Snake in Restaurant City!

Yes there is a snake in Restaurant City! Well, not exactly those snakes that bite, but the game 'Snake'.

It is somewhat surprising actually to see an 'arcade game' within the game itself. We've always seen games within games, but I didn't expect to see it within a Facebook game like Restaurant City.

The Snake game can be activated if you have an arcade game machine within Restaurant City. The control is pretty simple, i.e. movement of the snake with the 4 arrow keys. to eat up ingredients that looked like actual ingredients in RC. There is a score function at the end of the game. I couldn't see if other 'functional items' giving this additional feature. Now that Playfish has introduced Snake, wonder what else would they add? Tetris? Bejewelled?

Electronic Arts bought Playfish!

Yupz Electronic Arts has bought Playfish, and from this CNA article it is at a hefty price tag (in my opinion).

for 275 million dollars in cash and 25 million dollars in equity retention arrangements for employees.

In addition, EA said it will pay up to 100 million dollars if the privately held Playfish reaches certain performance milestones through December 31, 2011.

Yeah that is a max of US$400 millions!

I must admit that Playfish has been a very innovative games developer, who has been able to track what consumers want and provides new features to the games. For example it has added features to prompt players to visit others in Restaurant City (in addition to other features).

Oh well, after Playfish, who next to be considered for buyout? Zynga? Zynga has also been rolling out new games that parallel many of other similar successful models (e.g. Cafe World). So yes I think it is time some of the bigger games company start to look at the new developers for some measures of consolidation in the industry.

Planting Seeds in Restaurant City - and get new ingredients!

Restaurant City has offered the 'Plant a seed' option for quite some time. The 9 plots of land located at the upper right corner of the restaurant are available for seeds planting when the player reaches various level. For example, the last 3 plot of land at the bottom right of the farm, where the plots look filled with stones and weed, are unlocked when I reach level 28, 30, and 32.

Why would any player want to plant a seed for 2,000 coins? Well, when ever seeds are planted, 48 hours later the player would get a new ingredient! This saves a lot of time and effort to hunt and exchange ingredients with friends. More importantly it allows for players to get more ingredients. So that simply means that if a player has all 9 plots available, he would get 9 more ingredients every 2 days, or 4.5 ingredients more per day. Attractive isn't it?

There is a trick though, and that is the players need to constantly water the plots of land. Each time a player click on the plot of land, 3 hours worth of water is added. A total of 9 hours of stored water is the upper limit. If the plot of land runs dry, the plant will not grow. :) Mouse over the land to get the info about the time left to harvest the plants.

When time is up, the plant will appear shiny, and a player can click on it to harvest the plant. As the plant grows, the icon changes a little. Below is a picture of the saffron ingredient. The icon in the little black box (to the right) shows the growing plant.

There are many ingredients that a player can obtained from plants. Well I guess it is only natural that meat products can't be obtained this way, but I've found the following list of plant ingredients: coffee, tea, saffron, sugar, garlic, oregano, basil, vanila, bay leaf, coriander, and wasabi so far. I've heard of people with the ginger plant, but I've not managed to grow one so far since the plant grew is random.

picture of garlic plant above

picture of sugar cane (i.e. sugar ingredient) above

picture of vanila plant above

I wonder if Restaurant City will offer a animal farming option soon? Now the meat ingredients are much harder to obtain...

Afternote: Restaurant City had just added an instruction (pic below) to teach players how to plant seeds.

Restaurant City - High Score of 50!

Yes I finally got the high score of 50 for ratings in Restaurant City, and it is done without the use of arcade machines!

Initially I only managed to have a score of 46.5. After some juggling of the employees (rotating 1 chef to be a waiter), and occasionally cleaning the toilet, I managed to get the score of 50 (second picture below).

The score is maintained or quite a while and not just a 'touch and go' rating. I guess the inclusion of the drinsk and fridge help, since there is no need to wait for the chef to cook up the dish when the drinks can be served instantly.

Ok, now the trick or next achievement is to get more dishes to level 20, including some drinks recipes!

Restaurant City - New 'Drinks' recipes & option to serve more dishes

Playfish's Restaurant City has just introduced a new drinks recipes, and thus the customers will now want drinks as well!

The drinks recipes currently available are
1) Glass of water
2) Expresso
3) Coffee
4) Tea (yes they introduce coffee beans and tea leaves!)
5) Chocolate milkshake
6) Strawberry milkshake
7) Lemonade (they introduce water and ice ingredients too!)
8) Peach ice tea (yes, you are right, peach too!)
9) Bubble tea
10) Fruit smoothie

The drinks are not served from stoves, i.e. unlike the traditional category of foods. The drinks are 'dispense' from new functional furniture, i.e. the drinks fridge and soda dispenser (shown below). The waiter and waitress will need access to the fridge or dispenser in order to get the drinks for the customers.

Other than drinks, Playfish has also allowed for more than 1 dish to be served per category. Thus those who have more than 1 dish at level 10, can enjoy more gourmet points while seeing more varieties of food served in the restaurant!

Yeah, the good thing about Playfish games is that there are constant updates, that makes the game more fun to play with.

See also:
- Restaurant City is up! Added Photo Feed and Gourmet Street

Fishing in Pet Society - New Function!

Pet Society has yet another new function after their recent garden / seeds planting addons. This time round it is a fishing pond where players can bait and fish different types of fishes! I must say that Playfish is quite innovative in their game designs. Quoting directly from Pet Society :

Go fishing in Pet Society! After a hard day of shopping, visiting friends, racing in the stadium and tending to your garden, we thought your pet might appreciate a little rest and relaxation. And what could be a better way to rest and relax than grabbing a fishing rod and some bait (something from the food shop will do) and heading out to the all new fishing pond in the middle of town to see what you can catch?

Once you've caught your fish you can put them in an aquarium in your home, so any visitors can see your fish collection. There are loads of different fish to find but lots of fish will only eat a particular type of bait, so try experimenting with all kinds of different foods.

Well, that seems nice. When I opened the program and got a new message alert, I know they have added new things.

Yupz you can buy fish tanks of different sizes and keep the fishes you got in them. It is sort of fun to see these new captures floating around in the tank. The darwback is that players will need to spend more coins to get fish baits. I got a squid, a starfish, and an empty bottle so far.

Fishing itself is not difficult. It is just a three step process of 1st click to activate the fish bait and throw out the fishing line. The second step is to click the pet (just once) when the fish bites. If you see splashing water, that means the fish is struggling and you must not click the pet. Else the fish will get away. I wasted two home grown banana because of this mistake. When the fish is nto struggling, keep clicking on the pet and soon you will see your haul!

The fishes don't sell for much currently, unlike the fruits from trees in the garden. Oh well, the fun is not to make coins, but in fishing! Have fun trying out fishing!

Geo Challenge on Facebook - by Playfish

After playing two great games (Pet Society and Restaurant City) by Playfish, it is not hard to persuade me to try out another of their older games on Facebook - Geo Challenge.

Geo Challenge is bascially a test of social geographical knowledge, i.e. countries, maps, cities, famous spots. here's the starting screen of the game. Do note that you need to complete all the tests before a score is given. If you quit the test halfway, you will need to restart from the 1st test.

The first of the three tests is Suitcase Shuffle, a test of knowledge about the different flags of the country. As time pass, the 'wrong answers' would fade out, leaving you with a choice among three remaining flags. Normally the harder questions will give more points, but difficulty is subjective I suppose. I always get mix up when I get flags of three horizontal stripes.

After the test, the scores will be tabulated. Players will gain extra points if they get the correct answers fast. Answering many correct questions in one go will also entitle the player to extra time (about 5 seconds I think). The next test is Map Mayhem which is a test of the location of the famous spots.

The last test is the City Blitz, where players need to locate the city on the world map. The more accurate you pin the city, the more points you get. If the players select the USA or Europe options, they get other tests.

The different points at the end of the game will entitle the players to 'ranks' and also trophies. Overall the game is not too bad, since it helps to improve my geographical knowledge. In terms of complexity I will still stick of Pet Society or Restaurant City though. :)

Restaurant City is up! Added Photo Feed & Gourmet Street

Restaurant City is up! Initially I was puzzled why there is a maintenance and wondered if Playfish will add in new features for Restaurant City. Some of the online forums have plenty of speculations about what Playfish will add after the maintenance.

Well, they added a Photo Feed function! This is similar to what we have for Pet Society actually so it is not that big a deal. Nonetheless it is still fun to have photos taken of your restaurants (and others too). You can also take photos at the 'Dress Yourself' function screen.

What is more interesting is the Gourmet Street! Now, instead of random street where you could take a look at the decoration of other unknown players, there is this Gourmet Street where most restaurants are well decorated and furnished! It is great to be able to get inspiration about how to decorate your own restaurant using ideas from among the best restaurants in the game.

Keep it up Playfish!

See also:
- Restaurant City: Latest Playfish Game in Facebook
- Restaurant City - New 'Drinks' recipes & option to serve more dishes

Pet Society - New Gardens Function

Pet Society is up after some maintenance and Playfish added in new gardens for everyone! I think everyone has one to two gardens depending on your pet's level. The garden is pretty empty and you can plant seeds to grow vegetables, flowers and trees! My tree has grown a little since last night (lower right).

Together with the gardens, Playfish has also introduced the garden shop that sells you seeds and pots, and potted plants. The seeds are quite expensive, ranging from 100 to 500 coins.

Here's the description of the different seeds that you can buy. I think they will add other new options in future. Planting the seeds is as easy as dragging the seeds from your inventory to the dirt spots in the gardens. It will be fun to grow a fly eater plant. Hmm.

Well, the new garden function makes Pet Society interesting to play again. Keep up the good work Playfish! Guess it's worth the wait during the maintenance.

Oh, after the plants are grown you can sell them for coins or eat them as food! See the pic below.

See also:
- Pet Society in Facebook

Restaurant City: Latest Playfish Game in Facebook

Playfish has created yet another popular hit with Restaurant City in Facebook. Restaurant City is a simple and yet addictive game where you operate a restaurant with choice of your own friends as cook, waiters, and cleaners. Dishes are created from ingredients, and there are a few ways of getting them.

Starting Out:
When you first started in the game, you would be prompted to select two of your friends to be employees of the restaurants. You could also choose yourself as an employee. Be careful who you choose as employees since sacking an employee requires a severance pay of $200.

After selecting the employees, you could assign them jobs as waiter or cook, and voila the restaurant starts operations! Once you have enough cash you could buy nicer clothes for the employees, e.g. chef's hat, sushi master' stop...etc. As the restaurant operates, you would also earn gourmet points. With sufficient points the level of the restaurant goes up. Leveling up the restaurant means you could hire more employees or get a bigger restaurant.

One thing to note is that gourmet points are earned only when the main restaurant is operating. If the player visit other restaurants, or go into the dish selection menu, or restaurant decoration menu, only coins will be earned and not gourmet points.

Coins are earned when your waiters cleared the empty plates left by customers. Each plate earns you 2 coins, regardless of the level of the dish. You could also shake the trees (similar to Pet Society) and 1 coin may drop out of the trees. Leveling up or earning awards will also entitle the player to coins / cash. There were some sites that advertise about cheat engines and such, but I think it is not much point cheating a game like Restaurant City since there isn't exactly a win / lose concept embed in the game.

Dishes & Ingredients:
The restaurant serves 3 types of dishes each time, starter, main and dessert. You could earn new dishes, or level up the existing dishes via the use of ingredients. Higher level dishes give more gourment points per customer served by 0.2. Thus a level 6 dish will earn the player 2.0 points per customer while a level 1 dish earns only 1.0 gourmet point. Higher level dishes also comes with nicer sounding name, e.g. luxurious, delicious...etc. The plates design for higher level dishes are also nicer.

Getting Ingredients
There are four ways of getting more ingredients. 1) Every day as you logged into the game, you would be rewarded with an ingredient. 2) There will also be a food quiz everyday, and answering correctly at the quiz earns you yet another ingredient. 3) First visit to new restaurants started by your friends will also earn you with a new ingredient. 4) Restuarnt City has just started a new function of 'Ingredient Market' where 3 different types of ingredients could be bought with coins each day.

More likely than not, there will be extra ingredients and players could trade among themselves for the correct ingredients for their dishes. If your friends didn't locked their ingredients, you could trade with them freely. If the ingredients are locked, a message will be sent to inform them that you requested to trade these ingredients.

Decorations & Layout:
Restaurant City offers many different ways of decorating the restaurant. The external view could be changed quite easily with coins to create different themes. New windows, decorations, trees, signboards are available often.

Similarly the interior layout of the restaurant could be changed. Unlike the exterior decorations, the interior layout plays a more important role. Functional items like toilet are needed once you reach certain levels (8 if I am not wrong).

The layout of the tables and chairs also determine how customer walk around the restaurant. Some players have suggested to arrange the restaurant like a maze, so that customers take longer to walk to the chair. It is also useful to arrange the tables and chairs such that the waiter minimises the walking distance from the chef to the customer.

One thing to note is that the stove design does not change the speed of dish cooking. The different designs are purely aesthetic.

So it may be better to arrange the chairs and table such that waiters are confined with a smaller space. Leave the corners for toilets and such.

Each satisfied customer will add to the popularity index, which means new customers will come in faster. Each time the customer is disappointed, e.g. too long a waiting time, or dirty restaurant, points will be deducted.

Give Restaurant City a try! The game is fun, and the only drawback is the slightly longer waiting time to load the game. New functions are constantly added. There is now a rating system where other players could become critics and rate your restaurant as well.

See also:
- Restaurant City is up! Added Photo Feed & Gourmet Street

Paid to Scan Porn at Facebook!

I read from Slashdot about a Newsweek article that there is actually a 'cyber patrol / porn cops' at Facebook! They do more than checks for 'graphically challenging content' and include protection against spam, phishing attacks, and investigating users' 'harassment' complaints, i.e. when you click 'report this' someone at Facebook actually investigates it. They also check names against a blacklist, e.g. Batman cannot be used as a user name.

It's quite an interesting job, they have even help police locate run-away children for reconciliation with their families, since the kids do log into Facebook and leave a treacbale IP address.

More importantly, these folks are paid about US$50,000 a year! Wow, interesting jobs with a decent salary is surely attractive. Hmm wonder what they will put on their resume, 'porn cops'?

Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures on Facebook

There are a good number of interesting Facebook applications. Other than the Pet Society which I covered earlier, there is also this Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures application.

In Tiny Adventures, one could choose from over 16 classes of characters, including Tiefling Warlock, Eladrin Wizard, Human Rogue, Dwarf Warlord etc. Each character can level until they reach level 11, and the application will automatically retire the character. At this point in time, the player can choose an item from the retiring character to pass on to the next character, and the next character will be labelled as Generation 2. This retiring process can carry on, and each generation will unlock new ability. At Generation 5, a new class of Swordmage will also be unlocked.

As per other Dungeons & Dragons game, the character will come with a set of attributes but for Tiny Adventures they are pre-rolled. There will also be equipments for each 'slot', including weapons and armour. The equipments will come with different attributes enhancements but not all classes can wear all the equipments, e.g. wizard can only wear light armour.

In order to level up the charater, the character could choose from a number of available adventures of around the same level as the character. There are quite a number of interesting quests / adventures to choose from. As the character level, bonus attribute points will be given at level 4 and 8.

Prior to the start of the chosen adventure, the character can choose two potions to bring along, including healing potions or others that boost the attributes, e.g. Potion of Heroism giving +5STR for 4 encounters.

Each adventure provides multiple encounters / parts (from 5 to 12 parts & higher levels seem to have more encounters), and each encounter comes with a description of what is happening to the character, as well as a dice roll that determines the outcome of that particular part. Occasionally there will be 'rare' encounters that provide better challenge and rewards. Success from the encounter will reward the character with experience points, golds and sometimes items.

The different adventures could also be reviewed later and the review log includes the different dice rolls as well as rewards from each adventure. Tiny Adventures has many tabs and statistics that keep track of the character's progress.

Generally the Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures application is quite fun to play with. The option of 'drinking potions' with triggering of certain conditions is also useful. The irritating part is that many of the encounters requires AC checks, and certain weaker classes like mage will have problems. It does not help that each healing potion costs 130 golds, i.e. expensive potions.

Will try the application and see if I have the patience to reach Generation 5!