Americans will celebrate their most confusing of holidays next week with Thanksgiving. While nearly every aspect of the loosely historical day causes outrage by one or several groups, this year's rebranding has been boiled down to two things: giving thanks for something special and turkeys.
Last night, two new rides and two eateries appeared in Roller Coaster Kingdom that all feature turkeys. Ensuring less outrage, Tofu Turkey is bound to make the vegetarians happy and for those who don't like turkey at all, there's always the turkey-free Cranberry Jelly shop.
If you've got the park space and $4,000,000 coins, the Turkey Escape might finally add less confusion and more action back into the holiday.
Roller Coaster Kingdom players will reluctantly admit that it isn't their favorite Zynga game. One of the big reasons for the negative reaction is that while other Zynga games allow players to earn special cash or coins that they can use to purchase premium in-game items, Roller Coaster Kingdom has no such earning ability. Instead, players will need to use really money to buy the sacred Coaster Cash.
While looking to add more neighbors to my park (in order to get another expansion), I noticed that none of my neighbors or Roller Coaster Kingdom friends have Coaster Cash. Sure, my friends could be cheap, not willing to invest in their park or simply got turned off by the game's limitations. But would they play more if they could each Coaster Cash?
Looking to add a new look to your Roller Coaster Kingdom park? Well the game's team released nine new items based on Space and Stone Age themes. Looking at the items, it's pretty clear which one will be the most popular as all the Space-theme items are available for those who have paid real money for Coaster Cash. If you're not willing to pay, then Stone Age may be the next hot thing in Roller Coaster Kingdoms on Facebook.
A little over a week ago, Roller Coaster Kingdom for Facebook added an achievement system that helps players look forward too, rather than just recruiting friends and having them create their own parks to add to your own experience level. With the game's notoriously long wait periods between visitors, we didn't get many badges but it appears that Zynga has rethought the badge system since we noticed today that two of the categories (Bargain Hunter and Hard Hat) were renamed (Shopaholic and Foreman) along with one category, Giving Buddy, has been removed.
Might more changes be in the works? We'll keep watching and let you know.
The real thrill in going to any amusement park remains in each venue's roller coaster. Whether your favorite coaster sports bowties, a cobra roll, a double dip or a corkscrew, there are hordes of fans who rate, cherish and take delight in riding and re-riding their #1 thrill. So why aren't those coaster available in Zynga's Roller Coaster Kingdom?
From the killer drops of Kingda Ka (Six Flag, New Jersey) to the face-flattening speed of Top Thrill Dragster (Cedar Point in Ohio), we wondered if coaster fans want their favorites to show up in Roller Coaster Kingdom.
And the winner for most popular game on Facebook in October is ... (drumroll, please!) ... FarmVille. The farm-simulation is still attracting players in droves, bringing in 11 million people in the past month for a whopping total of 63 million users. Zynga's restaurant simulation game, Cafe World, went from zero users to 27 million in a single month and Happy Aquarium went from zero to 22.5 million users in a month.
The other games that made the top five include Mafia Wars, and Pet Society. Even though these games have the most users, it's also important to mention that Zynga's Roller Coaster Kingdom gained 14 million users last month, Pet Society gained 3 million users, Restaurant City gained 2.3 million users and the newly redesigned Bejeweled Blitz gained 2.6 million users.
Needless to say, Facebook game are continuing to attract players in droves; we're already placing bets as to how soon Cafe World will overtake FarmVille as the top dog on the charts. Care to wager?
Want a chance at winning up to 500,000 Coaster Coins in order to buy just about anything you'd want in Zynga's Roller Coaster Kingdom? Well, the game's creators are looking for the scariest theme park as created by you, the game's biggest fans. The contest is relatively easy, take a screenshot of your park and submit it to the Halloween Decorating Contest Entries folder by October 30 at 11:59pm PT (and yes, the forum just went down for two hours of maintenance).
One Roller Coaster Kingdom player will receive a grand price of 500,000 Coins as 2nd and 3rd place winners will get 250,000 and 100,000 Coaster Coins respectively.
Cameo appearances of one TV show's characters in another show has been done for eons. Now Zynga is taking a page out of the TV executive playbook for Mafia Wars' Halloween Loot Event. Starting this Friday, October 30 at midnight (PT), players will be on the hunt for eight Halloween themed items that are based on FarmVille, Roller Coaster Kingdom, Zynga Poker and Cafe World.
The Official Mafia Wars Facebook page whet the appetites of players by unveiling four of the eight items they'll try to earn as they fight and complete jobs in the game.
Park owners got a surprise this week as Zynga's Roller Coaster Kingdom gained a stack of new Themes along with options to alter your park's main gate, fences and paths. The new options allow players looking to stylize their park in Western, Jungle or Haunted Forest Themes.
Yet the Facebook community didn't react kindly to the new themes for one simple reason, many of the new themes items could only be purchased with real money. Jungle Gate, Haunted Gate, Western Gate, Jungle Fence, Haunted Fence and Western Fence items are available for 30 Coaster Cash (about $5.50) with Western, Jungle and Haunted Forest hills going for 40 (about $7). The pay for play theme extended to Haunted and Jungle Paths both going for 10 Coaster Cash (about $2). Those choosing Western Path get a reprieve as that costs 10,000 coins (which are earned through the free game)
Comments from Roller Coaster Kingdom's Facebook Fan Page run from "Pay for themes... BOO!... How 'bout with coins?" to "I'm not paying with real money for that! crazy!!" and "Upgrade with real money... don't think so... will keep my original theme... thanks :o(".
So far, the anger hasn't prompted a mass defection from Roller Coaster Kingdom but with a rash of game outages this week and prohibitive expansion options that don't unlock until players get more friends into the game, fans of the kingdom are hoping that their favorite game isn't turning into a push for profit.
A brand new post on the Mafia Wars Facebook page says that starting on Friday, October 30 at midnight (PST), some seriously haunting loot items will be coming to the game. The official post says the following:
Halloween Loot Event! starting Friday at midnight (PT), all jobs and fights have a chance to give you special Halloween-themed items. Sneak peek into some of the items!
The "items" they're referring to are the collection of creepy pics in the image above, which don't all look like they all belong to Mafia Wars. In fact, that undead cow looks like it belongs in FarmVille and the green bowl of cheesy eyeball soup looks like a terrifying remake of the French onion soup from Cafe World. Keep your eye peeled for these creepy items starting this Friday night ... if you dare!
While many decry social games as not being social enough, one aspect of several recent experiences in Café World has been to hire a friend as an in-game laborer. Making a buddy or friend serve food might be humiliating enough, Zynga's newest game, Roller Coaster Kingdom, lets you hire your Facebook friends to sell food, run rides and more while wearing humiliating themed costumes. From cowboys (sorry Libe) to walking candy corn (sorry Robin) to a wimpy tiger outfit (Al, tiger print is so you), you can test the limits of your true friendship bonds by placing them in outfits that your real-life friends might defriend you for.
Just add a new booth or ride and click Hire a Friend to start humiliating today!
As October nears its end, the season's best holiday, Halloween is adding a fright to even your favorite social networking games like Cafe World. Zynga's Roller Coaster Kingdom, which lets players create and manage an amusement park, is getting into the spirit by unleashed several spooky themed rides that are bound to send a chill down the spines of even your undead patrons.
Facebook game Cafe World is attracting virtual restaurateurs in droves, hitting 20 million users since it launched three weeks ago. That makes this, officially, the fastest growing social game of all time -- outpacing FarmVille, which is now at 60 million active users roughly four months after its debut.
Roller Coaster Kingdom, a theme-park game also from Zynga, has also shown positive growth -- bringing in 4 million new users last week. This game has suffered from ups and downs in the past, as has the number four gainer this week -- Bejeweled Blitz from PopCap. The match-three game from PopCap launched a redesign last week -- with new powerups an more -- which has obviously struck a chord with Facebook users.
Playfish, Zynga's main rival, games have also seen positive growth, but no where near the booming numbers of Cafe World and FarmVille. Pet Society, Playfish's pet game, has the same number of active users as Cafe World, and that's been around since August 2008. There's also rumors that game publishing giant EA has bought Playfish, so we'll be interested to see how that changes the game playing population once that takes effect.
In the meantime, we'll be serving up endless batches of Chips and Guac in our Cafe World cafe -- alongside 20 million other people. See you in the kitchen.
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The real thrill in going to any amusement park remains in each venue's roller coaster. Whether your favorite coaster sports bowties, a cobra roll, a double dip or a corkscrew, there are hordes of fans who rate, cherish and take delight in riding and re-riding their #1 thrill. So why aren't those coaster available in Zynga's Roller Coaster Kingdom? 
Want a chance at winning up to 500,000 Coaster Coins in order to buy just about anything you'd want in Zynga's Roller Coaster Kingdom? Well, the game's creators are looking for the scariest theme park as created by you, the game's biggest fans. The contest is relatively easy, take a screenshot of your park and submit it to the 
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