Offerpal Team recently went out for Bowling.

Here are some pics of the team testing their skills in bowling.

Hoje, quando fui testar o Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2, me deparei no inicio do jogo com uma pergunta: Você deseja pular partes que possam ser chocantes? (não lembro exatamente da pergunta, era mais ou menos isso), e logo depois outra pergunta: Deseja poder pular fases que sejam chocantes para você durante o jogo?.

Pensei comigo: Qual o problema ?, e ainda perguntam duas vezes, será tão chocante? , mas já joguei vários FPS (First Person Shooter), não é possível que algo nesse jogo possa me chocar.

Marquei nas duas vezes a favor de passar por todas as fases.

Enganei-me profundamente, segue o vídeo que mostra por que eu disse no título do post que “subestimei a capacidade do ser humano de me chocar”.

Achei um pouco desnecessária a cena, pois o mundo dos jogos não precisa de mais um motivo para sofrer preconceito. Não sei se concordam, mas no GTA IV, atropelar alguém não parece tão chocante quanto na cena acima.

Flww galera até mais.

“The FPS and RPG made a baby.” One sentence sums up Borderlands. This statement however, may actually create more questions than it answers. RPG: “Will I be grinding to reach that next area, or will I be doing gathering that are monotonous to say the least?”. FPS: “I don’t know about this RPG thing, is it a disease? I just want to shoot stuff!” Fear not my fellow gamers, all these questions and more are soon to be answered.

Story     6/10

The game begins by introducing the “vault” and the planet of Pandora. It is rumored that the “vault” contains treasure, fame, and possibly even enemies. Soon you are introduced to the selectable characters that you are allowed to choose from. After picking a character, your “guardian angel” introduces herself and you begin to explore the world of Pandora. Your ultimate goal is to reach the vault and open it. The story itself isn’t all that original, and suffice it to say that most gamers have seen some variation of this story line. Characters you encounter along the way offer witty rhetoric that should keep you entertained.  Gearbox obviously has a sense of humor as well, citing multiple pop-culture references throughout the game (with various easter eggs).

Sound     4/10

The sound quality of this game is mediocre. While sound placement (where a shot came from, where that screaming enemy is) is done right, epic scores found in most console RPGs are nowhere to be found. The only time I ever recall even hearing music is during boss fights. This did add to the ambiance, however I feel that it was just a little too little a little too late.

Graphics     9/10

While at first I was turned off by the cell-shading, it soon began to grow on me. Borderlands is by no means the first to use this technique, however it is certainly done right. The art lends itself very well to the feel of the game, emphasizing moments where light is scarce. This also makes the comical moments even more so. Cell shading also serves another purpose in Borderlands (even if unintended). The astute gamer will notice that when first entering an area it takes perhaps half a second or so for the textures to fully render.  Because cell shading is used in place of the more traditional style, this is harder to notice. The dull shade allows less contrast between the backdrop and the actual texture itself. There is also significantly less dead areas (by dead areas I mean that If I force myself into a corner, or ease against a wall, the texture will glitch and a void will be where it the texture should remain) which shows a thoroughness by the graphic designers that I rarely see.

Game play     9/10

The game play of Borderlands makes it among my favorite games of all time. It brings the best elements of both FPS and RPG together to form a fantastically fun game. Elements such as skill trees (seen in many MMORPGS), levels, quests, and even critical hits are taken from classical RPGs and applied to the FPS. Choice of four different classes allows players to choose what weapons they will be best with, and what ability they will use. All of the traditional FPS weapons are available including: pistols, snipers, Rockets, SMGs, and Rifles. In addition to class choice, skill trees allow each player to customize their character to the way they play. While selection of guns in most FPSs is limited to say the least, this is not the case in Borderlands. There is essentially an endless array of guns. Everyone who plays is almost guaranteed to not receive the same identical weapons in terms of stats. While many are obviously similar, variations of the same weapon allow for some to be better than others. Doing quests in Borderlands (story or optional) is a refreshing experience. While there are a couple exceptions, there are no monotonous quests. The gather quests that do exist are fairly easy, and most quests can be completed in a couple of minutes. Quests should be a players main source of experience, however a player may choose to grind if they so wish.  Critical hits are scored by either scoring a headshot (on humanoid opponents) or by hitting a “weak” spot on an enemy. All of these elements combined form a game that is thoroughly engrossing, and I believe (after two play throughs) that I could play through again at least twice more. My experience with the game play of Borderlands is nothing but extremely positive, however it should be noted that many players experience glitching of quests and/or achievements. It is for this sole reason that game play has been docked a point and positioned 9 out of 10.

Multiplayer 6/10

The multiplayer of Borderlands leaves something to be desired.  Many feel that having only a Co-op mode (with no versus) is a drawback. I feel that this allows players to immerse themselves into the story and experience it together. You may duel your friends, or other online players, once you join a game. The arena allows for a versus mode that is similar to many online versus FPS games. The biggest hindrance of co-op is the matchmaking system. Higher players (and people past the first play through) may have a very hard time finding games with similar progression. The matchmaking list is flooded with people on the first play through, and on the first half of the game. I found myself posting on forums to find people around my level because the matchmaking system was so horrendous.

Overall  7/10

Borderlands have been a delightful game to play, however I cannot rightfully give it a higher score for a couple reasons. Firstly, mediocre story, sound, and a terrible matchmaking system leave something to be desired. Lastly the sheer audacity of a game developer to release a game with many known glitches and problems is a sad day for the gaming industry. A patch is already in work (so soon after the release date may I add) so hopefully these issues may soon be resolved.

So I’ve learned another thing.

If you adopt something and leave it in your gift box, a total of 8 people, I heard, can adopt it. Makes sense. You really give it a home when you place it.

Next time you have a lost animal wonder onto your farm, remind folks of this. If you are the adopter, do this and remind people of it. If you wait about a day from when you adopt it, you would figure it’s been adopted quite enough times. Hope fully this lasts a while, so do it until FarmVille changes this.

Another issue I’ve come to notice. If you go to the gift tab, then choose a gift, you can’t choose any friends from the first two tabs. The friend chooser doesn’t load. Of course this is an update, so this could change.

Recordemos que este juego será el MMORPG que reemplazará al ya antiguo Star Wars: Gallaxies, un increíble universo paralelo que hasta el día de hoy puedes seguir jugando junto a miles de otros participantes que aspiran unirse a las filas de los Jedi o los Sith.

Los acontecimientos de Star Wars: The Old Republic están basados en la historia desarrollada por la serie RPG Knights of the Old Republic, lo cual acontece varios siglos antes que lo que es mostrado en las películas de Star Wars.

Para variar, los Sith luchan con los Jedi, la república se hace “amiga” de los Sith, luego los Jedi se retiran con la cola entre las piernas…. y en eso estamos cuando comienza Star Wars: The Old Republic que, por lo demás, aún no aclaran si será finalmente un juego gratuito financiado con micro transacciones, lo cual sería francamente espectacular.

Here is FarmVilles post introducing Dairy Farms:

It’s never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket, but it sure is useful to keep all your cows in one place. With newly released Dairy Farms, you have a way to milk your cows faster than ever. And what better way to use your extra time than to stop and smell the roses? Head on over to the Market and take a look at the new, harvestable Flowers! http://tinyurl.com/pex66g

So what have I learned about Dairy Farms so far? Well you have 8 friends to unlock them. They cost 10000 coins or 20 FV Cash (not sure if the friends requirement exists for the Cash buy). Dairy Farms are the first Building with purpose (besides gaining XP). You can store 20 cows in one and harvest it once a day (makes sense since cows are harvested onces per day).

For now there is a glitch. I guess if you buy a Dairy Farm and have a gifted Cow, if you put it straight into the Dairy Farm, then the next time you open the Farmville page, you’ll have another in your giftbox while the cow that was put into the DF will still be there.

The only benefit I see to the DF is having cows take up less space. 20 cows take up a lot of space. I believe that the DF takes up about the equivalent of 5 cows of space.

Some have asked how to put cows that are already out in the farm into the Dairy Farm building. Just click a cow and say move. Drag it over to the DF and the DF will highlight yellow like everything else does when the cursor is on it. Once the DF gets the yellow border, click and it’ll be in.

Also, flowers are now available to buy in the Market for planting.

Hope this helps.

This was a guest post by Matt McAllister and Jaini Shah of Offerpal Media on Inside Social Games. The article addresses issues that developers should consider when implementing virtual currencies. It focuses on the tradeoffs of how to manage two types of currencies within a game.

You can download the full white paper here: Monetizing Dual Currency Economies in Online Games – October, 2009

Virtual economies are quickly becoming as complex as real ones. As more and more developers monetize their games by selling virtual goods and services, they face many of the same issues and challenges that leaders of real-world economies must deal with every day—inflation and deflation, balance and disparity, supply and demand, security and fraud prevention—plus other challenges that are unique to the online environment.

Some game and virtual world developers, such as Gaia Online, have gone so far as to hire full-time, professional economists to help them navigate the murky waters of creating a virtual economy, so important is it to their monetization numbers and overall revenue.

One common way many developers have chosen to deal with these issues is to implement a dual-currency system. In these cases, one type of currency is typically earned within the game by completing tasks or missions, and another currency can be purchased directly, either with real money or by completing advertising offers. We refer to the former type of currency as “in-game” currency, and the latter as “Real Money Transfer” (RMT) currency.

Why Two Currencies?

When implemented correctly, there are a number of advantages to creating a dual-currency system: it can help you balance the game economy and manage inflation, track and reduce fraudulent behavior, create a more level playing field for your users, and so on.

But the primary reason to adopt a dual-currency system is to engage and monetize the two distinct sets of users: paying and non-paying. Paying users are willing to fork over a few bucks, cents, or in the case of completing ad offers, a few minutes of their time in order to get premium items within the game. These typically make up between 5 to 15% of your overall user base. The non-paying users, on the other hand, just want to play your game for free. Paying users are valuable for obvious reasons. However, even though non-paying users might not generate direct revenue for your company, they can often be equally valuable, because:

* their mere participation creates value for paying customers
* they contribute to your word of mouth growth
* their visits and page views create advertising opportunities
* they might eventually turn into paying customers.

RMT currency is for users who are willing to pay real money for virtual currency instead of spending a lot of time in the game trying to earn it, whereas the in-game currency is for non-paying users who are willing to spend time playing the game in order to earn virtual currency but are not willing to spend real money on it. Having multiple currencies in a virtual economy thus helps maximize revenue and engagement across both sets of users.

4 Likely Scenarios

Two important questions that must be asked when first considering a dual currency economy are (1) whether you want to allow your currency to be converted from one type to the other (RMT to in-game currency and vice versa), and (2) whether players should be allowed to trade or transfer currency with one another. Allowing conversions and transfers opens up a slew of challenges that make it more difficult to balance your economy and prevent fraud, so many developers tend to go the safer, easier route of prohibiting both conversions and transfers. Let’s therefore begin by examining this type of economy first.

Scenario 1: Prohibiting Conversions and Transfers

Overall, this model is the least risky of the four because the game economy is completely under the control of the developer. The major advantage of this model is that it allows the developer to focus their efforts on one type of user – paying vs. non-paying – or the other depending on where they stand in the user lifecycle. For example, in order to motivate non-paying users to pay, developers may introduce a premium item that can only be purchased through RMT currency. In contrast they may also introduce certain items that can only be bought with in-game currency in order to motivate users to engage more deeply and spend more time in the game. The downside of this model is that you must give up potential virality and monetization, as we’ll see in the other scenarios.

Scenario 2: Prohibiting Conversions, Allowing Transfers

This scenario is commonly found in poker and other card-playing games, where the function of players transferring their “chips” to other players creates a powerful viral channel, such as when one poker player invites several friends and offers a few “chips” to get them started. However, this scenario creates many loopholes that can easily lead to crippling amounts of fraud if the economy isn’t closely monitored and managed, and most developers decide that the risk isn’t worth the reward.

Scenario 3: Allowing Conversions, Prohibiting Transfers

This scenario is mostly found in Role Playing Games, where many developers prohibit transfers but allow users to gain in-game currency in exchange for RMT currency at a fixed exchange rate. They may also let the paying users earn the in-game currency faster as compared to non-paying users when they use RMT currency. This model is less risky than scenario 2, since it helps keep the currency flow in check and also keep the developers in control of the game economy. It also supports monetization efforts by creating more reasons to purchase RMT currency.

Scenario 4: Allowing Conversions and Transfers

When player-to-player currency transfer is enabled, users can transfer either of the currencies (in-game or RMT) from one player to another, whether in a developer-controlled marketplace or through external methods like eBay. Found in applications such as Fish Wrangler, Fallen Sword, and Mouse Hunt, this type of system can often increase monetization by driving up demand for your RMT currency. Currency trading is specifically useful if the sinks (uses) for both currencies are different. For example, if there are certain premium items or special features that can be unlocked only through RMT currency, and there are certain activities or items which require in-game currency, then both types of users can benefit through currency trading. However, allowing player-to-player currency transfer can be risky and may lead to issues such as fraud and gold farming.

Tips for Implementing a Dual Currency System

Okay, so you’re ready to build a dual-currency system into your game. Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you do so:

1. Engage first, monetize second

Promote your currencies based on the users’ life-cycle. First engage them in the game through some in-game features and currency before promoting the RMT currency and driving them to the payments page. If you push RMT items before the users are fully hooked, you risk turning them off and losing them for good.

2. Balance your sinks

Maintaining a balance between the sinks for both currencies is very important. If there are a lot of sinks for in-game currency but very limited sinks for RMT currency, then it might affect the value of the RMT currency. In the same way, if there are limited sinks for in-game currency, then users may get stuck at some point and not engage in the game at all. Try to balance the RMT-only sinks with an equivalent number and type of in-game-only sinks to appeal to both types of users.

3. Offer multiple sources

For in-game currency, make sure there’s more than just one or two ways to earn the currency, or your users will quickly grow bored. For RMT currency, make sure you offer enough payment options – not just credit cards and PayPal but mobile billing methods, offline stored-value cards, and offer-based payment methods – to effectively monetize a broad set of users across different genders, age ranges and other demographic profiles.

4. Spell it out

Dual currency systems, by their very nature, are more complicated than single-currency systems, and therefore must be explained more thoroughly. Use all of the tools at your disposal – FAQs, customer support, in-game feedback and notifications, etc. – to explain the differences between your two types of currency and erase any confusion that might occur for your users.

5. Test, Measure & Optimize

As with everything in your game, you should be testing and re-testing all variables affecting your engagement and monetization. Test your exchange rate. Test your price points. Test anything and everything involving your virtual economy. Keep in mind that small fluctuations can often have a large impact on your overall revenue. At the same time, keep an eye out for inflation, imbalance, fraud and other factors that could be detrimental to your efforts, and quickly squash these before they have a chance to grow.

Conclusions

Dual currency systems aren’t for all games and all developers, but as virtual economies continue to evolve, many developers are finding that the rewards of having two currencies far outweigh the risks. If you’re thinking of implementing a dual currency system, take a look at your game and the types of users it attracts, and decide how you want to handle conversions and transfers. Do transfers make sense given the game dynamics? Do conversions make sense given your users’ willingness to pay, or would they simply rely on conversions to gain large amounts of in-game currency without actually engaging in the game (which might actually cheat non-paying users)?

Offerpal Media continues to develop its ‘Thought Leadership Video Series ,‘ in which we will interview some of the foremost experts, entrepreneurs and, yes, “thought leaders” in the field of online gaming and social publishing. In the first video interview, we sat down with Blake Commagere to talk about various topics. In the second interview, he spoke to us about gamer’s psychology, social networks bringing new audience to gaming and much more…

Blake is the creator of the highly successful Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves games on Facebook. Previously, he led the development of the Causes application on Facebook.

EPISODE 1: “What social game developers can learn from traditional games?”
In this interview, Blake revealed his insights on social versus traditional (PC/console) game development.

EPISODE 2: “Are gamers moving away from pricey console games?

Topics include:
- Gamer’s moving away from pricey console games?
- Social networks bringing new audience to gaming
- Challenges to traditional game developers in this new social gaming environment.

Posted on June 19, 2009 by haloboyy1928 |

Some one of you have been waiting for the next Halo, and its coming soon! Here is the cover:

Overview

Specualtion:

Although Bungie consistently stated that Halo 3 was the last game in the trilogy, they never ruled out the possibility of releasing new games set in the same story in the future. An interview by MTV with Don Mattrick (Senior Vice President of Microsoft’s Xbox division) revealed that Bungie’s game is at the very least Halo-related, and that it is not Bungie’s collaborative efforts on Halo Wars or Halo: Chronicles, but a “new” game.

Although a proper announcement was meant for July 16th, 2008 at E3, it was canceled by Microsoft because they wanted to focus on games by first-party developers that were coming out in 2008, criteria which the Bungie project did not fit. It was also stated by Microsoft that they did not want to further lengthen their press conference so as not to stretch the attention span of the attendees, and that they wished to give the new Halo project an event of its own to release details on.

The most popular rumor that had surrounded this new title was that it was a squad-based shooter in the Halo universe with the player filling the role of a Marine Captain, but this is untrue as the player will be filling the role of an ODST Lance Corporal, who goes by the moniker of The Rookie.

Speculation about a supposed third-person shooter, giving the player control of Marines or ODST’s instead of SPARTANs, circulated long before Bungie revealed their next project would be Halo-related. Originally, rumors held that this would be the Peter Jackson game, Halo: Chronicles. The presence of Christian Allen, a former Marine and Red Storm employee who worked on the Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six series and joined Bungie in early 2007, heightened speculation.

Known Info:

Halo 3: ODST has been known to be in the pre-production phase since January 2008., four months after the release of Halo 3; and was referred to as Halo 3: Atlas

Bungie has confirmed that the game will be a first-person shooter, like the previous three Halo titles, and that Christian Allen is working on a completely different project within Bungie. Bungie also confirmed that the player will take the role of a surviving Marine, that the game is set in the ruins of New Mombasa, Kenya; and that it will be released on September 22nd, 2009, and that it is the last known Halo project related to the Halo trilogy they are working on. In another interview with a number of different gaming sources, they revealed key information about the game: ODST will be on a standalone disk, it will “include some new multiplayer maps, some of which will be a part of the Mythic Map Pack,” and it will run on the Halo 3 engine. Bungie has also stated that it will be compatible with Halo 3 multiplayer, provided they have the Mythic Map Pack and ODST. Forge, Saved films, and Screenshots will be making a comeback.

ODST has been described as “returning players to familiar grounds on a vital top-secret mission. ODST’s gripping story, co-operative campaign and new multiplayer content will have Halo fans ‘Preparing to Drop’ in Fall 2009″. The game is not expected to ship at the full-retail price of $60 as it believed that the game’s campaign will only run three to six hours; however, in one of their weekly updates, Bungie expectedthat the campaign will last between three and five hours. Over the course of development of Halo 3: ODST, Bungie has expanded it to more of a full game, rather than the expansion that was planned. This includes a campaign length closer to the size of Halo 3 in terms of average hours from start to completion, to the Firefight mode which was revealed at E3 2009. While previously stating that ODST wasn’t going to be priced like a normal game, the increased depth added into the game was the cause for the $60 USD pricetag.

As of E3 2009, Bungie employees (such as Brian Jarrard and Curtis Creamer) have stated that development on the game of Halo 3: ODST is already completed, and that the footage shown at the convention was from the final build/retail copy of the game.

Game Play:

ODST has the main protagonist, The Rookie, searching for beacons across the city of New Mombasa.It is up to the player how they get to the specific location, and in what order, giving a very open-world feeling to the game; something for which the main trilogy has been criticized for, due to it’s linear gameplay style. It’s likely that these “beacons” are drop pods with a locating device on them. Finding one of these objects sends the player back in the game to find out what happened to one of his four squadmates (Buck, Dare, Dutch, Romeo, and Mickey). Once you go back in time for a short period, you will take control of the player for around thirty minutes, and play the situations that the particular character went through. Unlike the overall game, these flashback scenes go along the path of the linear gameplay that has been common throughout the original trilogy of Halo.

Due to the fact that you are playing as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, you will not be using the shielding or the motion tracker featured on the MJOLNIR Battle Armor suits. The Rookie and his squadmates will also lose the ability to dual-wield weapons, such as the M7/Caseless Submachine Gun or the Type-25 Directed Energy Rifle.

On the other hand, you will receive a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), which will likely give waypoints, mission objectives, and information which will help the player.In addition to the PDA, the Rookie will also have a new “visual mode” known as the Visual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance (or VISR), which identifies allies and enemies through the HUD on his helmet’s visor by illuminating and classifying objects; blue outline for allies, red outline for enemies, and yellow outline for important objects. Also the squad has two new weapons, the M7S Submachine Gun and the M6C/SOCOM, which the protagonist and most of his comrades land with in Mombasa during the initial drop.

As stated by Bungie in the January 23rd Weekly Update, the Sangheili will not be appearing at all in ODST. By December 2008, the game was “representational”, meaning that players could experience the game from start to finish, albeit in an unfinished state. The entire Bungie staff was pulled from other duties to play through the game and offer feedback. Among the unfinished elements was the lack of finished dialogue delivered by voice actors; storywriter Joseph Staten filled in placeholder audio.  Bungie’s audio director Martin O’Donnell will contribute music for ODST, as he has done for the previous Halo games. Due to ODST’s shift to a new protagonist, O’Donnell created new music that was a homage to Halo, though was taken in a new direction.

Multiplayer

Firefight:

Main article: Firefight

“Built on top of Halo 3: ODST’s campaign, Firefight is a cooperative game mode that lets you and up to three of your friends put your skills to the ultimate test. It allows you to jump straight into the heart of Halo and experience traditional Halo sandbox encounters with a new, high octane twist. Though you’ve squared off against most of the enemies you’ll face in Firefight before, you’re not going to be able to rely on your past experiences alone to guide you through all of the action. In Firefight, even the most “harmless” enemy can become a dangerous threat when you’re low on ammo, low on lives, and have your back against the wall. Throw gameplay modifying skulls into the mix and you’ll find that the combat can become even more interesting and intense.”

—Bungie.net: Drop Into Firefight

Firefight, a brand new feature to the Halo franchise and recently announced at E3 2009, is a cooperative campaign gameplay mode. Four players over Xbox LIVE or System Link play to complete a series of Human vs. Covenant matches. All features from the Campaign Scoring, as well as skulls, achievements, and leaderboards of Halo 3, will be featured in ODST.

Known Firefight maps include Security Zone, an ONI facility located near the Space Tether, Crater (Night), which takes place around an unknown area in the Mbaraki District and an Unnamed Firefight Map, a bigger map which takes place on the savanna at the outer edge of New Mombasa’s highway system.

 Map Pack:

All map packs (Heroic, Legendary, and Mythic) will be available for those who haven’t already purchased them over Xbox LIVE Marketplace. In addition to the other map packs, an additional map pack will be featured in the ODST package. These maps are currently known as Citadel, Heretic, and Longshore.

While previously confirmed to only feature a Campaign element as the only gameplay mode, the second disc in the ODST box will contain all of the maps, which you will be able to play directly from there, without having to download the maps to your Hard Drive and starting Halo 3.

Synopsis

The game is set on the 20th of October, during the events of Halo 2, in the First Battle of Earth at Mombasa.

A number of pods carrying ODST’s appear in the sky over New Mombasa to clear out the remaining Covenant forces in the city. The Prophet of Regret’s ship opens a Slipspace portal in Earth’s atmosphere above the city, resulting in an antimatter-matter annihilation accompanied by a physical shockwave and an EMP. The shockwave tears through Mombasa, badly damaging the city. When the EMP reaches the HEV Pods, it destroys their electronics, which prevents them from making a controlled descent, hence they are destroyed on impact with the ground.

One HEV Pod enters the airspace above Mombasa after the primary EMP has subsided. However, the HEV pod passed through a secondary residual EMP that partially damaged its electronics. Despite this, it still managed to make a pseudo-controlled descent, albeit a rough one; the HEV crashes through the side of a building, knocking its occupant unconscious. As night draws, the lone Marine wakes up, armed only with a submachine gun, and moves forward to secure beacons scattered across the city.

Controls:

This is the controls for Halo 3 ODST:

Here we are, the end of the challenge.  This is a dump of my screen (cropped a bit) just seconds after Emma fulfilled her lifetime wish, to get 10 points in both handiness and logic.

The forum posting where I got the idea for this challenge had a scoring system, just to see how you do, and I hadn’t planned on keeping score, but I got curious and decided to see how well I did.  The only thing I didn’t track was how many Sim days it took to reach Emma’s lifetime wish, so I’ll estimate 20, it should be close to that.  With that, I ended up with 405 points, more than anyone else on the forum posted.  I had no deaths, all my teens had either an A or B grade in school, they all had fairly high Lifetime Reward points, and Anthony had a ton of friends.

As for the future of this game, I plan to turn on aging, start controlling the teens a little, wait for them each to hit adulthood and kick them out of the house.  I’ve thought about having Hannah and Isabella stay since they’re such interesting characters to watch.  After that, I’m not sure.  I may have Emma adopt a couple teens, to keep the house for troubled teens thing going, I may try to marry her off, which should be interesting with two crazy people in the house with her.  I guess I’ll just see what happens.  I will keep posting, though.

Made some drastic changes to my purifiers deck, here are the pics, explanation coming soon

There hasn’t been much excitement in the game lately.  The teens do a lot of sitting around and watching TV after school, that is, when they aren’t waving their arms and stomping their feet to get into the bathroom.  The old computer broke so I sold it and upgraded the TV.  No one used that old computer much anyway and the TV broke every time someone watched it, so I considered this a good investment.  This screen shot was taken after Abigail and Olivia skipped school to sit and watch TV all day, then they sat and watched TV all night.

This is what Isabella was working on in the last picture.  Odd little painting, it’s hanging in one of the bedrooms right now.

I let Emma walk around town some one day and she made a new friend.  They stood outside the book store and made faces at each other for two Sim hours, then Emma went home.  How awkward.

Isabella broke curfew again to fight with this girl.  I wonder why they hate each other so much?  They stood around and yelled at each other again, then Isabella slapped her twice before the cop showed up to take her home.

Despite the blackening she got one night, Emma still loves her job.  Her mood meter is green most of the time she’s working, more than it is at home.  She is now (I think) level six, she may have been promoted again and I didn’t notice, she is a pastry chef.  Still working nights and still much less stressed than she was before.  She is less than a quarter of a point from maxing out both her logic and cooking and she’s hit two points in charisma.

Looks like the challenge will be over soon and I actually think I’m going to miss it.  When I started I hated this game, it seemed to move so slow and the teens were obnoxious, I felt like I would never finish and playing was so boring.  I know I haven’t posted much about my game here, but really not that much has happened.  I think once the challenge is over I’ll start controlling the teens some to try to make it more interesting.

Hannah finally finished her painting and here is the final result.  It is every bit as strange as I thought it would be.  I hung it in one of the bedrooms.

I forgot that Hannah isn’t the only teen with a hobby, Anthony is a level 8 guitar player.  He plays for at least a couple hours every night and all the teens stand and watch like they’re hypnotized.  I don’t know why the guitar has such an effect on them but it’s kind of annoying.

One night while I was watching Abigail talk to herself in the bathroom mirror, I looked out to the living room to see what was going on and saw this.  Ryan has the flirt trait so he flirts with everyone.  We’ve seen him make out with Isabella before, but he keeps using pick up lines on Hannah and he’s tried to kiss her a few times but she won’t let him.  I guess cuddling on the couch with Anthony is the next best thing.  He is a good guitar player.  And those suspenders are hot (*snort*).

And then this happened.  Well, that’s interesting.  Should make for some good drama between Ryan, Anthony, Isabella and Hannah.

Here is a video that we made early on to feature basic game play. The game design has changed a bit since the videao was made, but you will get a general idea of the graphics and type of game.

Zynga launched Cafe World about a week ago, and already it’s becoming one of the largest games on the Facebook platform.

In fact, it grew from 0 to 10 million users in just one week. It has even gained 1.5 million users today alone.

And now it’s the #1 app on InsideSocialGame’s list of Top Gainers: Café World Hits 10M, Easily Takes #1 Spot on This Week’s Top 20 Games

Here is the official description of Cafe World:

“In Café World, you’re in charge of your very own restaurant. Choose from dozens of dishes to cook, then slice, chop, saute and bake your way to the top of the culinary world!

It’s up to you to decorate your café any way you want with hundreds of items and styles to choose from. And if you need a break, you can always visit your friends’ restaurants and try their daily specials… you might even find someone you can hire!”

“What about monetization?” you might ask.

Zynga is monetizing its users through virtual goods, where players buy virtual items for small chunks of money. And Facebook’s users are opening up their pocketbooks far more than other buyers of virtual goods.

To increase distribution, Zynga’s cross-promotion efforts include strategically placed buttons for Café World in other games, including hits like FarmVille, Mafia Wars, YoVille and more. Plus, a lot of Facebook Advertising. And of course, your friends becoming “Tikka Masala experts” and their statuses populating your Facebook feeds.

Read the full story on Insidesocialgames :Zynga’s Café World Goes from 0 to 8.6 Million Users in a Week, with Big Implications