FarmVille, CafeWorld and CityVille

When I joined facebook, I quickly learned about fb games, including FarmVille, CafeWorld, Happy Pets, Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, Zynga Poker, Treasure Island, YoVille and on and on and on....I was hooked. I ramped up in FarmVille and YoVille, taking my farm and my "pad" to places no fb'er had gone before. I also learned that if you are not willing to devote your entire waking life to growing your crops and harvesting your animals, your farm would wither away and cost you a lot of farm cash to heal. This is what happened to most of my Villes as time wound away and the sun rose and the sun set and God called it good. (With the exception of SuperPoke Pets which still challenges my ability to place objects on top of or behind each other properly and create a tangible and creative scene. Try it, it's not easy!)

So I moved from one game to another, finding delight in starting a new game until each one took on the same painful teenage growth pains and I lost interest in their delayed gratification if I didn't spend my husband's hard-earned money to buy their virtual trees and bridges or unlock the miniature psychedelic horse in the ice-cube on my property or begging my neighbors to join my mafia or spice my stove. That is, until CityVille.

So far, CityVille satisfies all of the itches without the poisons. We are allocated virtual cash as we grow our cities. We have the challenge of conserving energy while growing our supplies and collecting cash to buy businesses. We can also franchise our businesses out to other friends' cities and allow them to franchise within our cities. If we are clever enough, and we check out the CityVille forum, we learn tips such as how to smash enough cash-percentage-increasing decorations in-between and around our houses and businesses or remove streets and connect our facilities via sidewalks to save space. These tips may not make our cities look very appealing, but if you are in it to get the almighty apartment skyscraper or the Empire State Building or Big Ben, then who cares what the city looks like?

So abandon your farms and your pads, let your frontiers go to the thistles and rattlesnakes and come on down  to CityVille. I'd be more than happy to be your neighbor. It's the fastest growing Zynga game since Zynga starting gaming. I'm pretty sure you'll like it. Oh, and if you do join me in CityVille - please feel free to send me a Zoning Permit - I can't expand without one.