Dragon City

Genre: Breeding
Publisher: Social Point

Dragon City is a new exciting game where you breed your own dragons and create a fantastic world of magical islands! You can also combat against your friends with you team of dragons! Join the fairytale fun and hatch a dragon egg!

Overview

The basic of Dragon City breeding is taught during tutorial. You will first have to level up your dragon via feeding to at least level 4. Build a building ground such as Breeding Mountain or Breeding Tree, then you can select which of the dragon that you would like to breed. It will take some time for the dragons to create the eggs and even more time for the eggs to hatch. The types of offspring is dependent on the parents. In addition, there is some sort of luck involved in breeding that you may not get the dragon you are looking for 100% of the time.

Game Play 

Cycle System

Gather gold a number of ways; one being income from your dragon collection. The dragon rarity and level determine the income value. 

Use you gold to buy new habitats, eggs, expand, upgrade, etc.

Bread new dragons.

And repeat.

Dragons

All dragons start off as itty-bitty level ONE dracs. Dragons level up when you feed them four times, the higher a dragon's level, the more food they require per feeding. They grow up so fast. And the higher the level the more income they generate. Needless to say you will do well to build as many food farms as possible.

Breeding:
Basics - 1st Generation

To start breeding the dragons, you must first have these basic building blocks. You must purchase these dragons from eggs because you do not have the parents to generate and mate for these basic dragons.

Plant Dragon
Fire Dragon
Earth Dragon
Water Dragon
Electric Dragon
Ice Dragon
Metal Dragon
Dark Dragon

1st Generation Hybrids

Earth Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Earth + Fire = Flaming Rock or Volcano.
Earth + Plant = Tropical or Cactus.
Earth + Water = Mud or Waterfall.
Earth + Electric = Star.
Earth + Ice = Alpine.
Earth + Metal = Armadillo.
Earth + Dark = Hedgehog.

Fire Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Fire + Earth = Flaming Rock or Volcano.
Fire + Water = Cloud or Blizzard.
Fire + Plant = Firebird.
Fire + Electric = Laser.
Fire + Metal = Medieval.
Fire + Dark = Vampire.

Water Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Water + Earth = Mud.
Water + Fire = Cloud or Blizzard.
Water + Plant = Nenufar or Coral.
Water + Electric = Lantern Fish or Storm.
Water + Ice = Icecube.
Water + Metal = Mercury.

Plant Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Plant + Earth = Tropical.
Plant + Fire = Firebird.
Plant + Water = Nenufar or Coral.
Plant + Ice = Dandelion.
Plant + Metal = Jade.
Plant + Dark = Carnivore Plant or Rattle Snake.

Electric Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Electric + Earth = Star.
Electric + Fire = Laser.
Electric + Water = Lantern Fish or Storm.
Electric + Metal = Golden Or Battery.
Electric + Dark = Neon.

Ice Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Ice + Earth = Alpine.
Ice + Water = Icecube.
Ice + Plant = Dandelion.

Metal Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Metal + Fire = Medieval.
Metal + Water = Mercury.
Metal + Plant = Jade.
Metal + Electric = Golden or Battery.
Metal + Dark = Zombie.

Dark Dragon Hybrid Generation 1

Dark + Earth = Hedgehog.
Dark + Fire = Vampire.
Dark + Plant = Carnivore Plant Or Rattle Snake.
Dark + Electric = Neon.
Dark + Ice = Penguin.
Dark + Metal = Zombie.
Dark + Mud = Poo.

2nd Generation Hybrids (Rare)

Mud (Earth + Water) + Dark = Poo.

Medieval (Fire + Metal) + Alpine (Ice + Earth) = Cool Fire Or Soccer Or Pearl Or Armadillo Or Flaming Rock

Neon (Dark + Electric) + Nenufar (Water + Plant) = Pirate.
Zombie + Mud (Earth + Water) = Petroleum.
Laser (Fire + Electric) + Dandelion (Plant + Ice) = Gummy or Fluorescent or Laser.

3rd Generation Hybrids (Legendary)

Legendary Dragon – Hybrid Rare + Hybrid Rare.
Crystal Dragon – Coolfire + Soccer
Mirror Dragon – Hybrid Rare + Hybrid Rare.
Wind Dragon – Hybrid Rare + Hybrid Rare.

Structures

The Shelter is where your dragons live, laugh and play, fire elements live in fire habitats, water elements live in water elements and a hybrids like Mud Dragons (Earth + Water) can live in either earth or water habitats, simple enough.

The Breeding Mountain/Tree is where you can send dragons to make eggs and new dragons, the breeding process takes time but it's worth the wait.

The Hatchery is where your eggs are sent to hatch, the hatching can take longer than the breeding process so upgrade the buildings as fast as possible in order to raise more Dragons simultaneously.

The Food Farm is where you grow crops for your dragons so they can grow big and strong one day. Dragons eat lots of food so grow as much food as you can (or else they might eat someone).

The Recruitment Tavern is where you are offered special bonuses and dragon eggs in exchange for inviting new players to Dragon City. 

The Dragon Market is where you can trade your dragons with your friends.

The Stadium is where you take your dragons once they are big and strong from all the 'big breed dragon chow' they've been eating. Win and earn rewards and glory.

The Temples will raise the level cap for you in Dragon City:

Magic Temple at level 20 can raise the level cap of Dragons to 15. 

The Noble temple at level 25 can raise the level cap of your Dragons to level 20.

Strategy

Get more Gold and Level Up Faster

 Complete Quests in the early stages of Dragon City, providing helpful guidance, information and rewards.

Gather gold efficiently by focusing your efforts on dragons that have the highest income rate, which can be viewed by clicking on the dragon screen and view their stats. A rule of thumb: if at level one a dragon earns more than another, the first dragon will earn more comparatively in the higher levels as well.

Level up your Island by preforming tasks like fighting, clearing brush, farming, etc. As you level up new content will become available, such as upgrading structures which is very important.

Level up your Dragons will make them better in combat and earn more income. The best way to raise your Dragons' levels is food, grow plenty of food. The 30 second harvest gives the most food for the time required but you need to be vigilant.

Friends exchange gifts with friends, help each other out in your islands and share your knowledge.

Screenshots

Dragon City Facebook

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Ninja Showdown

 

 

 

Genre: Strategic City Building

Publisher: NoriTown Studio

 

Overview

Build your Ninja Town, research technology, construct new buildings and train ninja warriors to defend yourself and raid enemy towns.

Ninja Showdown is a new strategic city building game on Facebook, launched in April 2012 by NoriTown Studio. You can rule your own ninja town as a great Kage. Defend your town from your enemies, and revenge them by attacking their town in return!

Rule your own ninja town. Train the best ninja skill ever. Invade other clan's town to get more resources and spoils. Be the Kage!

Game Play

A traditional City Building game set in an old world Ninja land where you act as the Kage of your own town and must lead it to power against the other Kages that wish to take your land by force.

Launch attacks against other players and computer opponents, and defend your home against incoming invaders.

Build your town's housing, research buildings, training, defensive installments, storage and resource production supplies, strategically position and upgrade buildings to make them more powerful.

Research Tree is a nice feature, using resources and points gained from destroying opponent towns you can research new unit types and powers for the units such as fire damage, accuracy, speed, etc.

Analysis

Leading ones own Ninja Village is fun sounding premise for a city building game, and always having to compete with the other Kages is a challenge indeed. Ninja Showdown brings to mind the anime Naruto, I remember he always wanted to be Hokage. Although Ninja Showdown don't incorporate as much of the ninjutsu or other 'magic' skills but you can play around with units such as; archers, samurai, animals and more elite human ninjas that can be upgraded as you see fit. 

The unit control features in battle are a challenge to say the least, some units run around with a mind of their own ignoring your commands and get themselves killed. So using brute force appears to be the only way to complete those more difficult battles especially with the five minute time limit. So just let your warriors run in there,  swords ablaze and slash your way to victory and unify the land, under your control of course.

Strategy

Between battles I highly recommend taking a few moments to allow your units to rest in the town and regain their health points. Doing this will allow you to keep your regiment well stocked, avoid unneeded expenses such as buying new units and ultimately let your units gain more battle experience to level up and grow stronger.

When researching unit abilities choose units that work well together, such as a heavy unit and a ranged unit, because the heavy units will be the front line, dealing big damage and intercepting enemy blows, while allowing your ranged units to strike from a distance and remain safe. Also by focusing on developing specific units you will be focusing research time/resources on only the ones that  need it, so in stead of going into battle with 6 different poorly enhanced units, you will have 2 or 3 much more powerful unit types that will make quick work of the bumbling army.

For an army build featuring heavy melee and ranged units, please consider adding a few healers, they wont provide damage support but can assist in healing the front line keeping it strong and saving any rangers that might have taken some unexpected damage.

Consider using:

Front line - Siroco (The Firefox)

Ranged - Archers or who ever has highest ranged damage

Support - Healers

Tips & Tricks

Space in your town is valuable and limited, so pay special attention to where your buildings are positioned. 

For starters, the town hall is the most important so place it in the center or guarded by defensive installments.

Structures such as houses and mills cannot attack enemies so you will want to bundle them together and save space, if you have lots of these structures consider putting space between them so your units can travel between them without having to walk around. Another good idea is to position your non-combat buildings on the outside of your town as use them as barricades for enemies, this will make enemies need to walk around your structures in order to reach your defensive installments, but be sure you have structures with sufficient range to attack enemies while they are moving around houses, etc. 

Crates are also a great for fending off invaders, they are small a inexpensive:

Basic crate method:

Wall off your buildings from invaders using crates and use your units to engage enemies.

Advanced crate method:

Build a lot of crates and use them like a tunnel so the enemies must walk up and down, left and right in order to reach your buildings. This will eat up the enemies time. To make this much more effective build plenty of long range towers and units that can deal constant damage to the enemies while they march to your base (aka. their demise), the enemy will be defeated before they deal a single damage. Also build lots of traps on the pathways, the enemy will have no option but to walk over them and extra damage will be dealt because the enemy units will be bunched close together.

Now what if the invaders try to destroy your crates and go straight for your city center? You can prepare for this also by deploying all of your units at the center of your town and organize your great big power house of ninjas, traps, towers, walls and warriors the enemy will be walking right into a slaughter that you were more than prepared for. 

Recommendation

Fans of city building games, RTS or Naruto should consider giving Ninja Showdown a try, it is an easy to understand game and is entertaining. It's only been out for about a month (released in April 2012) so there isn't a whole lot of PvP features right now but the first generation is still being created and that is always cool. I think it would be great if they added more unit types and decreased the waiting time on buildings and research and the like.

Video

Direct to YouTube

Screenshots

Ninja Showdown Facebook

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Zombie Lane

Genre: Social Game
Publisher: Digital Chocolate

Zombie Lane is a zombie neighborhood style social game by Digital Chocolate. Take back control of your neighborhood from Zombies! Equip a weapon of your choice and fight off the endless waves of the undead! Smack them with a shovel or take them down quickly with a shotgun.

In a post zombie apocalyptic world where Zombies have overrun the planet and your neighborhood is in ruin, you must fend off the hordes of undead walkers and rebuild your community to the way it was. Utilizing your friends as your neighbors, taking advantage of helping each other out plays a big role in moving forward.

Start off wielding a no nonsense shovel to whack the unwanted ghouls down and move up to bigger better weapons like flaming gloves, shotguns, turrets and more. Expand your fence, rebuild structures and take back the neighborhood. Level up from fighting zombies, collect the coins and items they drop and complete quests.

Game Play

Start off as a lone survivor in the crumbled remains of what used to be your house as your neighbors are in hiding, the streets and buildings turned to rubble and a horde of zombies trolls right outside what remains of your fence. Equipped with nothing but a shovel and your wit you must fend off the walking dead and use what you find to craft better items, finish quests and ultimately rebuild your neighborhood, free of the zombie infestation. 

XP: Fight zombies and complete missions to collect experience and level up.

ENERGY: All actions require energy. 

The first task in it is to grab a shovel to bat to death the zombies harassing Rod, the security guard and the first quest-issuing NPC. The game is basically quest-driven: one task leads to another unlocking more playable activities and upgrading character levels; and all are coherently connected to hold tight to the main storyline. Imagine this: we even need to complete quests so as to unlock our Spouse and our dog.

All interwoven into one story, various quests turn their own turn to show up, keeping us occupied with different fun. We will kill zombies, clear away rubbles, repair and upgrade the house(and craft weapons in it), plant crops and fruit trees to harvest food, hire friends for help and pay visits to neighbors, etc.

Zombies are designed into different images, matching 9 different classes including salesman, janitor, waitress and construction worker and so on. Correspondingly, there are nine Collections, each made up five different objects useful in the very profession. We can collect these items by killing zombies. If five pieces are complete, the collection can be traded for coins. Yet more importantly, these collected materials are needed in some quests to propel the storyline forward. For instance, to rescue the Farmer (who is needed to unlock the crop-planting gameplay) from a super powerful zombie with 8 Health, we need a pair of Fire Mitts, a crafted weapon out of the boxing gloves from the supermart zombie and motor oil from the salesman zombie. And if we want to upgrade the house for more crafted items, we need certain amounts of Blueprint by killing construction zombies.

The zombies are able to fight back, however limited they may be, they can swing at you causing your avatar to be stunned for a moment but no real damage will pursue so you wont be killed or turned into a zombie yourself.

Energy is required for any action in Zombie Lane and energy is very scarce, you can obtain energy by;

• Automatic refill, at one point every five minutes
• Energy gifts from friends
• Exchanged for food, which is obtained via harvesting crops

Analysis

All in all Zombie Lane is a decent game but you cannot get really into it without an active group of neighbors, I enjoyed the ironic humor apocalyptic story line and endless supply of zombies. The restraining energy system isn't so great but you can somewhat compensate for that with enough Zombie Lane friends. 

Zombie Lane is significantly similar to FrontierVille, but has a different feel, as well as the bonus of the zombie aspect.

 Strategy

Add lots of friends, visit they're houses and do chores for them.

Upgrade your buildings.

Tips & Tricks

** Share your tips, tricks, strategies or additional content in the comments.

Screenshots

Zombie Lane Facebook

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Armies of Magic

Overview
There are two main components in Armies of Magic, the first being your Capital City where you must manage your buildings and trees and such in order to have enough money, units, research and stuff like that. The second being combat, you must defend against Ogre forces in battles. Battles are pretty cool, its one of those little games that both players start with nothing on the field and spend crystals to summon units in order to deplete the opposing avatars health points.

Content
To my count there are about 40 units available to research and deploy in combat. A decent assortment of unit types are available, such as; militia, healers, different weapons, rangers, mages, etc. Spells and powerups are also available which makes for more in depth battle scenarios. As well as an extensive research system that in addition to costing resources, requires a time commitment, so unless you are willing to spend a bunch load of Facebook credits it will take you a while to get into the higher researches.

Strategy
So there are lots of strategies to try out, in addition to the NPC battles you can challenge other players to battle. For me, I usually just start off by sending however many miners can reach the closest crystal patches then send a few waves of about 5 low level melee units then once my crystal count is high I'll send an overkill wave with way more than I need to finish the game. It's pretty fun but quite excessive so don't use a strategy like the one described until you have an abundant economy and are in no short supply of resources.

For a player that is short on resources the best combat strategy would probably be to use cheap to medium cost melee units, try to upgrade them outside of battle so they will be made stronger but not cost more in a battle. When deploying units send them in groups its so effective because when the encounter and enemy everyone in your group gets to attack but the lone enemy only gets one, and usually your guys can kill the opponent before the next enemy comes in range so by the time your guys get to the enemy avatar the squad is still intact plus more units coming as reinforcements.

Armies of Magic Facebook

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