Mafia Wars is one of the biggest games on Facebook. In fact, it is the People’s Voice Winner at the 2009 Webby Awards. Currently, it has over 24 million monthly active users. Many of these users have reached very high levels and have already mastered the game. So today is just the right time for Zynga to have launched Mafia Wars Bangkok.
The Bangkok expansion is available to players, level 18 and above. However, before a player can get into the expansion, he or she must first collect 3 items in New York: a Triad coin, Yakuza Sake, and a Thai note. These three items will allow the player to get a Thai passport and enter the Bangkok expansion.
Once in, the player must choose between 2 factions: the Triads and the Yakuza. To get into either group, he or she must complete missions for that chosen faction. Once the player becomes a trusted member, he or she gains access to weapons and items only available to that group. However, if the player loses the trust of the group, access to the weapons gets denied.
The game is divided into several episodes. Each ends with a boss battle to unlock the next Episode. When missions are completed, the player receives money in the form of Thai Baht, and loot like weapons and collectibles. Collectibles in Mafia Wars Bangkok are:
- Episode 1 – chess pieces
- Episode 2 – a series of masks
- Episode 3 – spices
- Episode 4 – carvings
- Episode 5 – orchids
Complete collections can be exchanged for bonuses lime more energy.
All these new missions, loot, and weapons are sure exciting. However, there is a rumor of a new expansion coming out later this year: Mafia Wars Las Vegas. So keep playing, virtual mobsters!
Many of us think that the game of mahjong is a gambling game played by 4 people. Apparently, just like with cards, there is a solitaire version of it, too. The Facebook game developed by Café.com, Mahjong Temple 2 (http://apps.facebook.com/temple_of_mahjong/), is a solitaire version of mahjong.
The goal of this Facebook mahjong game is to reveal the entire beautiful background by clearing all the tiles on the board as quickly as possible. This can be done by clicking two free identical tiles. A tile is free if one of its vertical sides is not next to another tile.
A player who uses real tiles on a real table or board will discover that there are times that the board cannot be cleared because there are no free identical tiles. After all the hard work of clearing more than half the board, being stuck can be very frustrating. Thankfully, with Mahjong Temple 2, this annoyance does not happen because this game has 4 boosts that can be used to solve the puzzle:
- Rearrange – the tiles can be shuffled to prevent being stuck. This can be done twice.
- Pocket – a free tile can be placed in the pocket area at the right side of the screen to free tiles under or next to it. The pocketed tile can be paired with another tile anytime
- Hint – highlights 2 identical tiles that can be matched
With beautiful the graphics and relaxing Chinese music, the game has attracted over 430 thousand monthly active users. So what are you waiting for, relax and enjoy with the Mahjong Temple 2!
The BBC or British Broadcasting Corporation, is the longest established and biggest broadcasting corporation in the world. They have diverse TV and radio shows that inform, educate, and entertain. They also have their own website (www.bbc.co.uk), and other products that include books, DVDs, a micro computer line in the 80s, etc. Among its most popular TV shows are BBC News, Doctor Who, Top Gear, In the Night Garden, and Teletubbies.
BBC is currently working on bringing some of those television brands to game platforms like Facebook. To help it has hired the former Electronic Arts (EA) executive, Robert Nashak, according to his LinkedIn profile. As of this month, Nashak is the Execuitve Vice President of Digital Entertainment at BBC Worldwide.
At EA, Nashak worked as the VP of Worldwide Casual Studios. In addition, he also worked with other game publishers like Acclaim, Glu Mobile, Vivendi Universal Games, Disney Online, and Yahoo! Games
Official word from Neil Ross Russell, Managing Director of the BBC’s Children’s Division, is that they are talking to anyone in games about the different kinds of business models to see how they can make it work. They also still do not have a full list of games to disclose. BBC tried to get into the gaming industry in the past. They had been developing a PS2 title for its spy show “Spooks” but stopped when sales didn’t pick up.
Foxy Bingo, one of the leading online Bingo sites in the UK, is opening its doors to the world, especially to Facebook users. Although registration and game play is done at the Foxy Bingo’s webpage (http://www.foxybingo.com/), fans of the Foxy’s page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Foxy-Bingo/201587930203?ref=search&sid=646940670.2909058040..1#/pages/Foxy-Bingo/201587930203?v=wall&ref=search ) have additional privileges:
- They can get 2,000 bingo points in their Foxy Bingo account by going to the “Free Points” tab in the page and entering their full names, email addresses, and Foxy Bingo aliases.
- They can get 5,000 points in their Foxy Bingo accounts when referred Facebook friends join Foxy Bingo. These points can then be converted to £5 cash money to be used to play online bingo.
- They get the chance to join 2 different quizzes per day where they could win various prizes or the chance of getting additional bingo points.
Other promos include:
- Getting 100% cash bonus match on the player’s first deposit of £10 to £150.00. So if the new player deposits £10 in their Foxy Bingo account, Foxy will add £10 to it.
- Regular deposits get a 50% bonus match.
- £1 million in Guaranteed Jackpots every month.
- Thank Foxy It’s Friday! Every Friday, Foxy has special games like Free Bingo, Double Yer Money, tournaments, etc.
Foxy Bingo was launched in June 2005. Previously offering only 2 game rooms, it now has 14 rooms hosting both 90 ball and 75 ball games where players can play for prizes of up to £5,000. They also have instant win games that include classic scratch cards, slots, blackjack, and video poker.
So what are you waiting for? Join the fun and start having Foxy weekends!
A new mixed martial arts game will be launched on Facebook. Break Media, a Los Angeles-based internet entertainment community for men, is set to release the game app, MMA FightPicker.
MMA FightPicker is a fantasy sports game where the user can choose several fighters to compete in fight pools. In addition, they can also bet on upcoming MMA (mixed martial arts) matches. Winners will be awarded with potato chips, the game’s virtual currency, which can be used to advance in the game. Like in most social games, this currency can also be bought with real money.
The beta version of the game was launched today at their Cage Potato website (http://fightpicker.cagepotato.com/mmafightpicker/intro) where Facebook users can log on using their Facebook logins. However, the full version, which will be launched both in CagePotato.com and Facebook, is set to be released on February 1st.
MMA FightPicker is Break Media’s first game. The company plans to release games in each of their seven sites, including Break.com, MadeMan, Chickipedia, Cage Potato, Holy Taco, Screen Junkies, and All Left Turns. The games are currently being developed in a game studio in Shanghai, China.
The release of a social game is part of the company’s effort to expand their business, although they already are the 33rd largest web property in the US that reach over 100 million men worldwide monthly.
Two weeks ago disaster struck Haiti in the form of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. Last week, Zynga created the Relief Fund for Haiti to raise money to give to the UN World Food Programme to use in Haiti. Five days after Zynga started the relief fund, they have already gathered over $1.5 million from users in over 47 countries!
Zynga encouraged Facebook gamers by selling limited edition virtual items in their games, such as the white corn in FarmVille, the Haitian Drum in Mafia Wars, and the special chip package in Zynga Poker. All profits from these items went to the fund. To encourage Facebook users further, the company promised a special prize for all players, if the Relief Fund reached $1 million. In addition, other online users could donate directly to the fund through Zynga’s webpage.
From this experience, it is undeniable that there are many helpful souls out there, even if they appear not to be concerned because their eyes seem to be stuck to their computer screens. In addition, Zynga has over 1 billion monthly active users in just the three games mentioned above. The game with the biggest number of monthly active users is FarmVille, with almost 75 million. Because Zynga could reach this many users, it is not a wonder that they could also raise enough funds for Haiti.
AT&T announced that it had already fixed the problem that caused a mom and her two daughters to get into other people’s Facebook accounts using their mobile phones, earlier this month. The problem was, AT&T had a glitch in their infrastructure that connected the phones to the internet. This made it lose track of who owns which profile.
The mobile phone service provider said they added new security measures that will keep this incident from happening again. They also worked with Facebook to disable subscriber identification information that was used to automatically log-in. Now, to get into Facebook accounts, the site will only accept current cookies they placed or full login information.
Because this has already happened, there is a possibility that it can happen again. Fortunately, Chris Wysopal, co-founder of the security company, Veracode Inc., said, this problem will not happen to websites that use encryption because user’s browsers will have trouble decoding the encryption on the site that the user was not trying to get onto. Banking and e-commerce sites use encryption. Sadly, other sites do not. Web-based email and Facebook only use encryption when the user logs on but once within the site, the encryption is no longer used.
Bad things can happen on the internet whether it is because of the user’s carelessness or not. We cannot just depend on the security of sites. It is also important that we do our part and not upload sensitive information online if it can be helped.
There are things that should not be posted in anybody’s Facebook account. These things include writings and photos that could offend people, as well as those that could cause the owner of the profile to look guilty about something.
Last Saturday, the police received a report about an incriminating picture. It was a Facebook photo of baby with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. The police traced the photograph to a 6-month old child in Westcliff, Essex in the United Kingdom. Because of this, his mother, 18-year old Rebecca Davey, was immediately investigated. Thankfully, police found no immediate concerns, although the Rebecca did get some advice from them.
The report was sent by one of Rebecca’s online friends and initially received by The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), a UK charity organization that focuses on child protection. After the police visit, the issue was referred to social services, although the police said they will be visiting the family again. The reason for this is to check if the child is being taken care of properly.
Later, after the investigation, the mother logged in to Facebook to complain about how someone had reported her to the authorities regarding her baby’s picture and to say that no one was taking him from her. There were responses to her posts that took her side and one that contemplated if the baby will grow up well in such a family.
Although the photo may be hilarious to some people, it is just right that the photo was later removed from Facebook to prevent any misunderstandings.
A few days ago, we talked about Island Paradise, a Facebook game published by Meteor Games. This time, we will talk about Little Rock Pool (http://apps.facebook.com/rockpool/), another game from the same game developer.
Little Rock Pool is an aquaculture simulator, set in the ocean instead of a fish tank. The game allows the player to grow plants and take care of fish. The fish, such as Gold Carp, Mint Minnow, Jelly fish, etc. need to be fed or they will die. They can also be sold but they do not disappear from the pool unless removed.
The plants can mature in as little as 5 minutes. When these are harvested, they disappear completely. Available plants include Red Grass, Bananemones, Sea Biscuits, and Jelly Bean. Of course it is no longer necessary to plough the land as well as fertilize and water the plants. These plants do not die. However, there is a maximum number of plants that can be grown per level.
The pool can be decorated with objects such as rocks, coral, sea leaves, etc. These do not affect the fish or plant.
Having friends as neighbors allows the player to send and receive gifts, collect trash goods for each other, unlock larger Rock Pools, and, just like in Island Paradise, steal three items per day from each other.
Unfortunately, the game is still in its alpha version. This means that there is no tutorial yet. The players also do not see their fish or plants grow as they are running the application. Despite this, there are now over 400 thousand monthly active users!
Although we see the growing pains now, much later, when the beta version comes out, Little Rock Pool might just shoot towards the top of Facebook games leaderboard.
