CityVille, a city-building genre on Facebook, becomes one of Zynga’s most popular social games since it was released to the public. Because CityVille is somewhat similar to FrontierVille, it is considered a sequel to the successful simulation game.
For example, players need to chop down the wild trees at first in order to make room for new buildings. Just like in Zynga’s other titles, players spend energy to do the work in CityVille. Once players exhaust all their energies, they have to wait for recovery or purchase the energy refills. Likewise, collection items will reward players with coins, EXP, and even special items not available in the in-game shop when they are traded in.
Combining the popular elements of FarmVille and FrontierVille, CityVille players reclaim the plot of wasteland by chopping the trees, harvesting the goods, building the houses, colleting the bonus rewards and more. Besides the similar mechanics, CityVille allows players to run the franchise business, complete various building missions, and more. The ultimate purpose is to develop the vacant space to a forest of skyscrapers and franchises.
The graphics in CityVille are really interesting, including the rotatable 3D buildings, moving citizens, and delicate decorations. Of course, the basic gameplay is to build, manage and create a modern city. By building various houses, players can not only add the population, but also collect the rent on the properties. By constructing the practical community buildings, it means a growing population cap with abundant rewards. By placing other decorative items, players can both beautify their city and increase the property value.
Furthermore, the building missions offer a clear goal for what to do next in the game. Actually, they are helpful and convenient in the form of guidelines. In the beginning, the tutorial missions help players get started with the development. After the city is beginning to take shape, the missions will unlock more constructions and the further functions like shipping. The same as Zynga’s other social games, the holiday-themed missions will show up on the mission list to celebrate holidays like Christmas, Valentine’s Day and many more.
In order to make more money in CityVille, the fast way is to run the business and make profit from selling the goods. In this way, players are able to open different stores, ranging from food stores to retail stores. However, road is the point which requires particular attention. All the properties and stores should be built in connection with either roads or sidewalks. Otherwise, they will not produce any profit.
Farm is the main production facility to produce goods which keep the business running in CityVille. Players can purchase the farm plot from the store, and then grow crops to supply the empty stores. Unlike goods in FrontierVille, the city is allowed to store up a limited amount of goods unless players have built silo or barn to increase the maximum storage. Additionally, goods can also be ordered through freight train unlocked at level 5 and shipping unlocked at level 20. Therefore, players can put the accent on the farming during the initial period while they can pay more attention on the shipping after the growing up of the city.
Heavily with social mechanics, interaction is one of the most interesting features in CityVille. Every time players help their neighbors harvest the crops, collect the rents or send tour buses, visit rewards will be awarded including energies, coins, goods and hearts. And, most important, players will get returns from others. The heart point shows off the reputation level at the current stage, which is more important in CityVille. In fact, higher reputation means more daily bonuses.
Another one of the interesting features is that players can create franchises in neighbors’ cities. When players reach level 10, 20, 30… they can set up franchises with available empty business lots. If the neighbor has accepted the business request, new stores can be built to earn more money. After building the franchise headquarters, players can check out the details as well as collect the coins every day. As a result, franchises let players expand and supply their business more than just in their own city.
In addition, if players want to construct the community buildings, friends’ help is also the main requirement. There are two way to finish the community buildings: either pay cash to finish the work or hire crew members from friends. Although the former is faster, the latter is no doubt more economical. Trade serves as a means of economic development in CityVille. Besides transporting the goods with NPC, it connects players to exchange the goods with friends in the train platform.
The more the neighbors, the more the benefits! It is easier to build a modern city with generous friends, because friends mean inexhaustible energies and collectible rewards. Moreover, they will help send the quest items to complete the missions, zoning permit to expand the land and exclusive decorations to brighten the city.
Looking at the Appdate for CityVille in January, it has reached the milestone of 100 million monthly active users. Why is CityVille so popular?
First of all, CityVille has released global versions in five languages: English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. Due to the global versions, we have witnessed over the several weeks a rapid increase in the CityVille users all over the world on Facebook. And also, CityVille has added a plenty of social functions sharing with friends, for example, gifts, reminder, mails and many others. All these functions are easy to promote the game. Finally, CityVille has a lot of media exposure as well as advertisements in other Zynga’s popular games, which makes the game more well-known. All in all, CityVille is the most successfully social games from Zynga on Facebook.
