (perhaps even after the fix has been rolled out) before you can catch back up. Hang in there, gamers. We'll get through this.

Have you experienced issues with any of Zynga's games today? What games will you play to make up for this downtime?

Zynga's Twitter becomes useful, gives away free in-game items

Perhaps it's just me, but I've never thought of Twitter as the best place for Zynga to communicate with its fans. After all, every game has its own Fan Page on Facebook just for that purpose - communication, and if we're spending time on Twitter, we're not actively playing Facebook games, right? Either way, Zynga has decided to capitalize on the massive social network, 140 characters at a time.

If you've never thought about following Zynga on Twitter before, you now finally have some real incentive to do so, as the company has started giving away in-game items back on Facebook via links on its Twitter feed. So far, these bonuses seem to be focused pretty centrally on CityVille, as we've received free bundles of XP, Bonus Crew and Zoning Permits, just to name a few.

It's possible that if more players start to follow the stream, or even request items, that more games could start to receive bonuses, so it's worth keeping track of what's going on. Either way, these prize links are only active for a limited amount of time, so you really will need to stay on top of things to make sure you can claim every item available to you. If you're a big fan of Twitter anyway, that probably won't seem like a big deal, but for everyone else, I suppose you can always bookmark the page and check it once per day to see if there's anything to grab. Good luck claiming these items!

Will you follow Zynga on Twitter to receive free items in CityVille and elsewhere?

Facebook How-To: Sort your News Feed to one game at a time

While Facebook's design may change pretty frequently, many of the social network's most recent changes haven't been for the better of the service's many gamers. In the past (that is, in one of Facebook's many previous versions), we were able to manually sort our News Feeds to show all posts from Games, or even all posts from a particular game. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case... unless you use our Facebook How-To guide to do just that.

What this all involves is actually loading specific Facebook URLs to get around the "Highlighted Stories First" and "Recent Stories First" options. While Facebook will likely change yet again, making these choices obsolete, the following links should work to help you sort your News Feed to a particular game. We've listed many of Facebook's most popular games below, giving you quick access to those games' particular News Feed posts.

Note: As of this writing, many of Zynga's games are undergoing maintenance because News Feed posts simply aren't appearing, regardless of how you try to look at them. If you click on one of the links below and see no posts to click on, that's why - the links themselves are fine.

FarmVille News Feed Posts

CastleVille News Feed Posts

Pioneer Trail News Feed Posts

Empires & Allies News Feed Posts

The Sims Social News Feed Posts

Cafe World News Feed Posts

CityVille News Feed Posts

Hidden Chronicles News Feed Posts

Adventure World News Feed Posts

Diamond Dash News Feed Posts

Bubble Witch Saga News Feed Posts

Ravenwood Fair News Feed Posts

Ravenskye City News Feed Posts

Bejeweled Blitz News Feed Posts

Want to sort your News Feed for a game we didn't list above? Here's how to do just that.

Step 1) Copy the following URL, as it's the base for all News Feed filters:

https://www.facebook.com/?sk=app_

Step 2) Load the game you would like to sort your News Feed to. Scroll to the very bottom of the page and look in the bottom left corner where you can see the game's name. Clicking this would normally take you to the game's app page, but don't do that! Just find it, for now.

Step 3) Right Click on top of the name and select "Copy Link Address," "Copy Link Location" or another similar phrase, depending on the browser you're using.

Step 4) In a blank word document, email, browser window (or any other location where you can paste text), paste the URL and copy the long number at the end.

Step 5) Paste this long number back into the "https://www.facebook.com/?sk=app_" above. Go to that URL in your browser and voila! Your News Feed has now been sorted to that particular game!

As we said above, Facebook may undergo more changes in the future and there's the potential that these links will be ruined along with those changes. But for now, use this quick process to more easily find News Posts for your favorite games, and rest assured that we'll update you if and when these links stop working. Happy gaming!

Did you know you could sort your News Feed to a particular game? Will you use these links to do just that?

Hidden Chronicles Underwater Wreckage: Our guide to finding every item

In Zynga's Hidden Chronicles, you're tasked with discovering the lost secrets of artifacts once owned by your late uncle. The first chapter of the game sees you investigating artifacts in an old library, with the third of these artifacts being the Jade Crocodile. This Jade Crocodile has six scenes, and only one of them is premium, leaving five for you to explore for free. You'll unlock the scenes by having more and more Estate Points in your manor, but when you finally reach this section of the game, the third scene you'll be tasked with completing is called Underwater Wreckage.

We're here with a guide showing you where to find the scene's many items, so if you're working on building up your combo points or just on the scene's individual mastery scale, make sure to check out our images below! Note: The items you'll receive will just be a selection of all of those pictured below.

If you're looking to find a particular item: Hit Ctrl +F (or Command + F if on a Mac) and type in the name of the object you're looking for. This will take you directly to its image.
Super Clue:

    Bottle and Cork a Ship (drag two portions of ship and cork to the bottle - can be in any order)

Set 1:

    Squid
    Chest Plate
    Clown Fish
    Bell
    Seal
    Lionfish

Set 2:

    Jellyfish
    Ship Wheel
    Pirate Hat
    Shark

Set 3:

    Fishing Rod
    Electric Eel
    Shovel
    Whistle

Set 4:

    Crab (not pictured)
    Starfish
    Locket
    Cracked Vase
    Tankard

Set 5:

    Giant Clam
    Broken Mirror

Set 6:

    Stingray
    Horseshoe
    Scallop
    Helmet

Set 7:

    Lantern
    Fork
    Knife
    Hook

Set 8:

    Treasure Chest
    Cannonball
    Lobster

Set 9:

    Crown
    Spanish Eagle
    Sea Urchin



There are a handful of items not pictured above, as the game generates each set of items randomly. When we come across those missing items, we'll make sure to update this space with how you too can find them. In the meantime, feel free to start decorating your Manor and working on building up your own mastery of this scene or any other in the game!

Check out the rest of our Hidden Chronicles Cheats & Tips right here.

Have you finished every trophy of mastery for this Underwater Wreckage scene? What do you think of Zynga's take on the hidden object genre thus far?

FarmVille Pic of the Day: Magical floating terrace by Anthonyyeun

One of the most well-captured examples of FarmVille floating farms is Joelr's farm-sized flying fortress, but player Anthonyyuen has used those tricks on a smaller scale, bringing you the floating terraces shown above.

Like Joelr, Anthonyyuen used black hay bales as shadows to make the terraces stand out. But Anthonyyuen's design required a bit more ingenuity. Instead of leaving the rectangular shadows underneath each terrace, he also linked them with hay bale staircases and shaded those too. This makes for a more interesting silhouette overall.

We've seen tons of watery farms. We've seen farms go underground. We've seen them fly. And we've seen lots of amazing hay bale art. But as far as FarmVille designs go, floating farms is the easiest, yet most undeveloped and unused trick among players. It's a shame, because it's definitely one of the coolest-looking ones.

Would you like to see more floating farms in FarmVille? Are you inspired to build one yourself? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment

If you have an AWESOME FarmVille farm that you want to see featured on Games.com, please email a picture to editors@games.com, Include a few words about the inspiration for your design and maybe a few tips for people who need an assist!

Zynga's copycattin' around, and it's not the first time

xThis week, FarmVille maker Zynga barked up the wrong tower. When the company released Dream Heights for iPhone on the Canadian App Store, its striking similarities to NimbleBit's critically-acclaimed mobile game, Tiny Tower, were obvious. And the three-person independent game studio cried foul with a snarky open letter to Zynga.

NimbleBit is the most recent studio to publicly call Zynga out on such a thing, but this is far from the first time the publisher has been, erm, inspired by previous games. According to our calculations, the company has practiced the sincerest form of flattery for the better part of its four years on the scene.

The ethics this practice aren't up for debate, even though this type of thing happens often in the entertainment world. Zynga has not made fast friends with the game development community (remember when FarmVille was booed when it won an award?), and the fact that Zynga has taken legal action against other game makers for allegedly stealing its game ideas is, in a word, ironic. We take a brief look at Zynga's other sources of inspiration.

Mafia Wars     Mob Wars
Mafia Wars and Mob Wars
Shortly after Zynga released Mafia Wars in April 2008, the creators of an earlier gangster-themed social game, Mob Wars, took Zynga to court for copyright infringement. In Sept. 2009, Mob Wars creator David Maestri settled for roughly $7 million. Mafia Wars went on to become one of Zynga's most successful games ever, while Mob Wars fizzled out with just 100,000 monthly players today. But, after nearly four years, not much has revolutionized this game and thus Mafia Wars continues to hemorrhage players to its current total of 2.4 million every month.

FarmVille     Farm Town
FarmVille and Farm Town
FarmVille, released in June 2009, already bore unmistakable similarities with Farm Town, which released earlier in the same year. From the game's interface to the big-headed characters, FarmVille looked nearly identical to Slashkey's Farm Town. FarmVille has come a long way since 2009 without doing much to transform players' day-to-day in-game. In the meantime, Farm Town has suffered to the tune of just 230,000 players logging in daily, compared to FarmVille's 6 million daily players.

PetVille     Pet Society
PetVille and Pet Society
Playfish, now owned by Electonic Arts, launched its pet simulator, Pet Society in August 2008. In December 2009, Zynga set PetVille loose, which looked eerily similar to the Playfish game. PetVille employed pseudo-3D visuals, while Pet Society's went with a more anime art style, but the layout and play style similarities were unmistakable. However, Zynga's doppelganger failed to gobble up Pet Society's player base. The latter is healthy, while the former ain't doing so hot with just 220,000 daily players.

Cafe World     Restaurant City
Cafe World and Restaurant City
Zynga's eatery simulator launched September 2009, six months after Playfish's Restaurant City launched on Facebook. Cafe World looked like its predecessor in almost every way, from the 3D-like visuals to the general play experience. Cafe World has made considerable improvements to the formula, but not nearly enough to forget its origins. Regardless, it looks like it was enough to draw players away, as Cafe World is faring much better than Restaurant City in both monthly and daily players.

CityVille     Social City
CityVille and Social City
Both Zynga's crown jewel and Playdom's Social City are rooted in classics like SimCity, but the former's blatant similarities to the latter are undeniable. Social City released in March 2010 to critical acclaim, garnering the first ever "Best Social Network Game" award at GDC Online. CityVille, however, took off in a way no one imagined was possible, shattering records since its Dec. 2010 launch. The game brought plenty more features, but again, not much has changed the core game play. Regardless, Social City was unable to compete, and died off in December 2011.

Pioneer Trail     The Oregon Trail
Pioneer Trail and The Oregon Trail
Zynga's Pioneer Trail (formerly FrontierVille) is not without its inspiration, namely Blue Fang Games' now-defunct social game based on the classic adventure, The Oregon Trail. Zynga was forced by The Learning Company to change the expansion's original title from The Oregon Trail, but the final product still took cues from Blue Fang's game, including the importance of using three specific friends to fill vital roles on your journey across the trail.

Hidden Chronicles     Gardens of Time
Hidden Chronicles and Gardens of Time
Gardens of Time tapped a genre on Facebook that has been saturated elsewhere, but Zynga appears to have simply echoed that with Hidden Chronicles, its most recent Facebook game. The game looks nearly identical to Playdom's hidden-object game, and even employs much of the same ulterior play hooks like building up a property and a challenge mode. Gardens of Time capitalized on what Playdom thought was missing in hidden-object social games, which garnered critical acclaim, while Zynga simply brought more mini games to the table. And, thanks to the all-powerful Zynga promotion machine, Hidden Chronicles already has more players.
Tiny Tower Dream Heights
Tiny Tower and Dream Heights
Tiny Tower and Zynga's new mobile game that kicked off this week's controversy.

It's tough to defend alleged quotes from Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, such as, "I don't want f**king innovation," when looking at these games side by side. And, based on the company's track record, it's hard to say that Dream Heights will be the last offender.

Are these "inspired" games better for the players in the long run, or do you think they do more harm than good?

Zynga Bingo on Facebook: Grandma's game just got more accessible

Whether you've played it in a dark and smokey lodge, at a birthday party or wedding shower, or even via the huge variety of free versions already available online, Bingo isn't really a foreign game concept to most people, traditional gamers or not. However, with Zynga Bingo, the first new title in the Zynga Casino franchise (following Zynga Poker), Zynga looks to change grandma's game into something wholly accessible for the general audience via a slew of social features.

The gameplay itself will feel pretty familiar to those who have already experienced Bingo in a digital form, as it allows you to choose how many cards to play at once (up to six) and pick a themed room (Vegas, Pirate and FarmVille themes, for instance), and then challenges you to make a simple Bingo line (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) by daubing numbers as they are called at the top of the screen. Special patterns also apply in some of the game's advanced rooms, like card blackouts, four-corners and even some letter patterns. Via Nicole Opas, Senior Producer of Zynga Bingo, we were able to take a look at the fine details of Zynga Bingo, and learn about some of the features that will hopefully set the game apart from the rest.

One of the biggest features that helps the gameplay feel fresh is the power-up system. Each card has special symbols resting underneath random numbers, and if you're able to daub them, you'll claim Mystery Crates, Keys and more, and also have the ability to charge up power-ups that can be used at any time thereafter. These power-ups may add piles of coins to the board, or automatically daub different numbers for you, if you're struggling to achieve a Bingo on your own.

"One of our favorite power-ups is the Friend Boost power-up," says Opas. "You'll be asking your friends through Facebook to give you a boost. When they give you that boost, you'll charge it up like you would another power-up, but as many friends' boosts that you have, you'll be able to daub squares with your friends' pictures on them. It's pretty fun; it lets you play with your friends even when your friends aren't online at the same time."

As each game progresses, you'll see those lucky players who have already called Bingo in a small top-three leaderboard at the bottom of the screen, but you'll be able to keep claiming Bingos after that, up to the limit shown at the top of the screen. Additionally, if you happen to come into a game late, you won't need to worry about rushing to fill up your cards with the numbers that you've already missed, as the game will do that for you. Even if lady luck isn't on your side, and you fail to claim a Bingo in time, you'll still claim the Mystery Crates and other rewards you earned along the way.

Gallery: Zynga Bingo on Facebook


Even when you're not playing with your friends, you'll still be able to interact with them via collectibles that can be sent back and forth. Completing these collections gives you coins or new rooms to play in, and by simply playing more and more of the game, you'll earn experience points to level up, will earn the ability to purchase more cards to play at once and will earn more Tickets, the cost for purchasing cards themselves.

Just like in Zynga Poker, Zynga Bingo is a synchronous multiplayer experience, giving you a chance to talk to other players, as you'll be able to congratulate those winners, wish everyone good luck or just chat about other topics in real time. Of course, you can also invite your friends to play in a room with you directly, if they also happen to be online. There's a huge social focus with Zynga Bingo, as Opas says "we hope that... just like with Zynga Poker, you'll play along with your friends and meet new friends along the way. It's that type of experience; connecting with the people that you love to play with and people who are going to keep your edge up and have a good time with, no matter what mood you're in or what time of the day or where you are... that we're excited to add to Zynga Poker and have this Zynga Casino franchise."

Zynga Bingo has launched in Closed Beta today, and will launch for the general public very soon. We'll make sure to let you know when you can pick up a dauber just as soon as we know more.


Are you excited to try out Zynga Bingo on Facebook? What other games would you like to see created in the Zynga Casino franchise?

Honey Badger don't give a $#@%! that it's on iPhone, Android

That hungry little bastard is starving for some more attention. Honey Badger, the 2011 YouTube video wonder, now has its own iPhone and Android game, thanks to MEDL Mobile. The "badass" narrator of the infamous, hilarious video was enlisted to narrate the game, which puts players in control of a honey badger as it searches for food and generally doesn't give a $#@%!.

The game, titled The Honey Badger Don't Care, is yet another "endless runner" game, like Jetpack Joyride or Temple Run. But players must race against a constantly-depleting hunger bar that only fills when the honey badger collides with cobras, scorpions and mice. However, players must steer clear of obstacles like logs, rocks and bees, which will bring the little bugger's strength meter down and put him to sleep.

The play hook doesn't look or sound particularly enthralling, but hearing Randall (the original video's narrator) commentate on your every move in the game sounds downright hilarious. However, whether those laughs are worth $1.99 on the App Store or Android Market is your decision. But only decide for yourself after watching the trailer, stupid.


Click here to download That Honey Badger Don't Care on iPhone or on Android Now >

Have you seen the Honey Badger YouTube video? Would you pick up a mobile game based on a YouTube hit?

Indie social game creators team with RockYou Studio Partners to get noticed

xFans of indie social games, this might be the next place to look for new games that your friends probably never heard of. RockYou announced the launch of Studio Partners, a new initiative to take indie Facebook game creators under its wing and give their games the exposure they deserve by leveraging its "advertising solutions, analytics tools, and broader marketing support," RockYou said in a statement.

Studio Partners is an open platform for developers to submit their games and potentially increase their reach through publisher RockYou's resources. Following the company's relationship with John Romero's indie--can you say that about the guy who co-created Doom?--social game studio Loot Drop (whose first game, Cloudforest Expedition, is due out this summer), RockYou looks to maintain developers' creative freedom while hopefully increasing their audience.

"We're inspired by the originality and imagination of social game developers around the world," said Josh Grant, SVP and GM of Studio Partners and formerly RockYou's SVP of Strategy and Corporate Development. "Studio Partners gets to the heart of what RockYou believes in-delivering the very best, most innovative games to our players." If innovation is truly the way to beat the monolithic competition in the social games space, RockYou (and its upcoming stable of indie creators) might have the leg up.

[Image Credit: TellMeBaby]

Do you think the competition for the big league Facebook game developers will come from indie creators? What types of innovation do you hope to see from RockYou and Studio Partners?

Working for Gameloft is far from fun and games, whistleblower says

It takes quite a lot of work to become one of the top mobile game developers, but Glenn Watson, former Head Studio Programmer at Gameloft's New Zealand studio, says it's taken too much work. The former Gameloft employee told all to Games On Net in a feature that described the company's working conditions as "dangerous."

"Starting at 9:30 AM, going home at 2:30 AM, and then com­ing back into the office at 8:30 AM to start work again was not unusual ," Watson described. "There were other times when I would be called back into the office at 11:30 PM by the studio producer, only to head home again at 2:30 AM. It was after I worked four consecutive weeks of fourteen-hour days - including weekends - that I realized I needed to resign."

According to Games On Net, other anonymous former Gameloft employees have confirmed Watson's allegations. Watson went on to reveal that Gameloft had falsified deadlines to create a constant sense of crunch time. It was internally known as "golding," or constantly telling employees to keep going in order to reach gold status on time with a given product. Games On Net reports that, according to leaked internal emails, this process persists. For more on what may be going on inside French publisher Gameloft's many offices, read the feature in full here.

This is far from the first time a game studio has been accused of less-than-respectable work conditions. Most recently, the creators of Rockstar's L.A. Noire, Australia-based Team Bondi, was the target of whistleblowers for unsavory work conditions. Regardless, it's important to know that, sometimes, the idiom "blood, sweat and tears" may not be too far from reality. We've contacted Gameloft for comment.

[Via Kotaku]

Do you think Watson was right in reaching out to the public about Gameloft's supposed work conditions? How do you think the company will respond to such allegations?

Ravenwood Fair creator Lolapps joins 6waves to combat big leaguers

In another case of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," social game developer Lolapps has merged with publisher 6waves. While financial details were not disclosed, TechCrunch reports that the marriage of the Ravenwood Fair creator and the Hong Kong-based publisher makes for a collective 39 million monthly players worldwide. The company will be re-branded as 6waves Lolapps, though each company will continue to act independently.

6 waves CEO Rex Ng will lead the newly formed company, and Lolapps CEO Arjun Sethi will report to him. After leading the creation of the 25 million-strong Ravenwood Fair, veteran designer John Romero left the company to create his own studio, Loot Drop. This move will likely help Lolapps' future games reach a wider audience, which now will use the recently-acquired Fliso engine for creating Flash games that run faster.

And if you count the two companies' collectively player base, the duo is larger than Diamond Dash creator Wooga, which enjoys just under 35 million monthly players, according to AppData. Now that EA has acquired PopCap, and Zynga has bought, well, everyone else almost, the big players in the social game space are starting to emerge. The rest of this year will show whether 6waves Lolapps can hang in the Facebook game major leagues.

Do you think Lolapps, with the help of 6waves, can compete with the likes of EA and Zynga in the future? Are you still a fan of Ravenwood Fair, and what do you hope to see come from the game next?

CrowdStar hopes to strike mobile gold again with $10M StarFund

Since hitting the on the iOS App Store with Top Girl, CrowdStar looks like its hungry for another hit in the mobile games space. Well, another 40 hits, to be exact. The social game developer recently launched StarFund, a $10 million fund that the company will use to back independent mobile game developers, $250 thousand at a time, Mobile Entertainment reports.

StarFund has been made possible in part by YouWeb, the developer's original incubator, or a company that oversees a start up's first stages of life to ensure its survival with funding and other resources. Apparently, YouWeb has deep pockets, and is ready to lighten them on the burgeoning mobile games scene. And that's quite alright by CrowdStar.

"What we know is that great teams and products can still get to the top in mobile social gaming," CrowdStar head of mobile Blair Hamilton said. "With StarFund, we are looking to fund the next stars in mobile social games."

CrowdStar StarFund
Who knows, with 40 more mobile games slated to release with the help of CrowdStar and YouWeb, perhaps one of them will finally knock Angry Birds off of its feathery throne. Better yet, maybe this will help the It Girl creator to become a worthy opponent for Zynga and EA on the iPhone.

Do you think CrowdStar has a chance against the competition with its StarFund? What other types of games do you hope to see come from the company aside from It Girl and Top Girl?

Amazon will duel Zynga in the social games arena, recent hire suggests

Who else wants in on this? Linkedin? Twitter? It appears that gargantuan Internet retailer Amazon looks to enter the social games melee as well, as the company has hired veteran pen-and-paper (think Dungeons and Dragons) game designer Jonathan Tweet as Game Designer/Producer, according to his Linkedin page, IndustryGamers reports. There are no details regarding Amazon's first social game, but Tweet did confirm his new position to the website.

Tweet is best known for his involvement with Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition and RPGs (role-playing games) like Ars Magica and Everway. However, he has also worked most recently in Facebook games with Gamehouse, and considering Tweet will be leading the project, IndustryGamers guesses that the Amazon social game will have RPG elements. Will we have to swing a sword and fling spells for even better deals on Amazon? Probably not, but that'd be pretty darn cool.

This is far from the first time the Internet retailer has dived into gaming. Even before launching its own Android Appstore, through which PopCap has launched an Android game, the company bought Reflexive Entertainment in 2008 to sell its games online. It appears that, slowly but surely, Amazon is getting serious about gaming--just like everybody else. We've contacted Amazon for comment.

[Via VentureBeat]

Do you think Amazon can create a social game with the potential of a FarmVille or Bejeweled Blitz? How do you think the company will distribute this game, and will you be there to try it out?

Facebook How-To: Play your games in peace by deactivating Facebook Chat

If you're an active Facebook gamer, or just an active Facebook user, you've likely been greeted by the new Facebook Chat setup, that sees an incredibly large window popping up at will (spanning the vertical height of the entire browser window in some cases), almost each and every time you navigate to a new page (or, say, a new Facebook game). Needless to say, this can get quite annoying very quickly, especially if you're not a fan of the Facebook chat service in the first place, or you'd just like to have some peace and quiet away from the chat requests and "online" status.

Luckily, there is a way to shut Facebook Chat up, and while it's not a permanent solution (allowing you to switch back and forth at your leisure), it will make your life a heck of a lot easier in the future. Please note that the Facebook Chat window has changed in design over the original chat, so the steps for turning it off have also changed. First, the next time the new chat window appears in your way, click on the small gear in the top right corner of the Chat menu, as seen below.

Here, you'll see two options: "Available to Chat," and "Chat Sounds." Unfortunately, both of these are active by default, but while they may not appear to be actual buttons, you can toggle each by simply clicking on them. Say you'd rather be invisible to your currently online friends. Just remove the check next to "Available to Chat," and you'll be sent offline. That's right - no more automatically refreshing friends list, no more chat sounds, and no more annoying window popping up in your face every five seconds (that one's the kicker).

If you would like to hide your online presence to only a specific portion of your Facebook friends list, you can also click on the "Limit Availability" option to see a menu where you can "hide" yourself from particular groups of friends (based on the groups that you've manually created).

After going offline, your games should play as normal, without the possibility for accidentally clicking on a friend to start a chat because it has popped up in your way. The entire chat menu will minimize, giving you peace and quiet at last. Any time you'd like to go back online, just click on the "Chat (Offline)" text in the bottom right corner (where your chat menu is minimized) and you'll automatically go "online" to chat with any of your available friends.

For now, there doesn't seem to be a way to entirely remove the Facebook Chat menu from your account, but at least with these steps, you'll be able to play your games privately, without the sometimes unwanted interference of friends.

[Image Credit: Yoga.am]

Have you been having trouble with the new Facebook Chat? Does the window pop-up on its own when you're online, or have you already set yourself to be offline to avoid any possible annoyances?

Surprise--Zynga slapped with yet another infringement lawsuit

Another day, another lawsuit on Zynga CEO Mark Pincus' desk. This time, myFarm creator SocialApps has filed suit against the FarmVille creator for copyright infringement, violation of trade secrets and a number of other allegations, Patent Arcade reports. Filed in Calif. District Court on June 17, just days after SocialApps registered myFarm with the Copyright Office, the company claims that since myFarm released in November 2008, Zynga approached the company to acquire intellectual rights and source code for its own use.

According to SocialApps, the two entered a Leter of Agreement regarding the source under SocialApps' impression that it would be compensated and credited for Zynga's use of the myFarm source code. Then, the company claims that it failed to get in contact with Zynga as the developer released FarmVille in June 2009 without compensating or crediting SocialApps. As you know, FarmVille went on to peak at 80 million users. And though it has since fallen to 36.8 million players, myFarm enjoys a paltry 17 thousand players in comparison.

Basically, the claim is that Zynga used the myFarm source code to create FarmVille, the iconic Facebook game, without owning up to its end of its agreement with SocialApps. (And the similarity between the two games is striking.)

SocialApps claims to have suffered damages in excess of $100 thousand, and is seeking Zynga's profits and gains, as they're in excess of $500 thousand. (Considering Zynga is said to be worth $20 billion, SocialApps might be low-balling this one a bit.) According to Patent Arcade, SocialApps also believes Zynga went and used the myFarm source code to create games like FrontierVille, CityVille and FishVille.

Keep in mind, this is far from the first time Zynga has been the target of a copyright infringement suit. Most recently, the company agreed to change the name of its upcoming expansion to FrontierVille from The Oregon Trail, the same name of the classic adventure game-turned-Facebook game, to Pioneer Trail after approached by The Learning Company with a lawsuit. Zynga declined to comment.

How do you think Zynga will respond to these allegations? Do you think the two games are similar enough for SocialApps to have a case?

Investment bankers like Michael Grimes play CityVille, too

For an IPO as lucrative as Zynga's $1 to $2 billion, Morgan Stanley Managing Director Michael Grimes (pictured) was seemingly willing to do anything, even play CityVille for hours on end, to gain the company's trust, Bloomberg reports. It's a strategy Grimes has used to get the investment firm in on the IPO (initial public offering) of many a company, but Grimes took his dedication to new heights in connecting with Zynga CEO Mark Pincus over his company's hit games CityVille and Empires & Allies.

And Grimes didn't just hop in to see what the fuss was all about, he all but mastered CityVille. "It's not just that Michael is building out a level or two, he's pretty advanced in his game playing," said Michael Kim of Cendana Capital, who worked with Grimes from 1997 to 2000, and is connected with both Pincus and Grimes over CityVille.

But keep in mind, Grimes' efforts in CityVille were likely to grab Pincus' attention as his company tried to tempt Zynga into choosing it to lead an IPO. However, we bet Grimes liked the game ... at least a little bit. Then again, who knows whether Grimes didn't just get a secretary to play for him--we're gonna go with the "Michael Grimes is a CityVille fanatic" scenario, anyway.

[Via Business Insider]

[Image Credit: SF Gate]

Do you think Michael Grimes is really behind the keyboard when playing CityVille and Empires & Allies with Zynga CEO Mark Pincus? Do you think it's cool of high-level execs to play Facebook games?

Wooga sees PopCap's Bejeweled Blitz with Diamond Dash for iOS

The Facebook Game Faceoff continues, but this time, on a much smaller screen. Wooga announced that its hit Facebook gem-basher, Diamond Dash, will hit iOS devices this summer. Inside Social Apps reports that the Berlin-based company will release the mobile version of 10 million-player-strong Facebook game will join a brand new experimental HTML5 game. And despite being a late bloomer on iOS compared to Zynga and PopCap, Wooga CEO Jens Begemann appears confident.

We feel the timing is right. For us, it's not about sprinting. We're not in here to sell the company in a year," Begemann said. "We think that our audience and our target group is coming onto mobile now." However, this version of the game is being create by a different team entirely from the folks who crafted the Facebook game. "We know that if we copy the Facebook game, we won't be successful," he told ISA.

The game will be available for iPhones and iPads at first, but an HTML5 version for Android devices is on the way as well, according to ISA. Like its competitors, Diamond Dash for iOS will be supported through micro-transactions. Hey, as long as we can set gems aflame with massive crashing fireballs, we're so game.

Are you psyched to see Wooga finally entering the mobile games space with Diamond Dash? Do you think the company is too late coming with mobile versions of its hit game?