FarmVille Fan Sheep updated and possibly released tonight

A few days ago the FarmVille Fan Sheep finally reached its goal of 2 million fans on Facebook. Even though the FarmVille Sheep lost the Battle of the Barnyard to the FarmVille Cow, Zynga is still celebrating with the release of a special FarmVille Sheep.

The Fan Sheep should be available in the FarmVille Market very soon- perhaps tonight! Get a sneak peek of the FarmVille Fan Sheep to the right.

Continue reading to see it move!

FarmVille: Is there life after level 100?

If you're a FarmVille power player, life at the top can be lonely (and rather boring). You've already bought all of the multi-milllion coin estates and completed every achievement. To appease overachieving farmers, Zynga recently rolled out a 5M coin mansion only available to level 70 and above, but it was more of a gesture than a real solution to the problem.

It looks like there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, however. This pop-up notification (see above) from one uber farmer says that you can't earn cash after level 100, but says "there's sure to be rainbows after the rain." That leads us to believe the FV team is hard at work behind the scenes, creating new achievements and items for power players. With FarmVille losing millions by the week (the game which once boasted 80 million monthly players is now down to 62 million), keeping devoted sharecroppers in business should be first priority.

Music Pets, Super Dance take a final bow, both "shutting down soon"

The same day Zynga announced its acquisition of Music Pets and Super Dance creator Conduit Labs, a notice appeared on both of the Facebook music games, saying that they "will be shutting down soon." There's a longer explanation of the close of these games, which essentially boils down to this one quote: "we've been unable to make Music Pets/Super Dance commercially viable."

Read the entire note below:

    music pets closure





The biggest question is what happens to players who have invested real-life cash into these games? I like that there is a concession for players who bought items with Facebook Credits over the past month, but this doesn't address the larger problem that arises when social games get the axe -- how do you handle loyal customers (aka 'whales') who have spent hundreds of dollars in your game? I think companies should take a Las Vegas approach, where casinos comp hotel rooms and other rewards for high rollers. Maybe social game whales can be comped a pile of free virtual cash in a new game or get some kind of real-world reward.

super dance

There isn't an easy answer, but while you ponder the possibilities, let's say so-long to Super Dance and Music Pets and look forward to what the newly minted Zynga Boston is jamming on behind the scenes.

CityVille: Will this be the next 'Ville' in the Zynga gaming dynasty?

Back in March, Zynga surveyed players, asking how much time they spent playing city-building games like Social City, and that, of course, led us to believe that Zynga was doing its due diligence before launching its own city-building game. And, it looks like something called CityVille might soon be the new kid on the block, if this image taken from the official Zynga forums means anything.

cityville

Essentially, you're seeing something called CityVille in the Zynga community forums, but, if you try to enter this area, you will be denied access. What does this mean? Well, we don't know for sure, but we have a hunch we'll be soon be adding CityVille to our social gaming diet.

Thanks, Nikolas for the tip!

Do you think Zynga's getting ready to launch a city-building game on Facebook? Will it be a FarmVille killer?

FarmVille new items: Summertime and the livin is easy

Tonight, a small FarmVille update included a set of new summertime themed items! In this set is one animal, two houses, and five decoration pieces. It's the hot August months, so it's the perfect time too cool down with some summery fun in FarmVille. Here is what you can expect to find in the FarmVille Market:

Flamingo - 16 Farm Cash
Bouncy Castle - 32 Farm Cash
Dinosaur Slide - 30 Farm Cash
Fireflies - 4 Farm Cash
Octopus Pool - 80,000 coins
Summer Campsite - 50,000 coins
Backyard Fort - 30 Farm Cash
Ice Cream Shop - 220,000

These items are only available for 9 days, and we suspect this won't be the entire summer theme release. Zynga loves to release their themes slowly to maximize the fun (and the spending, we presume).

Which summery FarmVille items are going to buy?

Treasure Isle soon to allow coin trading for cash

A surprising update came tonight on the Treasure Isle fan page, telling us that soon, players will be able to trade their coins in for Island Cash. This is a huge announcement, and one that players will likely be very excited about. Typically, you can only buy a game's "hard currency" through paying real money (or taking part in 'offers'). Sometimes, you can also buy additional "soft currency" (usually coins) with real life money as well. But as far as we know, there aren't any social games out there yet that allow you to buy hard currency with soft currency.

This provides a huge benefit for players who have a lot of neighbors and are diligent about helping them out. In addition, people who have a lot of Facebook friends and can claim wall bonuses will have a serious advantage here. This update will make gaining Island Cash much easier for people who have been hoarding all of their coins.

So far, we don't know any details. We're not sure of the pricing, or if there will be a limitation per day. We're excited to hear more, and we'll be sure to update you all when this new feature goes live.

Do you think this will trivialize getting Island Cash or do you still think it will be difficult to obtain?

FrontierVille Animal Mystery Crate: Find out what's inside

A new Mystery Animal crate mysteriously appeared in FrontierVille, bringing with it a chance to add three new, exclusive animals to your homestead. If you're in the mood to try your luck, you can buy a Mystery Animal box in the market for 50 Horseshoes (roughly $7) and open it up to find an owl, porcupine and a pink rabbit inside. If you collect all three, you'll will be able to brag about it with your new Dead Bear statue.







The Mystery Animal crate will only be around for a limited time, so all of you collectors out there should move fast before the crate disappears from the Market. (Though, judging from FarmVille's limited edition items, it's more than likely that these mystery animals will return again at a later date).

Do you think the Mystery Animal Crate is worth the price? How many tries did it takes for you to find all three animals?

FrontierVille Missions menu makes it easier to keep track of to-dos

One of the reasons I consider FrontierVille my favorite game on Facebook is because there's always a stream of missions that give you things to do. Until now, however, it's been a little difficult to keep track of them all -- especially since you can have numerous missions going at one time. They would appear and disappear from the left-hand side of the screen at random, so I was always thinking things like "Where did that groundhog mission go? Did I complete it or not?"

Now that problem has been solved as Zynga flips the switch on a new Missions menu that helps you keep track of everything you need to do in-game. You can see what missions you have going by clicking on 'My Stuff' and the clicking on 'Missions.' That will pull up a page (see above) that lists all of your missions. Click on each mission to see what else you need to do to finish.
frontierville missions menu
You can alternately click on the mission icon on the left-hand side of the game (see image below) to pop the menu.
frontierville missions menu
If you're so inclined, you can prioritize missions by reordering them, which will be handy if you've got more Missions in the hopper than I do.

FrontierVille Meal Deal: Sign up to get free meals via email

FrontierVille is presenting an offer we can't refuse -- a free meal delivered to our email inbox daily. This 'meal deal' is a limited time offer and here's how it worked when I signed up.

I went into the game and was notified that I had a letter, which I found sitting in the middle of my property with a giant yellow arrow above it.


I clicked on the letter and received the following pop up, which explains how this deal works. Basically, you'll get a daily email from FrontierVille that will contain a free meal (meals replenish your energy in the game). You have to accept the meals that same day or they will expire.



Not sure how long this meal deal will be around, there's no indication that this will be a long-term or short-term promotion. I also checked my email right after I signed up, and I didn't get an email for today. We'll see how it long it takes for this free meal thing to kick in. After all, I'm a sucker for free food -- real or virtual.

Treasure Isle's Ninja Vs. Pirates Map is now ready for epic battles

Well, Zynga's earlier claim to the "battle of the universe" is yet to be seen, but the prophesied Pirates Vs. Ninjas update to Treasure Isle is now live... and it's another map titled "Ninja Vs. Pirates." There better be some intense duels on at least one of this new map's eight islands or we will all be very sad ninjas--or do I mean pirates?

You'll find a novice ninja monkey either sitting on your home island or inside your backpack who will need to be trained in the ways of ninja combat before he can take you to the Ninja Vs. Pirates map. You'll have to ask five friends to help train your simian shinobi or unlock each of the five training steps for 5 Island Cash, or about $1. Oh, this is just like the Wounded Dragon and Wounded Tiger maps before it, but with less pathetic creatures and more swords. After that's through, the new islands are yours to explore, though it's still unknown who's going to come out on top in this battle. It seems we'll just have to do some exploring to find out.

Zynga Giveaway: Win a free Zynga Moleskine Notebook

Happy Friday! Once again: we're kicking off the holiday season a little earlier this year by giving away a bunch of free stuff. We have all kinds of cool swag and we aim to give it all away to our readers. Everyone is eligible to get free prizes so continue reading to find out how you can enter to win.

In our previous giveaways, readers could enter to win a free FarmVille T-Shirt and a free Zynga Laptop Bag. Now, for our third Zynga giveaway, we have a custom Zynga Moleskin Notebook. This trendy notepad is perfect for those who need a space to keep their thoughts, addresses, doodles and more. I can't tell you how often I think of a cool idea but end up forgetting it because I neglected to write the idea down. Don't let that happen to you! Emblazoned with the Zynga logo, secured by an elastic strap, and full of blank pages just waiting to be filled; Zynga's Moleskine Notebook is ideal for note-taking and more.

Continue reading to learn how to enter.

To enter:

Step 1: Go to the Games.com Facebook fanpage (http://www.facebook.com/gamescom).

Step 2: 'Like' the fanpage so you can see Facebook game news, tips, and cheats.

Step 3: Enter the giveaway by heading to the fanpage and leave us a comment saying "I love Games.com!" BUT WAIT, there's a catch. While typing, you aren't allowed to use your hands and you aren't allowed to backspace. Tricky eh? Be creative! And when you're done, let us know how you managed!

(i nmlo9v fe gtam esxdz.c volm ~! That was my best attempt using my elbows. Hopefully you can do better haha)

After a few days, we'll randomly select a winner, message them on Facebook for their address, and send them their free prize. Sound easy enough?

Get started by heading to the Games.com fanpage to enter for a free Zynga Moleskine Notebook.

FrontierVille Giant Rabbit Timed Mission: Everything you need to know

Just as the 'Chicken Roundup' timed mission is coming to a close, FrontierVille releases another one called "Maybe it's for a Giant Rabbit." If you've been playing the game for a while, this will be a pretty simple mission to complete.

In two days, you'll need to collect the following:

    500 Wood
    21 Nails
    10 Metal Bars

frontierville giant rabbit

Wood can be collected while chopping trees. Nails and metal bars can be requested from friends and purchased for Horseshoes. You can also get these materials by responding to friends' requests.

Once the job is done, you receive a Trojan Rabbit for your troubles. This is one big decoration, so make sure you have enough room to place it on your homestead.

Are FrontierVille Babies on the way?

Unless the next update to FrontierVille is an homage to Alien, then we'd have to say yes. Zynga cryptically posted a teaser image a very pregnant woman reading, "Big things are arriving," today on the FrontierVille fan page. Now, this is just an educated guess based off of millions of years of human evolution, but we're lead to believe that the woman pictured above is about to deliver a baby.

That being said, we have absolutely no idea what this will mean for FrontierVille, but who doesn't like some good old speculation? Our guess is that this feature will introduce a new protege, if you will. A young guy or gal we can show the ropes so that they can take care of the homestead while we're out at the movies or quite simply want to escape to our fancy new Kinects for a few days hours. Planted some crops that you might miss ripen because the new episode of The Walking Dead is on? Fuhget about it; the little one knows how to harvest a mean tomato. Rampant dreams of loyal servant children aside, stay tuned for when this feature goes live as we'll be all over it.

Cafe World: Choose the next diet Mountain Dew flavor for 2 free Cafe Cash

It seems the Morning Glory trailer in Cafe World was just the tip of the iceberg; that survey only netted players 1 free Cafe Cash, but this new one from Mountain Dew is offering 2 free Cafe Cash. All you have to do is vote for the next Diet Dew flavor. There's eight new choices, and your job is to choose two out of the eight for a blackboard showdown.
Cafe World free 2 Cafe Cash from Mountain Dew
Here are the choices (and flavors) listed on the left side of the board:

    Flare (berry & citrus)
    Ultra Violet (mixed berry)
    Typhoon (tropical strawberry pineapple)
    Voltage (raspberry-citrus blend and a shot of ginseng)


And to our right, we've got:

    White Out (lemongrass & yuzu)
    Crave (green apple)
    Distortion (a "flowing green river of goodness", which sounds blargh if you ask me, but it's probably just a diet version of the regular flavor)
    Supernova (strawberry-melon and a ginseng-powered punch)


After you've clicked and dragged your flavor choices into the two boxes above the "Submit Vote" button, click on the button to get your 2 free Cafe Cash. After that, you've the option to check out the Flavor Leaderboard on the Mountain Dew website. The leaderboard is a collection of votes from online surveys and a tasting tour the company's been doing.
Mountain Dew Flavor Leaderboard
Currently, the top three favorite Diet Dew flavors are Voltage, Supernova, and White Out. There's a little over a week left before voting comes to a close. If you love the Dew, check back in on the board in a week to see if your favorite flavor(s) made the cut.

Zynga officially launches CityVille on Facebook - come build the city of your dreams!

If you're still with us at this late hour, you'll probably be thrilled to learn that Zynga has finally launched CityVille on Facebook!

We've been keeping tabs on the game over the last few weeks, and are expecting Zynga's version of the city-building game to take off pretty quickly. If you'd like more information about what to expect from the game, check out our hands-on preview (including a video preview) or simply dive head first into the game by heading over to the game's page on Facebook.

CityVille Cheats and Tips: Energy Guide

CityVille Building
CityVille, arguably the most anticipated social game of this season, was launched by Zynga just today. And, of course, we want you folks to have as fun a time as we are building our cities. That being said, managing your resources and tapping every possible source is going to maximize your time in CityVille and thus your overall enjoyment and personal happiness. (Yes, these games are that powerful.) Energy, the most important resource in nearly every Zynga game, is scarce, but it's not impossible to find.

Look after the break to find some tips that will increase your time in CityVille to potentially unsafe levels.

Energy MeterWaiting:
This is obviously the first logical option when you see that Energy timer being ticking. However, only one Energy point will refill every five minutes. So, if you just got into this and want to squeeze as much fun as possible out of it, we suggest you employ this method as a last, last resort.

Batteries:
The main source of Energy in CityVille, Batteries can be gifted for free as well as bought through the game's build menu (pictured below) for City Cash. Just click "Build" and then the lightning bolt icon to access the Energy shop where you can buy Batteries that give either 3, 7 or 12 Energy for 3, 6 and 9 City Cash, respectively. Though, there are some more fun ways to replenish Energy.
Battery Shop

Visiting FriendsVisiting Friends:
My personal favorite, visiting friends daily grants you a whopping 3 Energy for nothing among other rewards like XP, coins and Reputation points (this stat returns from FrontierVille). The more friends you help, the more oomph you'll have to do things back Home. Not to mention you'll look good around your friends, who might come around and help you out some in return.

Gifting:
As we mentioned before, Energy can be gifted to other players for free, which means your friends can do the same for you. Just click on the "Free Gifts" tab that rests on top of the game screen to the left of "Play." From there, you can select one type of gift to give out at a time--in this case that being either 1, 2 or 3 Energy Points (much less than Zynga's other games) with the latter two locked until you reach certain levels.

Collections:
Speaking of gifting, certain Collections (pictured below) in CityVille will yield lots of Energy if completed. This can be done through playing the game normally, collecting from properties like the Toy Shop and Coffee House, but there's a neat little feature called the Wishlist that might help. In your Collections menu (click on the icon to the right of the arrow), you'll see that every item in each Collection has a small button that looks like the RSS symbol. Click that to add it to your Wishlist and then click "Share" to broadcast exactly what you need, which should increase your chances of friends sending you those very items.

Collection
Going about your Business:
Just as it sounds, just doing normal tasks like collecting from properties, planting and/or harvesting crops and chopping down trees all have a chance of restoring spent Energy. Albeit small, work is progress and progress leads to...

Leveling Up:
Second only to visiting friends (personally), gaining levels restores huge amounts of Energy. Nothing beats the feeling of being on your last point of Energy as you build the City Hall, only to level up off of that last point of XP, launching you forward to finish the job.

Unfortunately, there aren't any cheats or get-energy-quick schemes in CityVille that we know of... yet. But with your help, we just might be able to figure out this game's little quirks that might help us maximize our Energy even further. So, if you find any interesting (and possibly unintentional) ways to nab some extra juice, why not let us know? It'll both help this guide and make you look even more awesome in front of your fellow mayors.

FarmVille creator Zynga buys mobile developer, forms Zynga with Friends

Zynga returns to round two of the ongoing mobile title bout swinging. Zynga With Friends, the company's brand new, mobile-focused studio, is thanks to Zynga's most recent acquisition of Texas-based NewToy. Developer of iOS hits such as Words With Friends and We Rule, NewToy will now be Zynga's premiere mobile developer, unifying the company's mobile efforts into one single platform. NewToy's studio will become the location of Zynga With Friends Studio, which is convenient considering the company just opened Zynga Dallas recently.

words with friends is now part of zynga with friends"Our goal is to have is to have Zynga games available to anyone, anywhere on any device," says Zynga SVP of Mobile David Ko. "At Zynga, we're committed to provide the best-of-breed mobile game experiences."

Founded in 2008 by brothers Paul and David Bettner, NewToy has reached over 12 million mobile gamers through games like Words With Friends and Zynga hopes to bring that success to its presence in your phones. Paul, the company's CEO and co-founder will take the helm of Zynga With Friends as vice president and general manager and his brother David will become the studio's director.

"Throughout our acquisition talks we utilized a secret code name for the operation--that codename was 'jet pack,'" Zynga With Friends VP and general manager Paul Bettner says. "We chose jetpack because, to us, that's what this acquisition represented--the potential to strap jet packs to our backs and move even faster toward our shared goals."

However, it's unsure at this point what this means for the company's games that have already landed on mobile such as FarmVille's iPhone game and Mafia Wars: Atlantic City on mobile web browsers. Zynga declined to comment on how NewToy will handle making its new bosses' games--both old and new--available for all mobile devices at once.

Top 25 MySpace games of Dec. 2010: The land beyond Zynga's rule

Top 25 MySpace Games
Thanks to Inside Social, the results are in for this month's top MySpace games and the results would be shocking for anyone who doesn't normally game on the platform. Essentially, things over at MySpace could be known as the bizarro world of social gaming. In a land where MySpace is second fiddle to Facebook, so is Zynga to Playdom in a strangely mirroring way with its hit game Mafia Wars (13.4 million players) beat out by its direct competitor, Playdom's Mobsters (14.9 million players) by over one million players.

However, this list includes products that are more web apps than true social games like Tag Me from BitRhymes sitting in the number 5 spot with 8.4 million users. Though, web apps and games competing for the same audience is also common on Facebook with Phrases recently dethroning FarmVille as the top app in town. In fact, web apps are the majority on MySpace with 12 spots on this list including Bumper Stickers in the number 3 spot with 12.8 million users and Own Your Friends in fourth place with 10.3 million users.

Filling out the rest of this month's top MySpace games are a slew of pet care games such as SuperPoke Pets by Slide in ninth place with RockYou Pets tailing behind them in the 10 spot. Then rest of the list includes more obscure titles by Zynga and Playdom such as the former's Street Racing in the 13 spot and the latter's Bloodlines in 24th place. All in all, it shows that despite the power and insane growth of social games, social web apps can still give this relatively new genre of gaming a challenge.

Treasure Isle: Superhero's Sub bonus quest unlocks the deep sea

Treasure Isle: You need a submarine chassis
You can tell from the World Map that the islands of Atlantis (along with the North Pole and the Egyptian Isles) are still off-limits to Treasure Isle players. But its promise is alive, and two indicators of that are the recent Nexus Relic (probably inspired by the Stargate Atlantis sci-fi series) and now, there's the Superhero's Sub, because a submarine's the best way to reach a sunken island city.
Treasure Isle Bonus Quest: Superhero's sub
To build the sub, you'll need five materials: Gold, Glass, Bolts, Diodes, and Metal. Afterwards, you'll need to recruit your crew, but they don't let you know what that entails until you complete the materials task. You can get the materials by posting a message to your Wall or buying each of them for 1 Island Cash. In total, constructing it should cost you 5 Island Cash, which is pretty cheap, all things considered. But the game indicates that this is for construction of the "Submarine Base", which means you might get another pop-up window asking for more supplies to build the actual sub itself. If that's true, this will suck. Either way, you've got roughly 12 days to find out, because after that, the quest will disappear.

Reuters to social, mobile gamers: 2011 will be better

Oh, the possibilities
Aside from the burgeoning and indisputably successful social and mobile games markets, video game sales suffered a year long slump in 2010. Industry professionals predict that game sales for this year will total four percent lower than 2009. But if a recent Reuters report is any indication, 2011 will be the year of the mobile and social, bringing revenue growth to the industry. And of course, that means more money to make even better social games, which Mark Skaggs, vice president of product development at Zynga, says will have "deeper gameplay, more polish, and be much more and better social experiences."

Carnegie Mellon professor and game developer Jesse Schell predicts that 2011 will ring in games that exist on all platforms from the PC to our phones and to our consoles and TVs, Reuters reports. The news service also predicts that 3D and motion gaming will grow in 2011 thanks to the oncoming Nintendo 3DS, the Xbox Kinect and 3D TVs that will be on display at this year's CES. (Well, on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, at least.)

But as for social and mobile gaming, we've already seen signs of this predicted boom in 2010 with marvels like Angry Birds on iPhone and Android along with the recent CityVille explosion on Facebook. So, 2011 could very well mean even more growth for social and mobile, but don't expect leaps and bounds when it comes to cross-platform play. Well, unless companies like Zynga continue to make use of HTML5 and the mobile web--then we're onto something.