FarmVille Farmer's Market now available for everyone

Sightings of the FarmVille Farmer's Market have been reported all week long, with only a lucky few who had access to this new features. Well, farmers, the wait is over. The Farmer's Market is now available to everyone.

The first mission is to open your Market, and that will require a Market Stall, which can be earned several ways: 1.) By planting and harvesting crops to get a bushel or 2.) By collecting Bushels from friends who are giving them away via their Facebook Walls. Once you have a bushel, the Market Stall will appear in your gift box. You can then place it on your farm and start learning more about how this stall will make it easier to run your farm with maximum success.

To learn more about how this new feature works, check out our FarmVille Farmer's Market: Everything You Need to Know guide.

FarmVille Unreleased Wooden and Steel Underground Storage

Thank you to FarmVille Freak Bamooozle for finding these unreleased FarmVille Wooden and Steel Underground Storage.

Source:

    FarmVille Unreleased Underground Wooden Storage – Zynga FarmVille
    FarmVille Unreleased Underground Steel Storage – Zynga FarmVille


This article originally appeared on FarmVIlle Freak.

FarmVille Feed & Publishing Post Glitches

farmville feed and post glitches
Tonight Zynga issued an error message above the FarmVille Game screen to let farmers know there are currently issues publishing FarmVille posts to the Facebook homefeed. As always, FarmVille Freak has elaborated on Zynga's instructions, making it easier for FarmVille Freaks everywhere!

Current Fix for future posts are as follows:

Go to "Account" (upper right corner of the page)
2. Click on "Edit Friends"
3. On the left hand navigation column under "Lists", click on "Friends"
4. Click on "Create List"
5. Create a new list called "Exclude"
6. IMPORTANT: DO NOT add anyone to this list
7. Click on "Create List" to finish creating the list.
8. In the upper right corner of the page, click on "Account"
9. Click on "Privacy Settings"
10. Click on "Personal Information and Posts"
11. For the "Posts By Me" setting, choose "Custom"
12. For "Make this visible to" choose the setting you want (I use "Friends Only")
13. For "Hide this from", type "Exclude" into the "These People" field.
14. Save Settings
15. You're done – you have new default settings. Your posts will again be available to the people you want to have access to them!

This article originally appeared on FarmVIlle Freak.

New FarmVille crop arrives in the Market - Ginger

A new permanent FarmVille crop has appeared in the Market -- Ginger. You'll have to be at least level 42 to plant the crop.
More info coming soon!

FarmVille Nursery Barn finally gets a purpose: Raising baby animals

FarmVille Nursery Barn also underwent a few changes in the May 28 update -- basically, now it's a building that does more than contain your wobbly legged livestock.

Now those doe-eyed baby calves and foals can now grow up in to adult animals. Each time you harvest the Nursery Barn, you'll have a chance that one of your animals will grow into an adult. You'll also get a baby animal that you can share with your friends.

FrontierVille Sawmill: New building costs a pretty penny

A new building landed in the Market today: the Sawmill. This new structure costs 30,000 coins, 40 wood, and you'll get 27 XP if you decide to buy this luxury item (a luxury for pioneers anyway). Too rich for my blood -- for now, at least.

What do you think of the new Sawmill?

Take a gander at the new FrontierVille Goose and Goose Collection

frontierville goose collection

Got a picture of your geese? Send it to libe@games.com and I'll feature it here.


Bookmark this site!

Wishlist: How FarmVille can take full advantage of the iPhone

Zynga's newly released iPhone version of FarmVille is a passable if flawed miniaturization of its popular PC cousin. But the move to Apple's popular mobile phone brings with it the opportunity to add some rather unique new gameplay to the familiar farming experience. Here are just a few ideas for how Zynga can take full advantage of the iPhone hardware to make a better (or at least a fresher) overall game.

Geo-location: Visiting your virtual neighbors in FarmVille is all well and good, but sometimes you want to see what's going on with your actual neighbors. With the iPhone's built-in GPS (and IP-based geo-location for iPod users), this should be easy enough to implement. Simply let players opt-in to share their locations, then let them visit other farms are being shared in a set radius (anywhere from a few feet to a few hundred miles should be available). In addition to helping people discover new FarmVille freaks in their area, this feature could also let businesses and attractions set up virtual farms that are only accessible by visiting their real-world locations.

Text message harvesting: The iPhone version of FarmVille finally brings push notification of harvesting times, a great boon for on-the-go farmers that can't keep track of their schedules. As it stands now, though, iPhone players still have to load up the game and go through the onerous process of tapping all of their crops -- a process that can take entire minutes. Who has that kind of time? This is the new millennium! Why not let people harvest all their crops with a simple text message to Zynga.

Yes, this feature would actively encourage people to neglect spending time in the game, but so do time-saving features like tractors and unwithers, and people pay good virtual money (and sometimes real money) for those features. I can just see the ads now: "Text 'harvest' to 01223 and get those pesky crops out of the ground. Texts cost 2 FV cash for the first and 1 FV cash for each additional harvest per week, plus your telephone provider's fees. Text NOW!
Tilt to plow: Some of the iPhone's best games don't use the touchscreen at all, instead letting players simply tilt their phones to control everything from spaceships to tiny ball bearings to... whatever this thing is. Surely it can be used to control a virtual tractor as well, no? Just thing of the wild farm designs that could easily be created with a few deft flicks of the wrist. Of course, as it stands the game's graphics might not be responsive enough to allow for easy tilting controls, so maybe Zynga should get to work on that problem first. It's OK, we'll wait.

Personalized photo crops: The iPhone camera has revolutionized many games, from... um... well... OK, there aren't that many great games that take good advantage of the iPhone's camera yet. But Farmville could be one of the first by letting players convert their photos into personalized crop images. Why just grow ears of corn when you could instead grow a picture of your significant other, or Barack Obama, or even Bishop Desmond Tutu (cutest crop ever!). True, there would be a small risk of visiting a friend's farm and seeing dozens of pictures of their junk sprouting out of the ground, but really, if that happens, well, maybe you need to find some new friends.

Augmented reality farming: While the personalized crops discussed above could theoretically be implemented on the PC version of Farmville, this next idea would be much harder to do without a smartphone. Augmented reality, in this case, simply means point your iPhone video camera at the nearest table, book or other flat surface and seeing your farm displayed on-screen resting on top of that surface. Just picture it -- wheat growing out of your homework! Cows mooing on top of your bedspread! A grove of trees on... the carpet! Yeah, OK, this is actually starting to sound pretty lame now that we type it out. NEXT!

Audio commentary: Letting your best friend know their farming skills are "teh lamez0rs" via a signpost comment is all well and good, but just imagine how much more fun it could be to use the iPhone's built-in microphone to actively curse out their farming skills with your own voice (or we guess you could leave a nice comment too. If you really wanted to). But why stop there? Why not let players record detailed audio commentaries that take visiting friends from your elegantly designed koi pond garden to the haybale picture of Justin Beiber. Zynga could even add complex editing tools to give your virtual tour that Ken Burns effect.

That's all we've got for now, but we're sure there's iPhone farming possibilities we've left out

FrontierVille Thorns and Cactus: Decorative but dangerous

If you were a little too vigilant with clearing your FrontierVille homestead and want to restore some of the land's wild side, thorns and cactus may now be purchased in the market. Both cost 8 Horseshoes and buying one will earn you 8XP.

FrontierVille: Enter the Water Feature Contest to win 500 Free Horseshoes

Just in time to combat the scorching summer, FrontierVille opened the flood gates containing a batch of new water decorations. Among the newly released items were geysers, swimming holes, hot tubs, and all kinds of other wet decor.

Now, FrontierVille is holding a water decoration contest and will be awarding 500 free Horseshoes to the winner!

Ordinarily 500 Horseshoes would cost over fifty dollars, so this is not a contest you want to miss. Imagine, with that many Horseshoes you could buy either 125 Horses, 100 Dinner Bells, 50 All You Can Eat energy refills, 25 Fishing holes, or whatever else your FrontierVille spouse and child may desire.

Continue reading for details on how to enter to win 500 free Horseshoes in FrontierVille.
From the FrontierVille Forums:

"Howdy Pardners!

The FrontierVille team wants to see how creative you have been while decorating with the Water Features recently released. Post a screenshot of your homestead focusing on the water features and you can win 500 Horseshoes.

The winning entry will also be featured on FrontierVilles fan page!

The Rules:

    One entry per person.
    You must post your entry to this thread. You may use any free image hosting website to display the picture. Guide to posting screenshots of your homesteads.
    Your image may be cropped and resized but you may not photoshop or otherwise edit the content of your image.
    Your entry must be of your homestead you cannot enter a friend or neighbors homestead.
    No insulting or making negative comments about other contest entries, this will not be allowed and may result in the disqualification of your entry.
    All entries must be posted to the forums by
    August 3rd 2010 8am PST and 11am EST


The Prize

    500 Horseshoes goes to the top chosen homestead.


Please be aware that Facebook images will not post here on the forums if you have specific permissions set. We recommend uploading all images to an image host such as imageshack or Jing. Please see http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?p=5170289 for additional information.

Selection of Winners

    The top 10 Homesteads will be selected by the FrontierVille team. A poll will then be created for you to vote for your favorite homestead out of the 10. The top choice will win 500 Horseshoes."


If you have any questions about the contest rules, please PM one of the moderators on the FrontierVille forums or post a comment here and we will try to answer any questions you may have.

A bunch of great submissions have already been posted so head to the official contest thread to check them out and enter to win the 500 free FrontierVille Horseshoes yourself.

Click here to view the contest entry page>

Mafia Wars Cheats & Tips: How to find a Car Key Copy

One of the consumable items you're going to need to complete jobs in Mafia Wars Las Vegas is a Car Key Copy. Much like the Wire Tap Device or Untraceable Cell Phone in New York, you have to earn the Car Key Copy by doing a job -- specifically, the Blackmail A Car Dealer job in North Las Vegas (this is a job if you take the Energy path). It takes 9 energy to do the job, and you'll get a Car Key Copy (alternating with construction materials) every few times that you do the job.

blackmail a car dealer
The Car Key Copies are then used as a consumable item for the Secure Some Wheels job in North Las Vegas (again, only for the Energy path). I didn't have enough keys to complete the Wheels job, so had to go back and do the Blackmail A Car Dealer job again several times, even though it was already 100% mastered.

mafia wars secure some wheels
What do you think of Mafia Wars Vegas? Is it the best yet?

Verdonia Cheats & Tips: Five easy ways to level up fast

Verdonia is a Facebook game developed by Playdom that throws you into the ancient time of knights and ladies. Your goal is to build your kingdom from the ground up and eventually amass enough resources to create your army and be the most dominant force among your circle of friends or allies. This quick start guide will provide you with tips to get started playing Verdonia.

Follow Suggested Quests

Once you start the game, you are given a handful of resources which are necessary for your advancement in the game (food, wood, iron, stone and gold.) You have a quest book which suggests the immediate quests for you to grow your town and kingdom. Do these quests first as they are designed to help you further grow your resources. This will also help you further understand how the game mechanics go.
Verdonia

Each quest has a corresponding reward upon completion. Some rewards could be a simple pile of wood, while some can be a combination of all resources used in the game (food, wood, iron, stone and gold). Once you finish a quest, go back to the quest book and collect your reward. If you forget to collect the reward, the book of quests will flash with a number in the toolbar.
Verdonia

Acquire Allies

Getting allies is another big factor in this game. There are some scenarios that pop up during game play where announcing it to your circle of friends (allies) will help you amass resources. The more allies you have, the better chance that someone will help and reward you.
Verdonia
Visiting your allies also help gain resources. As you visit, scenarios also appear in the town of your ally wherein you are asked to help out. Accepting the task will reward you with more resources. This can however only be done ONCE a day, so the more allies you can visit means more resources.

Spend your Resources to Level Up

In order to level up in this game, you need to get GLORY points (experience points). The easiest way to get glory points is to simply spend your resources. Anything you do in the game requires spending resources – a mix of wood, iron, stone, food and gold. Building structures is the most common way to spend these items. Building a cottage, one of the first structures you need to build, will earn you 1 glory point.

Upgrading the structures earns even bigger glory points. That same cottage that earned you 1 point will earn you 3 points when you upgrade it to a level 2 cottage. Upgrading it to level 3 will earn you 6 glory points and so on.

How to Earn More Resources

Since you want to spend to gain glory points, you need to earn more of those resources to actually keep on spending. Make sure that the buildings which produce those resources are producing enough to sustain your expenses. Although all the five resources are earned as rewards for quests are done, you need a steady inflow of them.
Remember not to spend your limited resources at the start of the game on buildings in your town. Go to your field and upgrade your Farm (producing food), Mine (producing iron), Logging Camp (producing wood) and Quarry (producing stone). This will not only boost your production of their respective products but the process of upgrading them will also earn you glory points. And remember, upgrading actually earns you more points.
Verdonia

Earning gold however is a different process. This resource is earned from the taxes you impose on the citizens of your kingdom. This means the more people you have, the more taxes you will be able to collect. So aside from maintaining good producing farms, mines, quarries and logging camps in your field, maintain a number of cottages in your town proper to assure a large enough population that will pay the taxes. And remember to upgrade these cottages too to earn those extra glory points.

The faster you can build and upgrade these important structures, the sooner you can actually forget about your resources getting depleted and start focusing on recruiting and training your army for world domination.

Upgrade your Town Center

Aside from your resource buildings, try to upgrade your town center as soon as possible. The town center is your City Hall and the higher the level of this building, the more possibilities open up for you, such as constructing other building types and acquiring other towns.
Verdonia
From this building, you can see your whole kingdom and all your possessions at a single glance. This allows you to see what buildings you have and which need upgrading.

This article originally appeared on Gamezebo >

Is Disney's big splurge on Playdom a smart move?

Yesterday, Disney announced that it was spending more than half-a-billion dollars to buy Playdom, the third largest social game publisher responsible for Facebook games, such as Social City, Sorority Life and Wild Ones.

While this move makes it clear that Disney's ready to get elbow-deep in social gaming, one analyst tells Gamasutra that Disney's latest acquisition is looking "very expensive," and that the Mouse House might not get a good return on investment for several reasons, including the fact that social games are losing players by the week. For instance, the most popular Facebook game, FarmVille, dropped roughly 20 million players in a matter of months, and lesser games haven't fared much better.

    "We believe the dynamics of the social gaming space are becoming increasingly commoditized and fad-based, and attracting gamers could become an exercise in increasingly aggressive marketing budgets, impacting the economics of the social gaming model," warns the analyst.

Other reasons for questioning Disney's big splurge are historical. The company bought the kid's social gaming site Club Penguin for the same deal several years ago -- offering a huge chunk of cash plus bonus performance incentives. And, the analyst says, Club Penguin never met Disney's expectations, and missed out on banking a few million dollars. Why would Playdom be any different? He also wonders why Disney paid double what EA paid for Playfish last year,. even though Playdom's monthly active user base is 15% smaller -- a great question which I don't expect have answered anytime soon.

Right now, what Disney's plans are with Playdom are still unknown, though I'll speculate Disney will let Playdom keep on with its more successful social games, close Playdom's lesser social games, launch the ESPN games the two companies were already working on together and then start looking in-house at existing brands to see if any of them would work on Facebook.

Games.com blog readers (yes, you!) have not been enthusiastic about the Playdom takeover by Disney. From the Games.com Facebook fanpage:

"Judging from how Disney manages to rewrite (and IMO RUIN) stories for animation, charge too much for their @#$% merchandise which is marketed directly to CHILDREN, I do not want Disney to take over the world or have more social networks or more of anything," one reader says.

"[Disney] just likes to, steal, and buyout other peoples success. Its a very cut throat company, who dosent care about the people who support it," says another.

Disney buys Playdom: Good move or bad?
Great!BadDon't think it will make a differenceDon't really care
VoteView ResultsShare ThisPolldaddy.com

FarmVille Bakery Crafting Building: How to go from farmer to master baker

FarmVille Crafting Buildings have finally made their way to the game. Farmers level 25 and up have access to three crafting buildings -- a Winery, Spa and Bakery. What's the purpose of these buildings? In addition to giving you something to do with all those bushels you've been getting from you and your friends' Farmers Market, the main motivation is fuel. That's right, make stuff in your Bakery, and you'll ultimately be rewarded with sweet fuel to power your tractor and other farming equipment.

Most of my fellow farmers chose the Winery (says a lot, doesn't it?), so I decided to play contrarian and pick the Bakery as my crafting building. After all, who doesn't love a nice baked good, even virtual ones? To start on your way to becoming a master baker, choose the bakery from the Crafting is Here! pop-up window. I previously chose the bakery, so I just had to click the 'Yes Place' button to set the bakery on my farm.

bakery crafting

A Tip: Make your you clear out some room for your new crafting building -- it might require a little more space than you might expect. Once the Bakery is placed, you can get to work, well, baking.

If you didn't select the bakery several weeks ago, and you want to make the switch, click 'Choose Another' and then pick the building you want. farmville bakery inside

To get a better idea at what bushels you'll need to craft items for your bakery, take a look at the recipes and bushels required to make each:

Pumpkin Bread
- 4 Pumpkin Bushels
- 4 Wheat Bushels

Strawberry Shortcake
- 4 Strawberry Bushels
- 4 Wheat Bushels

Spicy Muffins
- 3 Carrot Bushels
- 1 Pepper Bushel
- 3 Ghost Chili Bushels

Pattypan Tart
- 3 Pattypan Squash Bushels
- 2 Onion Bushels
- 3 Rice Bushels

There are several ways to get the bushels you need. You can plant and harvest crops and hope you get bushels from there; you can shop at a friend's Farmer's Market and buy bushels from them using coins or you can snag bushels for free from friends' Facebook Wall posts.

Once you have the right ingredients you can choose to make a good, and like all things in FarmVille, you'll then have to wait a certain amount of time for it to be complete.
farmville bakery

You have the option to cook multiple recipes at a time, and the more you level up your bakery, the more ovens you unlock.

Once your goods are ready, you can sell them (there's also a sales report to let you know what friends have been buying), which will help you level up your recipe.
farmville bakery goods for sale

You also have the option to trade in goods for gas (and other rewards later on). To trade in goods, click the 'Use' button (see image below).

farmville bakery use items and trade them in for fuel

Like the rest of the Crafting Buildings, the Bakery can be leveled up using Farm Cash or coins. As the Bakery gains more stars, it's appearance will start to change, and the modest Bakery that you started out with in the beginning will get more frills the higher its star rating.

farmville bakery

After you're all set, just keep on baking until you reach five stars. Best part about this Bakery? You can bake to your heart's content and won't be tempted by yummy treats.

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

FarmVille Recycling coming soon

Based on these unreleased items and ribbons, it seems that FarmVille is getting set to roll out a new recycling feature.

In addition to a new cursor, recycling boxes, ribbons, and a recycling bar, one of the unreleased images is of two people sharing a blue recycling box which implies that players will be able to recycle or share gifts with their neighbors.
farmville recycling center
There are also a number of ribbons that are tied to the new recycling feature. They will probably be rewarded based on the recycling center bar above, one being awarded at each benchmark. The final ribbon, Recycle Swapper, poses more of a mystery. My guess is that it is linked to the neighbor recycling feature. The ribbons are as follows:
recycle army
Recycle
Army
    farmville recycle humanitarian
Recycle
Humanitarian
    farmville recycle munificent
Recycle
Munificent
    farmville recycle swapper
Recycle
Swapper
Stay tuned to The Blog as we track all the news surrounding this new environmentally friendly FarmVille recycling feature.

FarmVille Unreleased Modern Cottage, Train Crossing, Train Tracks, & Train Tracks v2

FarmVille Train enthusiasts will be happy to know that Train Tracks may be coming to FarmVille. We've seen FarmVille Freaks build their own roads using haybales and other creative material to give their farm some transportation infrastructure, but this will be the first time that FarmVille has offered them in the Market.

Thank you to FarmVille Freak Teresa for finding these unreleased FarmVille Modern Cottage, Train Crossing, Train Tracks, & Train Tracks v2 items!

This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

FarmVille iPhone App Updated v.1.05

farmville iphone update
Today Zynga released an update for its FarmVille app for iPhone.

Continue reading to see what's new.
The September 1st 2010 update, version 1.05, includes fixes for the following:

    Fixed loading issues and crashes for large farms.
    Fixed "Out of Sync" error when sending iPhone exclusive gifts.
    Fixed crash when ignoring pending gifts.
    Fixed crash when visiting multiple neighbors.


This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

Have you noticed an improvement with your mobile farming with this update?

YoVille: Get a sneak peek at the new Romantic House!

Take a tour through the Romantic House now available at the Realtor Office.

When you walk into the living room there is a door to the bathroom and a door to the kitchen. From the kitchen are two doors one leading to the bedroom and the other to the backyard. The stairs off the living room lead to the landing and there are 2 doors one leading to master bathroom the other to master bedroom. From master bedroom is a Balcony.

Continue reading to embark on a tour of the new YoVille Romantic House.

yoville romantic house
Front Yard

yoville romantic house
Fountain Area

yoville romantic house
Living Room

yoville romantic house
Back Yard

yoville romantic house
Balcony that's off of the Master Bedroom

yoville romantic house
Kitchen

yoville romantic house
Green House in the backyard

This article originally appeared on YoVille Lounge.

YoVille Romantic Living Room items added in the furniture store

yoville romantic living room items
New Romantic living room furniture was added to the YoVille Furniture Store. Different sets are available in white, brown, purple and red. Ten new wallpapers, beautiful new doors, pillars as well as the new romantic window and plants will add a nice touch to any room.

Check the full list of items and prices after the link.
yoville romantic living room items
yoville romantic living room items
yoville romantic living room items
yoville romantic living room items
yoville romantic living room items
yoville romantic living room items
yoville romantic living room items
This article originally appeared on YoVille Lounge.

FrontierVille says 'You can play in a tree house if you give us your email'

FrontierVille wants to stay in touch so much that players who allow the game to email 'em news are now rewarded with a free Tree House. The Tree House originally appeared in stores as a Limited Edition item back in July, and cost 20 Horseshoes. All you've gotta do is click on the "Yes", and the Tree House will be in your inventory and ready to be placed anywhere on your homestead.

Past game offers for ponying up your e-mail included a free horse, and even free meals for your daily energy needs! The latter offer is still currently available at the "Special" and "Energy" sections of the in-game store. Just click on the "Market" icon to get there, then look for "Meal Deal".

FrontierVille Cafe World Mission: Plant tomatoes to score free spices

FrontierVille really seems to be getting around this week. First, the Wild West game launches a cross promotion with FarmVille, then Mafia Wars and now with Cafe World. So, if you think spice is nice (especially Instant Spice that eliminates cooking time for dishes), then you'll want to take on FrontierVille's Cafe World Mission.
cafe world instant spices

To get started, open Cafe World and you will see a pop-up that will take you to FrontierVille.
frontiervillle cafe world quest

You'll see the Cafe World icon on the left-hand side of your screen (or go to the new Missions menu), click on it and it will open the Quest. There is only one part to this quest that actually requires you to do anything, and it's pretty simple to get done. Here's what you need to do:

frontierville cafe world tomatoes1. Clear Five Grass
If you already cleared your grass today, just wait until tomorrow.

2. Plant Ten Tomatoes
Buy tomatoes in the Market. They cost 25 coins each, and will be ready to harvest in 15 minutes.

3. Harvest Ten Tomatoes
After the 15 minutes are up, harvest the tomatoes. You'll get 2 XP, and 30 coins for harvesting each plant.Don't do what I did and walk away from your computer and forget about these tomatoes -- they wither quickly.

After this is complete, you'll be presented with the Cafe World Quest II, which is simply, to claim your reward. To do that --

cafe world frontierville quest

After you click the button, you'll be taken back to Cafe World where you will see the following notification. When you're ready to use your Instant Spice, open your Spice Rack and they should be there waiting for you.

cafe world frontierville spice reward

The Easiest Free Playfish Cash You'll Ever Earn

Playfish Add Playfish Cash window
Compared to Zynga and Crowdstar, Playfish is incredibly stingy with offering free premium cash to its players. Zynga games like PetVille and Cafe World, always have free Pet Cash or Cafe Cash giveways on their official Facebook fanpages, and even through in-game activities (e.g. Cafe World's Scratch Lotto and PetVille's Daily Clean Pet Bonus). Zynga also supplies plenty of simple and easy activities from sponsors that allow players to earn premium cash through answering questions and viewing videos. Even Crowdstar lets players earn one free premium cash every time they level up in their games, but Playfish only did that once, back when they were busy promoting Hotel City in April.
Earn Playfish Cash
It's true that when you click on "Add Playfish Cash" in the Playfish games, you'll see a swarm of survey options from TrialPay. But I've reviewed these survey offers here, and concluded that they often end up wasting their time and those of the players'.
Free Playfish Cash from Kia Motors, Sony Ericsson, and VH1
Well, finally, there's a chance to snag some simple, fuss-free, no-giving-over-your-personal-info or emails or paying-real-cash or subscribe-to-random-things for free PFC! Because right now, there's three video-watching offers from Kia Motors, Sony Ericsson, and VH1 in TrialPay that'll net you 1 PFC each. Players who know how hard it is to get PFC would understand how rare an opportunity this is. All PFC earned here is good for use in Restaurant City, Hotel City, Pirates Ahoy!, Pet Society, et al. And even if you don't play any Playfish games, it's best you don't miss out.

FarmVille: How to get the adoptable Himalayan cat

FarmVille Himalayan Cat
In tonight's FarmVille update, one unannounced addition is the new Himalayan Cat. Like all adoptable animals, occasionally you will be prompted to share this cat with your friends on your Facebook wall. To get your own Himalayan Cat, scour your newsfeed for a cat from your friends, and be one of the first to click on it to claim it.

The Himalayan Cat is harvestable once every day, and gives a coin bonus for clicking on it. It's an adorable little kitty cat, so you know you want one!
FarmVille Himalayan Cat

Have you received a Himalayan Cat yet from your friends?

FarmVille Oktoberfest continues with new decor and animals

FarmVille is continuing the Oktoberfest celebration with a set of new animals, decorations, and buildings to celebrate this German holiday. With 7 FV Cash items and 2 expensive coins items, there isn't really something here for everyone. Even the little goat and big will set you back over 13 Farm Cash. If you haven't rushed to log in to the game yet to see what's new, read below for the full list of new items.

Buildings:

Festival Wheel - 38 Farm Cash
Festival Tent - 34 Farm Cash

Animals:

Alpine Goat - 14 Farm Cash
Black Pied Pig - 18 Farm Cash

Decorations:

Festival Gnome - 18 Farm Cash
Festival Pavilion - 240,000 coins
Cider Stand - 120,000 coins
Festival Carriage - 22 Farm Cash
German Gnome - 18 Farm Cash

These items are available for only 10 days, which is when we can presume the Oktoberfest event will be ending in FarmVille.

What do you think of the new Oktoberfest items? Which is your favorite?

CrowdStar launches Facebook's next pirate adventure, Mighty Pirates

Mighty Pirates
If you've yet to get your fill of "yarrg's," cannon blasts and buried treasure from games like Pirates Ahoy!, then you might enjoy Mighty Pirates, the newest game form CrowdStar. Still in its (open) early alpha phase, Mighty Pirates lets players assume the role of a swashbuckler on the high seas as they search for buried treasure and a good fight.

You're able to approach other islands and search them for treasure much like in Zynga's Treasure Isle, though there is also the option to get into turn-based scraps with other ships, if you so desire. Your crew leader will level up over time, increasing stats and opening avenues to new abilities and items. Mighty Pirates might also mark a first for social games: the possibility of losing experience points. A now-dated feature of traditional role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, fleeing or losing fights will cause players to actually lose some experience points they've gained.

Mighty Pirates looks like a bold move by CrowdStar into the realm of--dare we say--hardcore Facebook games. But because the game just released, expect bugs and possibly crashes. For example, as of this writing we can't even get into the game. Such is life in live alpha testing.

Restaurant City's Mad Scientist says goodbye with a free 1,000 Coins

Week of the Living Dead is coming to an end in Restaurant City, and that means the Mad Scientist is packing his bags at the Restaurant City Facebook fanpage too. As a goodbye present, he's giving out 1,000 Coins to fans here, and the game itself is already advertising the new upcoming Trick or Treat theme that's set to hit this Thursday! Check the official Restaurant City blog for a full preview. (Note: Item prices are never listed there, so you'll have to wait until the goods hit the store for the costs.)

Social City Update: New terrain items transform cities into mountain valleys

While the Halloween festivities are, of course, still among us, Playdom continues to push tiny updates to Social City much like today's terrain update. Players can finally terraform their cities into bustling mountain valleys with five new terrain options:

    Spencer's Butte: 15 City Cash, 10,000 Happiness and 325 XP
    Skinner's Butte: 50,000 coins, 5,500 Happiness and 170 XP
    Autumn Hills: 15,000 coins, 1,500 Happiness and 60 XP
    Snowy Peak: 40 City Cash, 40,000 Happiness and 1,850 XP
    Stony Peak: 2.5 million coins, 40,000 Happiness and 5,370 XP



While these new terrain items are horribly expensive, they will both grant your people mounds of happiness and you gobs of precious XP. In addition to the new land masses, there is also a limited edition Garden Center building that the Playdom community team announced was included in the update, though it's nowhere to be found. Hopefully the item is included in the game shortly. In the meantime, enjoy saving up for your not-so-quite mountain town.

Happy Aquarium Halloween Gifts, Pirate Shark and Vampire Puppy join the celebration

Halloween Gifts
For our friends under the sea, or rather in the tank, Halloween is a long-winded celebration of costumes, decorations and now free gifts. Through Halloween, there are three new decorations in CrowdStar's Happy Aquarium that friends can send amongst each other for free. (Man, we love that word.) These three items would fit perfectly with the recently released Halloween background and bedding set, but a living tree would lend charm to almost any arrangement. Come on, who didn't love the Ents?

Join us behind the break for a look at two limited, costumed additions to the Happy Aquarium family.
Vampire Puppy     Pirate Shark
Taking a Sandy Cheeks approach to the water is the Vampire Puppy, an adorable costumed dog for 35 Facebook Credits or $3.50. For 48 Facebook Credits, or $4.80, the Pirate Shark--complete with goofy hat, eye patch and hook-- can be yours. While the Pirate Shark fits in right at home, we can't really see a Vampire Puppy in our tanks no matter how cute it is. Land animals in Happy Aquarium need to at least be funny like the Edward and Jacob nods, which were hilarious.

Pet Society Treasure Hunt: New Graveyard and updated Lost Treasures maps hide Halloween items through Oct. 31

Lost Treasures Map
Just in time for the rest of Pet Society's Halloween events and items comes two (sort of) new Treasure Hunt maps: the brand new Graveyard map and the updated Lost Treasures map, which will exclusively yield Halloween items through Oct. 31. Players will get five free shots at buried Halloween treasure a day on each map, just like always.

However, the selection of Halloween items in the Lost Treasures map will randomize on a timer just to mix things up. For the next two and a half hours as of this writing, it looks as if you'll be able to find a jack-o-lantern candy basket, a black couch, a trick-or-treat bag, a wreath of garlic, a shaking tile, an orange balloon, a pinup of a ghostly pet that looks an awful lot like Marilyn Monroe and what appears to be a vanity for what we'll assume is costume make up. (Say that five times fast.) So, act quickly if any of those items sound enticing to you before they change again.

Check after the break for a look at the new Graveyard Treasure Hunt map.

Graveyard Map
The brand new Graveyard map is located just to left of the snowy peaks and thankfully contains a specific set of Halloween-themed items (pictured below) in addition to a chance to yield one of seven parts of the Spooky Halloween Graveyard Decor set. This set of items will grow as one as you collect its seven pieces, creating a sort of super item when you've completed it.

Graveyard Items
While that Luminous Cute Halloween Ghost is adorable, we know that you're all going to go gaga over that Monster Under the Bed. Though, that might be a bit too much for the little one to handle. We imagine these items will be available for some time after Halloween considering the new map just released on Oct. 14, but anything is possible. So get to digging--and be smart about your moves--before the big night is upon us.

FarmVille: Snow Cone and Cottoncandy Trees no longer limited time

In tonight's FarmVille update, along with the massive features comes a couple of minor changes that will make players happy. Two trees from the Country Fair theme, the Snow Cone Tree and the Cottoncandy Tree have now been made not limited time. Previously, they were set to expire before the theme ended, but now the expiration has been removed.

This is actually a huge help to players because they now have the option to finish their mastery in those trees before they are taken away. Nothing is more annoying than being so close to mastering something and having it removed just before you can finish.

Additionally, the Bubble Gum Tree has now been made an addition to the store. This expensive 30 Farm Cash tree was only available as a seedling from having Cottoncandy or Snow Cone trees in your orchard. You can now buy this tree outright, which is great because it definitely stands out from all other trees.

FarmVille Mystery Game offers "Best Of" items this week

This week's Mystery Game in FarmVille is a bit of a throwback, being comprised of a "Best of" theme of items - those items that are apparently some of users' favorites, which have made a quick, week-long comeback to the game.

The prizes for this week's Mystery Game are the Antique Home, Red Squirrel, Backyard Pool, Raccoon, Pied Peacock, and Panther Cub. These items, as usual, range in rarity from Common to Rare, and you'll have to pay 16 Farm Cash per go at the game to get any of these items that you want.

This "Best Of" Mystery Game will only be available until next Tuesday night, when another round of the game, filled with different (perhaps even new) items will take its place, so play fast if you want a chance at collecting all six of this week's items.

FishVille releases round two of Thanksgiving decorations

Just a few days ago, FishVille released a small set of Thanksgiving decoration which we weren't too impressed with. Tonight, another round of decorations has hit the FishVille store, and we think these ones are a bit better. They will cost you some Sand Dollars though, as just about every new item available requires you to pay with the hard-to-get currency. These items do not have an expiration date, but we imagine they won't be around much longer after Thanksgiving next Thursday. Here are the new items that you can find:

Diving Turkey - 14 Sand Dollars
Green Maple Tree - 10 Sand Dollars
Mayflower - 8 Sand Dollars
Table Sandbenches - 5 Sand Dollars
Turkey Gun - 4 Sand Dollars
Mashed Potatoes - 10,000 coins
Pilgrim Hat - 20,000 coins

That is about it, bringing the grand total of Thanksgiving items to 13. It's still possible that we'll see more as there is over a week left until Thanksgiving.

Cafe Life: Adopt Gobbles the Turkey in time for Thanksgiving

Cafe Life has released yet another adoptable pet, and this one is just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. Gobbles the Turkey is available by clicking on the sidebar icon, and can be purchased for 50 Facebook Credits or you can ask your friends for help. If you don't want to pay, you can send a message out to your friends on your wall asking for references. If you collect 5 references, you can unlock this pet. You can only work on one pet at a time, so if you're still working on another pet you will have to wait.

This little Gobbles is cute, because he's actually wearing a costume. It is only available for a limited time. The other available pets currently in Cafe Life are the Witch Cat and the White Puppy, but you can only have one pet at a time.

Are you trying for Gobbles the Turkey? What other pets do you want to see in Cafe Life?

FrontierVille Care Packages: Get the items you need soon

Use our free Care Package gifting links to get started with FrontierVille Care Packages.

Care PackageFinally, something I actually need. FrontierVille is next in line to receive Zynga's adaptation of FarmVille's Special Delivery: the Care Package. This new, intelligent item will only be giftable through homestead visits and will grant players with items they actually need. Whether it contains building materials, school supplies, mission items and even collectibles, whatever is in that Care Package will always contribute to something you're currently working toward.

Again, only visiting a friend's homestead will give you the option of sending them a Care Package. However, you can only access these gifts through the traditional Game Requests page on Facebook and only then will the item appear in your inventory, but that's not all. You'll then have to take the package from your inventory and then open on the homestead to see what's inside. While it's a bit of work, at least everyone gets extra Cloth, Energy and items they'll need out of the deal. Care Packages are going to be a fun time when this thing catches on, let me tell you.