The Castleville board.

With each new “-Ville” game, Zynga adds something new to their base clicker gameplay. Their latest, Castleville, adds fairly involved crafting to the farming mechanic from Farmville and the town building and creature fighting mechanic from Frontierville. Cityville’s trading game and Empires & Allies rudimentary PvP are absent here.

The majority of the Castleville board is hidden beneath a “gloom” that can be dismissed via exploration, that can expose new resources and NPCs with which to expand your kingdom. The ever-helpful NPCs you meet will lead you through the game with quests, as in all the previous games.

I usually give Zynga games a couple months, but it’s gone from my Facebook stream now. The picture below tells the story.

Castleville owns my timeline

Castleville friggin’ took over my timeline. I post pictures to Facebook, chat with my family and non-G+ aware friends. When I look at my timeline to see at a glance what is happening, and all I see is Castleville… well, that can’t happen.

This isn’t the only annoying feature Castleville adds. Recent Zynga games have let you spam only your friends that are also playing the same game. Castleville does not give you this option. You can only select from a list of every friend in your list, or those who have played at least one game at some point (so, pretty much every friend on your list). You can’t limit your spam to just Castleville friends, or just Zynga friends.

Castleville by itself isn’t a bad game, and the crafting is innovative (though since it uses non- or very slow-renewing resources, you’re forced to do most of your harvesting in your friends’ kingdoms). You no longer need to click your harvests — you can just wave your mouse over items to instantly collect them. I’d have liked to have seen that in Frontierville.

The timeline I wanted to see.

I’d have liked to have played Castleville some more. But it’s just too damn annoying and way too noisy. Thankfully, removing the app lets you have your timeline back.

Magic Castle for Sale: Sold!

A few days ago I was trying to define what I thought of as an MMO. I started off thinking it was just a realtime, online game with other players, but as the day went on, thinking about it more, I felt it had to include a persistent avatar representing the player that could be named and customized. I was pretty confident that nailed the essential nature of an MMORPG.

Well, Zynga’s newest semi-interactive “Ville” game is going to bring MMO gaming to Facebook. Via Massively,

You can build your castle, show it to your friends, and craft things like potions or armor. You can follow the game’s story and its characters. You can trade and barter with friends by visiting their towns. And you have to defend your town against beasts who are outside the walls. The game has more personalized storytelling; players explore the world around them. You meet characters and make them happy and unlock new characters as you progress.

“In short, Zynga is bringing massively multiplayer role-playing games to the mass market,” Jackson said.

If this sort of non-realtime probable clickfest is the future of MMOs, then the genre is dead. It does sound like, after CityVille and Empires & Allies nudged into SimCity and Civilization territory, that it will be returning to the avatar-based gameplay of Farmville and Frontierville. Of Frontierville, the NY Times writes:

Cityville, its biggest game, has picked up a little steam recently with 13.5 million daily users, according to AppData. FrontierVille, however, has been sliding faster than a pioneer bitten by a varmint. Introduced in June 2010, FrontierVille peaked with nine million daily players but now has about 5 percent of that.

So there’s a winning strategy right there, I guess. Zynga has to keep pumping out the games ever faster because people tire of them ever faster. How fast Zynga can shovel new games at us now? They have 2500 people writing them!

But there’s more stuff to talk about than Sims Medieval clones! After the break!
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Treasure Abyss' goodbye message

I was on a quest last year for a Facebook game that was really a *game*, especially some sort of RPG. The great thing about Facebook games is that there are so _many_ of them, that there’s bound to be a couple that appeal.

I fell pretty hard for Treasure Abyss, a whimsical RPG from gaming giant Namco Bandai that let you create a party formed from your character and those of your friends and kill dragons and other stuff. I sunk a lot of time and a fair bit of money into the game. I don’t mind paying for games if I’m having fun.

After awhile, I moved on and so did Namco Bandai. Treasure Abyss development slowed; in the time since I stopped playing six months or so ago, they have added just one dungeon, a very short dungeon meant for new players. One new (hideously expensive) set of armor that can be worn by all classes, a couple new magician weapons and a daily lottery spin.

Even the most casual player would long have completed and left the game. Still, it’s sad to see it close down.

Dear Treasure Abyss Fans

After one year of good time with Treasure Abyss, we sadly announce that the page/game will be closing 30 September 2011. Item sale will finish on 9 September 2011.

We want to say THANK YOU to those who enjoyed Treasure Abyss and tell you how much we have enjoyed having you as a customer. Please don’t hesitate to contact us by writing on this page if there is anything we can do for you before 30 September 2011.

We are sure we’ll meet again with new and exciting games!!

Sincerely,
Treasure Abyss Staff

Dragon Age Legends

One thing you gotta say about Dragon Age Legends: like the single player games upon which its based, in Dragon Age Legends you Get. To. Kill. DRAGONS. (Warning: link goes to Facebook). Unlike, say, Dungeons and Dragons Online, where I have yet to kill a dragon. The one you see in the tutorial is little more than a tease. It’s fighting a mind flayer, though, and we HAVE started killing those in our static group, but the name of the game isn’t Mazes and Mind Flayers Online now, is it?

Mazes, though — we’ve had more than our share of those.

Facebook RPGs like DAL (“The first real game on Facebook“) and Treasure Abyss (“Hey, we were here ages before those guys!”) have kept me sane when I haven’t been able to play any deeper games.

More game stuff after the break.
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