f13.net

Facebook games are awfully popular, but terribly flawed.  The one I have the most experience with is Mafia Wars but I've played with Pet Society, My Farm, and a few others.

Are there any non-terribly-flawed games that people have found?  It seems like a great medium for browser games, but so far I'm pretty disappointed in what I've seen.

All the ones I've seen are crap.

I like Word Challenge.  And I play Mafia Wars even though it's mostly crap.   :awesome_for_real:

Mafia Wars is terrible but I play it religiously. It is like crack.

It is terrible and it is like crack.

I want a non-terrible game if it's like crack.

I don't think Mafia Wars is terribly good per se, but the following two points make it non-terrible compared to most web games:

1) "Recruiting" friends to the game offers reciprocal benefits rather than being a pyramid scheme.
2) You don't lose all your shit if you take a week off and let people beat you up.

Mafia wars is awful, I play it too.

My wife plans Farm Town... looks gay to me but she says its addicting and now has my son playing  :ye_gods:

I.Refuse.

I'm not sure if any of you guys do the iPhone game thing, but there are about a million Mafia Wars clones on it. I tried a few, usually got bored in about 30 minutes of /played.

Restaurant City is not bad, especially if you like Sims-style stuff.  It makes for a very nice virtual fishtank sort of thing; you set up your restaurant and then just watch your little guys run around waiting tables and collecting money.  My biggest gripe is that it's still beta and they're working out some stability problems.

Also by Playfish, Word Challenge is lots of fun, although not a MMOG (it's single-player competitive).

I could never get into Mafia Wars and Vampire whatever.. for some reason I've become addicted to Street Racing though..

Grats on posting over 9000 times.

Holy shit, I didn't even notice.  (http://smilies.vidahost.com/contrib/sarge/SaiyanSmilie_anim.gif)

I kind of like Restaurant City too.. The artwork and animations are funny. And.. well.. it least it has graphics in the first place (unlike the Zynga titles). I liked it enough that I RMT'ed $5 with it.  :uhrr: Yes, yes, it's pretty sad.  :why_so_serious: I kept changing the theme  of my restaurant and ran out of cash quick. First it was Big Kahuna, then the ThaiPod, now the Ramen Rocket (it'll probably be years before I can afford the actual rocket prop though.. and hell no, I'm not rmt'ing for it).

[edit] I think I'll RMT for a copy of Sims 3. I seem to be in the mood for that.

I just noticed an old friend of the family has started playing Farmville avidly it seems. In a weird twist of events he used to be a real farmer back in the day & I remember helping to herd his hundred of cows as a child on a yearly visit.

Farmville has sucked me in more than MafiaWars, even.

Yep - and if i get one more god damn chicken from a friend I am going to turf their farm.

Zynga Is On A Tear; Claims Nearly 130 Million Social Gamers
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/30/zynga-is-on-a-tear-claims-nearly-130-million-social-gamers/


Just about all of my office does Mafia Wars, about half do FarmVille — I've rejected and blocked these, though I have played Zynga Poker via Facebook (and via a pretty nifty iPhone app). Not all the players come from FB either, as it seems they've penetrated other social networks too…

My girlfriend who never played a video game in her life is addicted to Farm Ville.

Civilization Network soon to be coming to Facebook - in 2010.

http://www.facebook.com/civnetwork

Heh.

Zynga's Cafe World is it for me right now, although that's surely because I haven't quite figured out how to zoom in it yet without spending all my time flipping burgers.

Ponzi is fun too and nicer in that I can visit it less often, and don't actually have to play as much.

Metaplace came out with Island Life, which is farming on an island.  It's completely derivative so far, which is disappointing.  What's the point, exactly?

Fishing game - Fish A Fish.  Not for raising fish like Fishville or Fish World, but for catching them.

Well, it's MMO multiplayer from the get-go, which is one difference. Ho paround to your neighbors -- watch for the online indicator in the neighbor bar. :)

We also just released island expansion, which lets you scuplt your own island to a degree.

Expect more... we can turn this into pretty much anything from here. :)

Turn it into pre-CU SW:G. More epic threads needed.

That'd be sweet!

I just started out on Island Life and this weekend.  It really screams for a fishing mini-game that you can play while you chat with your friends and wait for your crops to grow.

I've been fiddling with it a little, too, though usually only once every day or two.  I don't know what's planned for it but I'm interested to see what happens.  I'll be happier once I can turn my fence pieces around and make a little enclosure.  I have to have some sort of enclosure in every Facebook game I play for some bizarre reason.  I guess it's a mental thingy.  Anyway, so far I'm playing Cafe World, Island Life (not often), Farmville, and I have that City of Eternal beta invite but haven't done anything.  I was hoping someone here would tell me whether or not to bother.  I was playing Mafia Wars but haven't for a few weeks.  I still respond to present requests, though.  This is what happens when you can't find a proper game to play and need something to do while folding laundry.

I agree that a fishing mini-game would be nice.  And something pirate-y, maybe.  Something, besides the chat feature, to distinguish it further from Farmville.

Ok, Ponzi is my new favourite.

How kind, you didn't have to say that though.

Is this your work?

Some of my handiwork may be present, yes.

Addicting.  Fuck.

Also.  Found a bug.

Bugs happen.

I remember this game now -- I got to a certain level and it told me I had to get a friend to join to go any further, so I blocked it.   :awesome_for_real:

Which is 100% wrong. You don't have to invite any friends in Ponzi. We have no blockers like that in anything I've worked on. There's an agenda to get extra moneyz if you invite friends, but we don't force it.

All right, I'll give it another try then.  If it happens again I'll post a screenshot.

It never happened the first time, so it'd be amazing if it happened again. :oh_i_see:

So far so good.  Although I did find a quest bug.

That's the one I found too.  I think it unfucks itself the next time you load the game though.

I said that before I knew it was yours.  I didn't realise until Xanthi said something on Facebook!  Good job, you!

Yeah I see a bit of your style in there. Heh.

Okay, Ponzi is pretty fun.  And the interface is 100x better than QQ.

I think what I hit last time was a quest asking me to hire a certain number of employees combined with having already hired all the available people combined with a helpful hint telling me that if I was out of regular hires I could "hire" my friends instead, at which point I said ORLY and /blocked.  I must not have noticed that the regular hiring pool would eventually restock itself.

Hiring your friends doesn't invite them, I don't think.  It just spams them with a message saying you put them to work.

Basically.

Samwise, the QQ interface and all that shit was done before I got there. I had nothing to do with those bits at all. Just the text itself.

That's not really any better.  But it's optional, so my sensibilities aren't offended.  In fact, I went ahead and spammed a bunch of people tonight that I think might dig the game, but only because I wasn't required to.


Oh, I know.  Just saying it was nice of them to give you an actually decent game to work on this time.   :awesome_for_real:

Yea I always feel a little guilty (and a little nerdy) when facebook spams my friends.  It's not 'I had sex with your sister' guilt.  But it's kind of like 'I hit up your sister for magazine subscriptions' guilt.

But I have to admit that Ponzi forced me to ignore my psychosis, and I happily spammed them in order to get my level 4 building.  Fuck them if they can't take it.  Except the crazy friends from the far-distant past who I don't want to know I'm on facebook at all for fear of that ominous pm, 'hey call me!.'  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. 

I did it, too, since it doesn't really do anything but leave a little message.  I'm a selfish bitch.

Okay, how do I get a "Dino Lure"?  I have a quest to use one on someone but it doesn't show up in the perk list.  What am I missing?

I think it just popped up on a perk at some point.  That's one thing that makes this game a tiny bit frustrating - not enough perks.  You can buy them, but I don't.  And something that I find annoying about all these games is that they are all in "beta", even the ones that have been around for quite a while, yet they want you to buy stuff.  It's as if they want to cash in and still have no accountability.  How convenient for them!  This one is still brand new, though, so I'm not as annoyed yet.  Plus I rarely buy anything in any game so they'll just scowl back at me.

Oh, and I dino lured you, didn't I?  Then I made you beautiful again, right? 

I just spent the $10k to clean myself up.   :awesome_for_real:  I wasn't even sure exactly what the dino lure was doing game-wise, but I figured it wasn't good.

edit: Hey, the FAQ answered my question.

You get a dino lure as a reward for another agenda item.

One of my workers 'smells like pennies.'  I'm pretty sure I know who to thank for that gift.

Yeah, I think I had it all the time but didn't see it in my perk list because I wasn't looking at my victim's building.  Thanks, FAQ!

At least I beautified you after my dino shat all over your building, Sam.   :oh_i_see:

You're welcome.

I'll have none of your revisionist history.  I definitely logged on to find a building covered in dino shit and had to beautify it myself.   :awesome_for_real:

Not that it matters.  -10 morale doesn't mean much when you're constantly capped at 125%.

I see the snarky side of Schildy all over that game.

The majority of the later jobs were actually written by the guy sitting next to me as I moved on to other stuff. Up until the 4th or 5th room, I wrote all the item descriptions. The first... 40 jobs were me and one other person. All the employee "descriptions" (I think there are about 100 or 150) are me and a vast majority of the flavor text found throughout as well. I think all the feed stuff has been rewritten but it's all still pretty great.

Whoever made the secretary needs to rethink how she walks.  I get cramps in my feet just looking at her! 

Is there another room after the bathroom? If not, make one and have the buyable character be the game's mascot girl.

Damn, these things are addicting.

I like this and am suggesting it. Content takes time, well - really - art and animation takes lots of time.


Great way to pass time at work, imo.

Good for passing time in class, too.

Yeah, but somehow I think Schild can't get sacked for playing this particular game at work.  And he won't flunk anything, either.  He might even get a raise if he plays well enough!

Question about Ponzi: how do I send perks to other people? Specifically, I'm trying the Donut Delivery one, where I have to send someone donuts, but I don't see a button or anything to send donuts to people.

You have to click on their name to go to their building and use the perk there. 

Ahh ok; guess I'm SOL because none of my friends have accepted my attempts at hiring them.

You can add me, if you like, so you can at least try out the perks.  I don't have many people playing, either, and I'm nearly always at the bottom of the bunch so even some bad perks won't bother me.  It's the most fun facebook game I've played so far.  It's Signe Salamander.  I'm really Signe but the Salamander is a red herring. 

Oh dear.  I think I might have just had a Sky moment.   (http://elevenoone.net/forum/images/smilies/tomato2.gif)

You can rotate those fences and stuff on Island Life now... as of a while ago actually.

http://fury.com/2010/02/jesse-shells-mindblowing-talk-on-the-future-of-games-dice-2010/ (http://fury.com/2010/02/jesse-shells-mindblowing-talk-on-the-future-of-games-dice-2010/)

Thought it was an excellent watch. Talks about how facebook games threw the industry for a total loop, the success of rock band, the wii and what might be in our future.

Interesting, but didn't Mary Poppins cover the latter half of his talk a long time ago?

I liked his manner of speaking, but I have no worries that that future - while it may be attempted - will never come to pass. I'm still waiting for a Pokemon MMOG and now one complete with little vinyl figures that have codes to unlock games and chase figures being worth thousands of dollars.

Nintendo, so smart, yet so ridiculously stupid.

My current FB pastime (ok, addiction) is Treasure Madness (http://apps.facebook.com/treasuremadness/).

This one hits the achiever, explorer, and collector buttons. Also, mini-games. And holiday specials.

So, do facebook games just stay in "beta" forever?  Do they do it so they get benefits without being completely accountable to their customers?  It's a nasty way to conduct business, no?

No Facebook game I know of has kept stuff in beta as long as say Google has kept stuff in beta, that said, they have no real release date and they evolve faster than MMOGs do, so I'm not sure it's nasty so much as just "how it has to be." I'm not really "into" the politics of Facebook betas though, but I can assure you no one sits around drinking cognac in high leather chairs thinking about how to dominate the world without ever actually finishing anything.

Edit: Actually, I can only speak for myself, and I design the damn things. There might be people at other companies that refer to themselves as Dr. Claw and laugh about the beta tag on apps, I don't know.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/963220/dr-claw.jpg)

Yes, that was the joke.

Our new one is out now, My Vineyard. Trying some stuff that's new for these games -- a dash of story, a bit more complexity.

http://www.facebook.com/MyVineyard

This one is really pretty!

Interesting use of the Metaplace stuff put into Facebook.

Add me.  :awesome_for_real:

I heartily approve of the theme.  Also, gathering grapes and stomping them is already 10000%  less tedious than planting/tilling ever was in farmville.

Punching grapes is even less tedious.

Oddly enough, the game feels a bit cramped.  I kept wanting to zoom out further and see more of the area.    Switching to fullscreen however seemed to resolve that.

Just came out and 17,000 fans already? Wootz!

It's well over 100,000 players already actually. And our other one, Island Life, is well past 600k. In other words, IL is the most popular game I have ever worked on.

JWIV, you can buy terroir on the market, which expands your space. You get to decide where to expand, so you can sculpt the space any way you like. Check out the pics on the app's wall for stuff users have done.

To be fair though Raph, in a vacuum those numbers mean precisely nothing. Nonetheless, knowing that, grats on passing 500k.

That was MAU. All the stats are visible on appdata.com anyway. :)

Social networks man... they are a great built-in audience.

Well, I think I played Ponzi as far as it goes for the moment and all the farming games are very similar to each other.  I'm tired of cooking food.  The War ones don't really entertain me much.  I'll still fiddle with Raph's farming wino game to see how it goes but I've pretty much put a closed sign on anything else.   Except for the Ponzi game, they're all pretty much the same.  Feel free to direct me to anything that seems different.  I'm not subbed to any MMORPG at the moment but have bought a new PS3 and a pile of games that will keep me entertained until [Space for Some Unknown MMO] comes out.  I think I'm all Facebooked out.   :uhrr:

Yea.  I got to level 50 on Ponzi, and now it's just silly.

I'd like to see a facebook 'game' that is actually a game.  Most seem to be slot machines where your input doesn't make much difference.

The Facebook "Desktop Defender" tower defense game is pretty sweet.  It's basically Desktop Tower Defense with upgrades you can buy, leaderboards, and a new map every week.

Just to put it out there, I stopped working on Ponzi probably mid-December. Worked on Warstorm until about a month ago, and have been working on various other things here and there since. More info as soon as I can give it, of course.

Yes, I remember you saying you weren't doing the Ponzi game anymore.  It seems to have pretty much stopped, too, except for adding some aesthetic bits. No more rooms and I haven't noticed any new snarky comments.  So, it looks like level 135 might be it for me, for now.  I'm usually not this dedicated!  Make me a new distraction, please.  (but no farms!)

If you like tower defense distraction variety, I'll second the recommendation for the Facebook version of Desktop Tower Defense.  I loved the original(s) and the Facebook version is pretty cool.  Takes a few wins to get going though.

My Empire - Playfish game.  Seems buggy.  Every time I load the game, my people are unhappy.  So I spend my funds on decorations to make them happy and then some.  Come back later, and they're unhappy again.  What gives!

Have to keep playing?

No, I mean, my population will be at say, 850 (happily).  I go away and come back, haven't changed anything, and now my population is limited to 766 because of happiness.

It's either a bug or a patch, I don't know which. 

Or maybe it's a feature!

You might like Backyard Monsters.  It's sort of a combination of resource gathering, defending territory and growing monsters, where you can both attack and be attacked by other players.  I just started, graphics are pretty.

Look how cute!

(http://wiki.casualcollective.com/images/thumb/b/b2/Backyard_Monsters_Logo.png/696px-Backyard_Monsters_Logo.png)

I started but it hung forever so I wandered off.

In Backyard Monsters, you have 2 weeks of immunity from other players (not from wild monsters) to build your base.  It seems pretty intensive for the first few hours.

My Empire is definitely buggy on the population/happiness thing.

Is there any way with these games to start over?

In other news, Zynga is making rumbles about making their own Facebook network, because they are unhappy with the 30% cut Facebook wants to take from their online transactions.  Or Facebook may be banning Zynga.  It all depends on who you listen to.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article7125932.ece

Good riddance IMO.  Their games are complete trash.  Addictive, spammy trash.

Raph has competition now from Vineyard Country (http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2010/06/03/ubisoft-makes-wine-on-facebook-with-vineyard-country/).


And Zynga bought Challenge Games (http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2010/06/03/zyngas-latest-acquisition-is-challenge-games/) so now schild works for Zynga?

He announced it somewhere around here.

Well now, that's interesting.  :grin:

Hi!

My title can be fixed BTW. I forgot to mention that.

What will your title be?  I think "Light and Airy" would suit you.

"Stays Crunchy in Milk"

I'm glad Frontierville failed to load. I saw the opening graphic and thought "Oh jesus shit not a Farmville clone."

I'm kind of terrified, but schild has convinced me it is WoW meets Farmville. Won't load for me either, though.

I got in. I would have preferred if my first 5 minutes of the game didn't involve a dozen offers to notify my friends of how awesome Frontiersville is.

I mean, shit, at least get past unzipping my pants before you want me to spread the word about your prostitution skills.

The loading screen needs to have an option to mute the loud obnoxious music.  Especially if it's going to hang at about 70% progress.   :oh_i_see:

For a company experienced with running Facebook games with multi-million users, they sure seem unable to keep their network running. It may have to do with Frontiersville having more than simplistic game mechanics.

You can mute the music once you're inside.

I figured.  Bad form to start blaring the music before showing me the option to turn it off, though.  IIRC Restaurant City did the same thing and it always pissed me off.

I played Frontierville the first day it was out. Got a couple levels and then I guess it crashed. Logged in now and that character is gone  :why_so_serious:

Scaling social games is hard  :drill:

You might notice that "Beta" part on the screen.

With Zynga, there is no such thing as a soft launch. You open the doors and it's not a few hundred or thousand people that trickle in to see what's next; but a few hundred thousand who pour in like a raging torrent and consume the game whole.

No matter how much testing any company does behind the scenes, there is a point where you need real users playing. That old notion of a beta and whatnot.

Frontier didn't get one of those.

I know, wah, wah.  :oh_i_see:

The game team has impressed me with what they have accomplished over the first live day. It's not perfect, but it is much more stable and I'm not seeing anything near as many reloads that cost me a few seconds of play results.

Also, come fertilize my crops. :D

--edit: my numbers aren't internal science. I work on FarmVille and don't have a specific idea of how many people hit it on day one. It wasn't a small number though.

Frontierville, whether I work for Zynga or not, is the most impressive thing on facebook - period.

Assuming that team gets the stuff behind the signs done in a reasonable amount of time, I dare say it will be as full featured as any MMOG.

Damn you.  Yet another Facebook game I'll start that has no end to it.

I think I've let all my islanders/villagers/people starve, my plants wither and any pets/animals I'm responsible for die.

There isn't any way to really start over in these things is there?

How do I populate my wish list in Frontierville?

With some difficulty.   :awesome_for_real:

I think you can only do it from the spot where you see the hole for the thing you want.  So you can wishlist collection items from your collection screen, or construction items when you're staring at a construction screen with holes in it.  But as far as I can tell you can't, for example, add a hammer to your wishlist if you don't have an incomplete building sitting around.

Also, I need more Frontierville friends.

A while back I said that the hope for worldy MMOs was Facebook. Frontierville is just about there.

Still can't reconcile the number of pop-ups the game throws at me, some of which are actually detrimental to the "game" by keeping the disappearance timer going while you're doing Facebook stuff. If the game had its way your entire wall posting of every Facebook page would be nothing but Frontierville updates.

Like Schild's.

Yeah, the popups are complete ass.

I'll look although, like Xanthi, I've abandoned all my Facebook games and very nearly almost Facebook in general.  I think I've maybe said two things since I've threatened to hurt IainC if he didn't feel better.  I'm afraid to look to see what's happened in those games I played for fear of some sort of Facebook shock horror.

Re: game status updates - you know you can set filters to allow people to only see certain status updates, right?  I finally went in and created friends lists for each of my games after the MIL made a crack to the husband wondering if the employers I'm applying to can see how much Farmville I'm playing.  Which compared to some of my other friends, isn't that much, tbh.  So I set up the friends list filters and cut her out of any updates because I was feeling snarky.  Anyways, I think it does help, unless you're one of my friends who plays multiple games as I do.

And I could use more FrontierVille and Farmville neighbors as well.  I promise to toss out an occasional status update as a teaser once in a while. ;)

Oh, the whole friends lists thing makes me wonder why FB doesn't allow you to set up these custom lists and have them be available on the first level when you're posting an update.  Instead, you have to choose customize, then specific people, then type the name of the list you want.  Would it really be that hard to just let you create a list and then have it be available when you choose your privacy options?

Apparently yes. :)

I just taught a coworker that whole flow and it has too many steps for sure. Must be a lot of code or something.  :awesome_for_real:

I wouldn't be surprised is that was the reason it's not been changed yet in FB - too much code to fix or something.  I need to code my friends lists so I don't have to type out so much, like starting them with z, y, x or something.

Of course, don't forget you and I were talking about how much of a pain it is to add random people as neighbors for the game (especially when you don't have a huge amount of folks on FB) yet still keep your information private.  It would be nice if you could just have games friends who can do the social thing with you but they have no access to your full profile unless you want them to. 

Oh well, friends list filters it is.

Also, one can hide status updates from any game they want.  I've got a bunch of them hidden.

All I get for the construction thing is to pester my friends by publishing it on my facebook page.  To finish my cabin, I need one of everything: hammer, drill, paint, etc. but I cannot seem to add it to my wishlist.  I see it on other people's wishlists.

Odd - I can add it only if I already have one. 

An awful lot of clicking in this - those dealies disappear too fast when a popup to publish comes up.

Xan - add me on FB. /grimwell or "Craig Dalrymple"

Rhyssa - Do you have your friends in a bunch of groups? I'm running four now - Family, Friends, FarmVille, and FrontierVille

Everyone else sees almost nothing :D

Same here.

Also, is there any way to save what custom group you send out posts to?  FrontierVille (and The Agency) both seem to default to "Everyone" any time it pops up a post to share.

Grim - well, duh!  Yeah, I have several groups - Farmville, Treasure Isle, CafeWorld, and now FrontierVille.  Everything else is family and friends, so I can get social game friends and not have to worry about them seeing my other status updates.  It still kind of feels like whoring for neighbors though. :(

Caladein - I don't think there is.  That's what I was talking about in my last post - the default publish setting is always Friends and then you have to jump through (minor) hoops to get to a customized list to share with.  If nothing else, let us set the publish level at the game options maybe.  That would make things a bit easier perhaps.

You can game the bonus timer by keeping the market window up while waiting for another thing to click.

Frontierville is getting its own thread, not breaking off this one.

You guys who recommended Desktop Defender just killed my day off.

:P

Frontierville is about as "worldy" as an IRC channel.

You and I clearly have different opinions of what makes a game "worldy"...

Probably wouldn't be noticed in the graveyard.
Playdom acquires Metaplace (http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/08/playdom-acquires-metaplace/)

Warstorm needs to change Dragons.  Flight+Special+Good Damage makes them highly unbalanced.  If you can't hit a flying creature, the damage should pass through to moral.

Linked from slashdot and I liked the concept of a game satirising FB games.. Had a look around but didn't see it

Cow-clicker (http://www.bogost.com/games/cow_clicker.shtml). You click a cow, sometime later you click a cow again. You can even pay to have your cow auto-clicked or convince your friends to click it.

There's also some wordy philosophizing (http://www.bogost.com/blog/cow_clicker_1.shtml) which seems to be working towards some moderately interesting points.

Disney just outright purchased Playdom for 1/2 a Billion USD.  Yes... $500,000,000 dollars.  For a facebook game dev. 

Yea, Raph played this one well.

That makes flight useless.

Well, right now flight is hideously overpowered.

My idea doesn't make it useless so much as drastically change the dynamics.  It would mean creatures cannot nullify almost all incoming damage, but they still wouldn't get killed either.  It's not really a change that can be made now that the cards exist, but it would make these cards more of a tactical choice than an "I win".

Maybe that's not so much the case when one all-flight Dragon deck fights another.  As someone without one though, it made me want a resign button so I didn't have to bother sitting through a battle I knew was lost.

A direct damage, recycling, speed deck is better than a dragon deck.  Dragons take too long to get out, so if you can get a good draw initially you can win most times.

I can't.  At least not with my preferred decks.  One dragon gets out and I'm pretty much done for because it just starts eating my cards, which gives them time to get the others out.

(Apologies for not slogging through this entire thread from post 1)

I have some nerdy friends that like to play boardgames. Unfortunately, they're moving to disparate parts of the world (Libya, Uzbekistan, and Nepal if you must know) so continuing to do so may be difficult. Ideally, there are some decently-built but fairly simple games to be played through facebook (for ease of connectivity). Not looking for anything crazy complex; use something like Catan as the baseline.

Any ideas? Yes, I could slog through shitty app after shitty app, but simply asking someone who may already know is always easier.

Play your boardgames online.

If you can get together online, then something like http://www.vassalengine.org/ is what you want.

Not sure the best solution if you can't make the time zone differences work, some turn-based games still can do hot seat multiplayer things where you email the save game file around and such, but that's pretty clunky.

omgomgomgomgomgomg

LE GASP. Talisman Online. So close, yet so far away! Still, that is amazing.

...I thought everyone knew about Vassal!

WestWars (http://www.facebook.com/westwars#!/westwars?v=wall)

By Innogames, the same folks who brought us "The West."



edited to add: I'm having a hard time figuring out how to add friends.  It's either NoScript or my lack of expertise with a Macbook or both.

Didn't see this added itt - so thought I'd stick it here:

Vikings of Thule (http://apps.facebook.com/vikingsofthule/)

Terrible like most other FB games, but I dig Vikings, so I'm addicted. It's pretty new, so there isn't even really a newb guide. Forums say they plan to have one in the next month or two.  :oh_i_see:

Farmville now has commercials! 

I went to McDonald's farm today, and got some kind of McDonald's balloon or something.

I wonder how much McDonald's paid Zynga for this.

Yeah, that was fun.  :grin:

Little Cave Hero has 8bit goodness.  I love the loopy music (but I have to mute it because the people I live with don't) and the artwork. 

The Journey of Jesus: The Calling (http://www.facebook.com/JourneyOfJesus)