Branching out

Even while attempting to rein in the amount of time I spend on social app games, I find myself taking new (to me) ones for a test run. Recently I tried games involving the Mafia, vampires, and sororities. What does it say about me that of these three, I found the last one the most disturbing and alien to my experience?

Spring baskets??

I appreciate efforts to be inclusive, non-sectarian, etc. Really, I do. But "spring baskets?" That is the latest collecting game-in-game at Farmville. We are all collecting lovely pastel spring eggs in our spring baskets. I suppose next December we will collect goodies for our winter stockings.
People, it is Easter, a cultural holiday of chocolate, rabbits, eggs, ham, and other icons of indulgence after a long, cold, dark winter. Yes, it is also the most significant day of the Christian liturgical calendar. Many people who do not celebrate the religious element still enjoy the cultural one. In either case, it is Easter.

yet more social city

I am still playing Social City, despite the connection issues. Right now I am saving up for the newspaper building, being an old newshound myself. It is 300,000, which takes awhile to accumulate. I did splurge today on another new leisure building that just became available - a bookstore. Every town has to have a bookstore. Or several.

When I am not playing social app. games or grading papers, I am often working with my own online bookstore, Hazelnut Books, at Amazon.com

Another thing I am saving up for is a church, which requires game cash, a lot, and players only get one per level-up, so it will be awhile yet before my town gets religion. If this was the Gilded Age, they could read sermons in the newspaper. Maybe my townsfolk will opt to get Joel Olsteen books at the town's newly constructed bookstore. Being a progressive, I would prefer they went with Jim Wallis, but I am not an autocrat.

Still in Social City

I spoke too soon, as I often do, when I said was emigrating from the city and heading back to the farm. I gave Social City another chance. I still sometimes get the message about the Internet being "a little broken." But I play on. In fact, I am gentrifying my neighborhood, knocking down the little worker cottages with their yards with tiny figures mowing, resting in hammocks, and playing ball. In their place are going apartment buildings and now, (I just got this in the latest level-up) condos. Oh, I will keep the green space and fields of flowers. Or some of them anyway. I am guessing that less animation will mean less Internet brokenness. We shall see.

Moving out of Social City

Sadly, I have to move out of Social City. All those fun eye-candy visuals slow down loading to an insufferable degree and freeze up my browser several times per play session. I guess there is such as thing as too much bling. Sigh.
Back to the farm (ville).

Moving in to Social City

I swore I was not going to add another social application game. My list of cyber pets and farms was already too long.

Then I checked out Social City and was hooked. Instantly. The graphics are great, though they do take awhile to load. Each home's yard has people mowing, playing, or relaxing. The tennis and basketball courts have animated players. Those courts raise an economic and sociological question for me, though. Why do basketball courts cost 3,000 coins to build and tennis courts 40,000. Is it a class issue? The factories have workers in hard hats loading crates and operating forklifts. When a factory is left idle for any amount of time, these little workers seem to get frustrated. It looks like they are even banging their heads against the wall. Perhaps they are anxious about possible layoffs?

Leisure is a big part of this game, despite the aforementioned restless factory people. Players have to build in lots of leisure opportunities for the town to grow. More people equals opportunity to build more factories to make more coin. Each house and hotel "yields" x number of new people in a given time span. Population growth ceases, however, if you do not have enough leisure. Then you have to add fast food joints, parks, gas stations, coffee shops, etc. There is even a farmers market. Nice touch. Churches, by the way, are costly and come a bit later in the game. Yes, even more costly than the tennis courts. Since I teach religions of the world, I would like my town to have a mosque and a synagogue, perhaps a Buddhist meditation center. Maybe in the next upgrade.

Some of the "leisure" building opportunities do not seem to quite fit. The game lumps municipal services such as police, fire department, and schools in as "leisure." Likewise with office buildings. Oh well. I have made a game of creatively placing my leisure buildings, such as putting a bowling alley right next to an art gallery, just to mix things up classwise. Speaking of class, I put a pub next to the school. Inspiration for that, which would not be allowed in a "real" city, I teach. 'Nuff said. I am also an LOLcat fan so I made sure to place a hot dog stand and a burger joint on either side of the pet shop. That way the "kittehs" and "goggies" can "haz" cheezeburgers and hot dogs whenever they want.

More later. Right now I better go tend to my mayoral duties, such as ensuring the factory workers are kept occupied.