Social Network Gaming: Day 3

So it has been 3 days since I have started playing the social network games and I am already starting to get looks from my wife. Partly because of how addicting the games are, and mostly because I am trying to juggle 5 of them. I am quickly starting to understand how people can get so sucked into the games and how the developers make so much money.

I figured it would be best to go through a rundown of where I am at with each game:


Farmville - Day 3

FarmVille
I took the long route with this to start and decided to plant a series of expensive plants that take longer to grow, but ultimately provide a higher rate of return. Setting up the plots and planting seeds Is super easy but in the beginning it seems as if everything is moving a little slow for me.

The iPhone app dumbs down the visuals but makes for a very helpful compendium app for managing the farm on the go.

This game is rather old so I am having a hard time finding people who still actively play it to fulfill requirements to expand the farm. The game in general seems like a pyramid scheme. You start playing, and when you get "x" amount of more people to play or be your "neighbor" you can expand your farm.

The game is ruled by 2 forms of currency. One you get by growing and selling crops, the other you have to purchase with real money although you can buy both with real money. How convenient!


FrontierVille - Day 3

FrontierVille
Like it's predecessor, FarmVille, you can buy crops and animals to tend to and gain money, but FrontierVille takes it to the next level by making your environment interactive. The land around you constantly grows and requires you to cut down trees, pick up rocks and clobber snakes. Each action requires energy, and once your energy is depleted, you either need to buy food, or wait for your energy bar to refill. Additionally, you are given quests to complete. Quests can reward you a number of things, like experience, money, food, or collectibles.

Just like FarmVille, it is difficult to find "neighbors" to play with. Once you add neighbors however, you can go to their town and perform actions (FarmVille provides similar capabilities).

The pace of FrontierVille in general is faster, but running out of energy is very annoying. When you start the game, your area is completely unkempt, and you are not provided enough action points to do everything you need to. This forces you to have to constantly log in every hour or so and try to finish up what you were doing, but as you wait for you action points to replenish, plants and trees begin to grow back causing you to spend half your points getting back to where you left off.


City of Wonder - Day 3

City of Wonder
This game is FarmVille meets Sid Meier's Civilization. You research technologies, farm crops, and build houses to make your civilization grow. It's great to see so many options and a more in depth experience. Having to build coliseums to make your people happy so more people will come to your village is a welcomed challenge.

This game follows suit with the other in finding neighbors and Ally's. In addition to having Ally's, you can scout out and attack, trade with, or party with other Civilizations.

My only complaint with this game is that your crops whither very fast, so if you do not login often you waste all the money you just spent on seeds. You can setup trade posts and such instead of crops, but you don't get access to them till a little later in the game.

This game also provides a "tech tree" where you research technologies like pottery, writing, and religion to unlock better buildings.
  

Mafia Wars - Day 3


Mafia Wars
I have tangled with games like Mafia Wars in the past so I pretty much new what I was in for. There was a learning curve because how the game has changed over the years.

Mafia Wars, for the most part, is a standard Casual RPG. You have energy to perform jobs,  stamina to attack or steal from others, attack, defense, and health. As you level up you can add points to any one of those. In the beginning I tend to put more points into energy so I can get quick cash to build up my mafia.

You can buy properties that continuously earns you money however you actually have to "collect" the money.

The jobs generally require some sort of equipment to be purchased. If you want to rob a bank, you probably need to have a gun and a getaway car. Later on, you have to do jobs that drop loot and use that loot for other jobs.

The fighting system is pretty simple. You have a mob of x amount of people. Each person can hold a gun, a piece of armor, a car, and a pet(If your into that sort of thing). Each one of those has an attack and defense rating. If you attack someone its your mobs total attack versus their mobs total defense or vice versa if they attack you. This is where social networking really makes a difference. You can friend a bunch of random people, add them to your mob, and be pretty much invincible. I have 11 people in my mob at level 15 and I am constantly finding myself get beat up by people who are the same level with over 100 people in their mobs. This is another reason why I mostly stick to doing jobs.

There is a lot of micro-management involved with this game. every time you log in you need to spend your stamina and energy, then collect from your properties. It seems to be a bit mindless at times, but Mafia Wars seems to have realized that and created missions that either require friends or a combination of jobs and stealing/fighting other mobs. also, at each level of job, you fight a boss that requires you to stack your mafia up against one NPC mob.
 

Bejeweled Blitz - Day 3


Bejeweled Blitz
I have had Bejeweled 2 for quite a while so I knew how to play the regular single player game, but I am terrible at Bejeweled Blitz, so far.

My highest score so far is 86,650.

For the most part it a simple puzzle game where you have 60 seconds to get the highest points possible. Bejeweled Blitz has added "boosts" that give you and edge during game play. Everything from slowing down time, to increasing bonus score, boosts are important to getting the highest score possible. In order to get boosts, you need to play Bejewed Blitz. As you play the game, certain jewels fall that have coins on them, and if you make a match with that jewel you get some cash that you can use to purchase boosts.

Its pretty fun, and super quick to play.
 

Words with Friends - Day 3


Words with Friends
Prior to this hobby, I had already been playing Words with Friends. Words with Friends is an electronic version of scrabble, thats about it. Their really isn't much other flair besides connecting to facebook (and the chat feature?), but it is in it simplicity that excels.

There is a lot of strategy involved in the game. You want to play to the points, but you also want to set yourself up for future move, or block your opponent from getting the dreaded triple word score.

Right now I am juggling 5 games with friends and it is working out nicely. Next to Bejeweled Blitz, this game is requiring the least amount of time and effort to play.