CastleVille is the Second Most Played Facebook Game Daily in 22 Days

If there's one takeaway from this, it's that 'Ville games still got it. Zynga's CastleVille has surpassed the likes of FarmVille, The Sims Social and Zynga Poker to become the second most played game daily on Facebook with 8.1 million returning every day. The game is now in the top five for monthly players, with 27.6 million, according to AppData. And it did it in just 22 days.

As a result, CastleVille is both faster and slower than CityVille was a year. The latter reached nearly as many monthly players in almost half the time, but didn't amass as many daily players as Zynga Dallas's new hotness did last month. For what it's worth, CastleVille is far stronger out of the gate where it counts: daily players, the best measure of how gripping a Facebook game is.

This explosive growth can be chalked up to a few factors, but one stands out the most: the Zynga fan base. CastleVille released to a pool of over 200 million able-handed social gamers practically twitching at the thought of a new game to play. Of course, Zynga took great advantage of this, employing several cross promotions across its existing stable of successful games. "Reach Level 5 in CastleVille and get a free Cow" ... or something like that.

That easily explains the burst of growth, but what is it about CastleVille that's drawing more players in than nearly all of Zynga's games? While the game is certainly the most robust, full-featured and gorgeous 'Ville game to date, it's still a 'Ville game. Could it simply be that it's new and shinier than the rest, or is the 'Ville formula really still the best way to approach social games?

Source: Games

CastleVille Beastie Lab Quests Everything You Need To Know

A new quest series has launched in your Kingdom in CastleVille, which sees Beasties trying to overrun your land (as usual). Now though, you'll really have a way to fight back by constructing the Beastie Lab through these quests. There are eight quests in all, and we're here with a guide to help you know what to expect and how to finish each one. Let's get started!

The Good Fight

Banish 2 Gloom Rats in your Kingdom

Visit 2 Neighbors

Tend 5 Buildings in your Neighbors' Kingdoms

This one's pretty simple. You can either complete tasks around your own Kingdom with the hope of randomly drawing out a Gloom Rat, or you can head into the market and purchase a Gloom Rat potion for just 5 Reputation points. As for the tending jobs, you'll need to actually collect from buildings - not just accelerate their progress - for them to count towards your five. When you finish this first quest, you'll receive 500 coins, 10 XP and two Gloom Rat Potions.

Weird Science

Buy a Beastie Lab

Construct the Beastie Lab

The Beastie Lab costs just 2,000 coins in the market, and can be constructed using three Wood Planks, 10 Stones and five Beakers. The Beakers come from asking your friends (via individual requests), or they can be earned at random by tending buildings in both your own and your neighbors' kingdoms. When you complete the Lab's construction, you'll finish this quest and will receive 1,000 coins and 20 XP.

Here, Beastie Beastie

Collect 6 Gloom Rat Tails

Craft 1 Rat Decoy

Place 1 Rat Decoy

The Rat Decoy can be crafted inside your newly constructed Beastie Lab. You'll need three Shells (earned by fishing), two Gloom Rat Tails (defeat Gloom Rats) and a block of Moldy Cheese (ask friends) to craft it. It takes 12 hours to complete, and afterwards can be placed in your kingdom as you do with any other item. When you complete this quest, you'll receive 1,000 coins and 20 XP.

Wolf's Bane

Ask friends for 4 Longbows

Craft 5 Silver Arrows

Use 2 Silver Arrows to Banish Gloom Wolves

The Longbows come from a general news post that asks your friends to send them to you. Meanwhile, the Silver Arrows are crafted inside your Beastie Lab, and can be thought of as Wood Clubs or another weapon that allow you to take off more health per energy point used to combat the Beasties in your Kingdom. A single Silver Arrow requires four Gloom Wolf Hair, two Silver Ore and two Arrowheads to craft. Arrowheads come from friends, or by tending flowers. A single Silver Arrow takes four hours to craft.

Morphing Time

Collect 3 Thief's Cloaks

Craft 4 Thief Morphers

Use 2 Thief Morphers on Gloom Thieves

Gloom Thief Potions can be purchased in the market for 10 Reputation Hearts each, and you'll have a chance to receive a Thief's Cloak when banishing them. The Thief Morphers, meanwhile, are crafted inside your Beastie Lab. You can use them from your inventory on extra Gloom Thieves to turn them into chickens. when you finish this quest, you'll receive 1,750 coins, 35 XP and a Alchemy Table decoration.

Clucked Up

Ask friends for 6 Chicken Feed

Tend 15 Chickens in your Neighbors' Kingdoms

Craft 3 Hard Boiled Eggs

Hard Boiled Eggs are crafted in your Kitchen using five Pails of Water and 10 Eggs each. You can get Eggs by tending your own adult Chickens. Finishing this quest gives you 1,000 coins and 20 XP.

Secret Ingredient

Ask friends for 6 Philosopher's Stones

Collect 8 Gloom Goblin Ears

Craft 5 Alchemist Powders

Even though you can earn the Alchemist Powders for free by simply helping out in your friends' Kingdoms, they can also be crafted within the Beastie Lab. The Gloom Goblin Ears, meanwhile, come from banishing Gloom Goblins. You can purchase their potions in the store for 12 Reputation Hearts each. When you complete this quest, you'll receive 1,750 coins and 35 XP.

WMBD

Have 15 Alchemist Powder to Make Beastie Bomb

Visit 10 Neighbors

Use Beastie Bomb

The Beastie Bomb is special item that will immediately banish all Beasties currently active in your kingdom. You'll craft one within your Beastie Lab. When you finish this final Beastie Lab quest, you'll receive 2,500 coins and 50 XP.

Source: Games

Build and expand the Sheep Pen - FarmVille English Countryside

One of the most hotly anticipated new features in the English Countryside expansion in FarmVille is the ability to breed sheep. You'll receive two free, plain white sheep (not specifically Ewes or Rams) for free when you start working on your second farm, but if you'd like to jump into Sheep Breeding itself, you'll first need to build the Sheep Pen in which to house them.

The Sheep Pen is available to purchase from the store for 5,000 coins. For that price, you'll receive just the frame, which must be built up with building materials: 10 each of Wooden Boards, Nails, and Bricks. Most of you will have saved up more than enough of these materials in preparation for your trip to England, but if not, you can meet us behind the break for a guide on how to earn more building ingredients, and how to continue your work on building the Sheep Pen.

Once you build the Sheep Pen, you'll have a new building that can hold 20 Sheep, Ewes, or Rams by default. This building can be expanded twice, adding 10 more storage slots with each expansion, to a total capacity of 40 sheep. Both of these expansion require more building ingredients for the last, but remember, expanding right now is an entirely voluntary process. Once you have room to store 20 sheep, you can freely use those extra building ingredients to build things like the Horse Stable or Garage.

If you choose to expand, your first expansion of the Sheep Pen requires 15 each of Wooden Boards, Nails, and Bricks, while the second (and final expansion as of this writing) requires 20 of each part.

Here's a rundown of where to get extra building ingredients, should you not have enough on hand (or have used them elsewhere):

- Purchase them for 1 Farm Cash each

- Click on the "Ask for Part" button and send individual requests to friends for ingredients

- Open Special Delivery Boxes which can contain the parts you need

- Look out for wall posts from your friends that share excess building parts as they complete their own buildings on their farm(s)

- Have friends send you these ingredients from the free gifts page

While you can use your Sheep Pen just a storage building, remember that you can also use it to breed sheep

Source: Games

FrontierVille English Countryside - Expand Your Farm With Surveyors

FrontierVille English Countryside - Expand Your Farm With Surveyors While you may be excited to make the trip to the English Countryside in FarmVille, keep in mind that you won't be landing in an area that's as large as the Home Farm size you may be used to. Luckily, there are six expansions ready for you in the game's store.

However, this isn't a process as simple as having a specific amount of neighbors and then unlocking them with coins. Each expansion is locked to you (at least the coin option is) until you can collect enough "Surveyors" to unlock the ability to purchase each particular expansion with coins. Your first farm expansion, for example, is called the "English Homestead," and it expands your second farm to the 14 x 14 size for 25,000 coins.

First, though, you'll need to ask two surveyors to help you. Meet us behind the break to see how to add Surveyors' help to your land and expand your farm to new sizes. To receive the help of Surveyors, you'll need to think of Surveyors as your friends. You'll be able to receive their help by clicking on the "Unlock" button on your next expansion and then clicking on the "Invite Friends" button to send out individual requests to friends, asking them to help you expand. In the image above, we've moved onto the second expansion, which requires six Surveyors in total.

This expansion takes the two Surveyors you gathered for the first expansion and simply adds to them. That is, you only need to have four additional friends help you in order to reach the full six. This means that the feature is cumulative, which should help you expand just a bit faster.

Once you collect the needed Surveyors for a particular expansion, you'll be able to purchase it as normal for coins (which increase with each expansion, just as the number of Surveyors increases). It will apparently take 20 Surveyors in total to unlock the final expansion currently available - the English Estate - but we'd imagine the coin price tag will be the issue to slow people down, rather than the number of Surveyors. Still 750,000 coins is much better than the multi-million coin price tags we've seen back in the Home Farm, so I guess we can't really complain.

Source: Games

15 New Crops to Plant and Master - FarmVille English Countryside

We've been bringing you FarmVille Sneak Peeks for the past few weeks concerning the unreleased crops that we thought would be releasing as part of the English Countryside expansion, and now we've found that 18 crops have officially launched in the game, many of which we correctly predicted.

The 15 crops are all labeled as "English Countryside" crops, and are available to view in your Home Farm's marketplace, but can't be planted. You'll have to make the trip to England yourself in order to plant and master these new crops. There are six new flowers here, some grains, vegetables, and even some tasty Black Tea that can be grown in this new market section. We have all of the details about these new crops for you behind the break.

Here's a look at the new crops in the English Countryside, in no particular order:

Black Tea: Plant for 50 coins. Harvest in 8 hours for 110 coins.
First star of mastery at 900 harvests.

Field Beans: Plant for 80 coins. Harvest in 16 hours for 210 coins.
First star at 600 harvests.

English Peas: Plant for 200 coins. Harvest in 12 hours for 290 coins.
First star at 750 harvests.

Radish: Plant for 90 coins. Harvest in 18 hours for 230 coins.
First star at 600 harvests.

Turnips: Plant for 160 coins. Harvest in 16 hours for 290 coins.
First star at 600 harvests.

Red Currant: Plant for 40 coins. Harvest in 4 hours for 75 coins.
First star at 1100 harvests.

Cornflower: Plant for 60 coins. Harvest in 16 hours for 110 coins.
First star at 600 harvests.

Foxglove: Plant for 101 coins. Harvest in 12 hours for 202 coins.
First star at 660 harvests.

English Roses: Plant for 125 coins. Harvest in 6 hours for 165 coins.
First star at 950 harvests.

Cara Potatoes: Plant for 250 coins. Harvest in 2 days for 620 coins.
First star at 450 harvests.

Barley: Plant for 80 coins. Harvest in 12 hours for 170 coins.
First star at 750 harvests.

Hops: Plant for 150 coins. Harvest in 10 hours for 220 coins.
First star at 780 harvests.

Pink Asters: Plant for 50 coins. Harvest in 1 day for 130 coins.
First star at 310 harvests.

Bluebells: Plant for 120 coins. Harvest in 12 hours for 210 coins.
First star at 850 harvests.

Spring Squill: Plant for 140 coins. Harvest in 12 hours for 220 coins.
First star at 780 harvests.

As you can see, these crops offer anywhere from 1-3 experience points per square planted, so while they may be relatively normal in that respect, it is nice to see some lower mastery requirements for the first star. Just how quickly these crops can truly be mastered, however, will be dependent on whether or not you choose to leave the English farm running, while your other farm is paused.

Source: Games

Building a Garage - FarmVille English Countryside

So, you've already spotted the broken Super Combine on your FarmVille English Countryside, but even after you repair it (check out our guide), do you really want to leave this fantastic three-in-one farm vehicle only capable of farming a 2x2 square area of land?

If not, you'll need to build a Garage, and luckily for you, a themed Garage has been released in the new English Countryside market. However, just like the Super Combine itself, it comes in a state of complete disrepair, and you'll need to rebuild it. Unlike the Super Combine, which was placed on your new farm by default, this is a building that must be purchased, even in its sorry state. The Garage Frame costs 50,000 coins to purchase from the store.

Once you purchase the frame, you'll have a building on your farm like the one in the image at the top of this post. To make the garage whole again (that is, make it functional), you'll need to collect a series of building parts - 10 each of Nails, Wooden Boards, and Bricks. Technically, you'll only need to collect 29 parts, as a Brick has been given to you for free.

If you didn't save up these 29 building ingredients in preparation for the launch of the English Countryside, or you've already used all of your saved parts on another building, here's a reminder of where you can find more.

- Click on the "Ask for More" button under any ingredient and send out individual requests for ingredients

- Purchase them from the store for 1 Farm Cash each

- Open Special Delivery Boxes which should give you the parts you need

- Ask your friends to send you these items from the game's free gifts page

- Look out for wall posts from friends that have completed building either their own Garage or other structures as they offer free building materials.

Building a Garage is the only way you'll be able to upgrade your Super Combine, or any other vehicles you may purchase in the future. It comes with a starting capacity of 20 Vehicles, and as of this writing, can't be expanded to hold more. However, unless you simply like to collect excess vehicles because of the way they look, the Super Combine is all you will ever need in terms of pure function.

Source: Games

A New Travelers Guide - FarmVille English Countryside Cheat and Trick

With FarmVille English Countryside (EC) inching closer, it's time to give you unsuspecting farmers a crash course in getting there for when the time comes. Well, at least we can tell what we know based on extensive previews from Zynga. We already know that Duke will crash land on your farm sometime soon, but now we have an even better idea of what to do once we touch down in England.

1. Fix and Send off the Airship

In order to fix Duke's Airship once it crashes, players will have to gather supplies from the farm. After fixing the Airship, you will be tasked with throwing a party. The party will function much like the New Year's Ball party did in the original FarmVille, so you will have to invite several guests to the shindig. Once you've reached the final level, you will have unlocked access to the English Countryside.

2. A not-so-easy landing

Once you arrive in EC, you'll be greeted by several characters including Lily, Duke and more. It will become immediately apparent that this expansion is far more story-driven than FarmVille ever has been. However, participating in the storyline isn't mandatory nor does is cost Energy. In fact, Energy doesn't exist in EC just as it doesn't in the original game. But we imagine you'll be enticed by the Goals' rewards to complete them.

3. Questing made easy

You should have by now noticed that EC is in shambles, and it's up to you to restore this decrepit farm to its former glory. This is done through the game's list of Goals that are represented through an interactive map. It's here that players will be able to track their progress, see what's ahead and their friends' position in the storyline in order to help them.

4. Almost everything will come with you

When you touch down in EC, take a look at your storage--it's not there! Don't be alarmed, this is intended, unfortunately. While your Gift Boxes are linked between games, your stored items are not. Players will likely receive most of their rewards in EC through the Gift Box, so that players have the choice of where to stick things like new decorations and Mastery signs.

Source: Games

Dairy Farm and Chicken Coop - FarmVille English Countryside

After you've likely spent all of your reserves of FarmVille building ingredients working on the Sheep Pen, Horse Stable, and Garage in the English Countryside, you'll be happy to know that two other animal buildings require no building materials whatsoever, giving you a break from the "building," as it were.

These two buildings are the Dairy Farm and the Chicken Coop, which are available to purchase in their completed forms from the English Countryside Marketplace. The Chicken Coop is the cheaper of the two buildings, costing 5,000 coins to purchase. It is limited to one Chicken Coop per user, meaning that in total, across both farms, you'll only be able to own two Chicken Coops - one on your Home Farm, and one in England.

Meet us behind the break for a further look at the Chicken Coop, and all of the details you need to know about the Dairy Farm.

The Chicken Coop comes with a Level 1, regular white Chicken when you purchase it, and has a total capacity of 20 Chickens by default. This can be expanded by clicking on the Chicken Coop, clicking on "Expand Storage," and then waiting for that familiar Storage Menu to appear on your screen.

From there, click on "Expand," and you'll post a news item to your wall, asking your friends to help you with your Barn Raising - you'll need 10 friends to help in a three day time period to expand the Chicken Coop from 20 to 40 Chickens in capacity. A second expansion is possible, taking the Chicken Coop to 60 Chickens in total.

The same expansion technique works for the Dairy Barn, but of course you'll have to purchase it first. This can be done in the game's store for 10,000 coins. As with Dairy Farms on your Home Farm, you aren't limited to just one Dairy Barn here, and can purchase more, if you feel the need to house more than the default of 20 Cows on your farm.

Unfortunately, the Dairy Farm does not come with an inhabitant for the purchase price, but there are some Cows available in the game's store right now - even some in the current English Countryside theme. Each time you expand the Dairy Barn, you'll be able to add 10 spaces for Cows in a single Dairy Farm, until you reach the maximum of 40.

Remember to keep a lookout for Mystery Eggs on your news feed to potentially receive free Chickens, and keep your Nursery Barn stocked with Calves to increase your chances of receiving Cows when they grow. Even if you receive Chickens and Cows on your Home Farm, they will go into your Gift Box and can easily be transferred to your English Countryside, and these new animals buildings.

Source: Games