Click to Harvest!

Wild West farming sim Ranch Town from Meteor Games added a new type of building/animal this week: Beehives! The beehives make honey obviously, but they do it in a way that is new to Ranch Town.

Every other Ranch Town animal and building takes one type of good and converts it into another, more valuable type. The cows eat Alfalfa and turn it into Milk, for example. But beehives create honey without actually consuming anything. Instead, players must have fully grown Alfalfa that is ready to be harvested. The bees will then leave the their beehive and pollinate the Alfalfa, one square at a time. Each square of Alfalfa a beehive pllinates will generate one jar of honey. The pollinated Alfalfa can then be harvested same as normal.

Honey can be sold for 5 coins a piece, right now, and will likely be useful in more Ranch Town recipes in the future.

Happy Island developer Crowdstar has released another set of new attractions, hot on the heels of the last batch, just released a few days ago. The Happy Island team has clearly been busy lately! Especially considering that each attraction can be upgraded twice, with new, more detailed artwork.

The new attractions are: Campfire, Palm Tree Nights, and Yard Sale. In contrast to the expensive yard sale and night club (both cost over 200,000 coins), the Campfire is very cheap at just 6,400 coins. It is interesting to think back to the beginnings of everyone’s Happy Island career, when a 5,000 coin attraction seemed expensive!

Hotel City developer Playfish added a variety of country flags to the game’s decoration store, today. Like the recent outdoor decorations, flags have been given their own shop category.

Right now 16 countries are available, including United States, France, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Singapore, China, Thailand, and several more. All are for sale for 10 Playfish Cash.

Country flags seem to be a popular item in social games these days. But in Hotel City, they actually make logical sense. Many hotels often feature a variety of international flags, to communicate their international appeal. Why someone farming a deserted island would want a giant flag pole is not as easily explained.

Social Games are truly becoming more and more like the real world. For months now the trend has been for real world holidays to influence and shape the virtual items created in all the biggest Facebook games. Now, popular sales and shopping days in the real world are translating into in-game discounts, as well.

Zynga is running an extensive sale within Cafe World for the next four days, ending Tuesday June 1st. Players can not only receive 28% off the purchase of Cafe Cash itself, but many Cafe Cash items have also had their prices reduced, giving players a shot at receiving double savings.

Flags are 50% off, cafe expansions are 20% off, super stoves are 25% off, and several individual decorations (chosen seemingly at random) have also received steep discounts.

Petville developer Zynga released a new room this week – attics! But in typical Petville fashion, the feature includes a special twist. The attic features a magic door that can take players to the special beach paradise of Tahiki, but only after all the locks have been unlocked.

The Tahiki door locks come in several colors, and need a key of that same color to unlock it. Players can purchase a key for 5 pet cash, or can gift keys to their friends. Players can also request keys of a specific color from their friends by making a Facebook wall post – two each of yellow, red, blue, green, and purple keys are needed.

Another mystery magic door is also present in the attic, with a teaser that states it will be released summer 2010. Where else would you like to see these magic doors take your pet? The ski slopes? The jungle? The possibilities are now truly endless.

As if this weren’t enough, a truly massive collection of Tahiki items has also been released. And we do mean massive. We have 20 pictures of all the new Tahiki shop items, and we still might have missed a couple. We’ve said it before, but it is worth repeating: the Petville team’s ability to release so many new items so quickly is amazing, and is without peer in the social gaming space today.

A small sampling of the new items: beach umbrellas, beach towels, surfboards, a sand castle, inflatable water toys, a wooden dock, a volleyball net, a hula dancer and fire juggler, fruit trees, a hammock, male and female Tahiki beach clothing, a sea turtle, a background island (with dinosaurs!), a crashed airplane (with pilot!), a jet ski, several LOST parody items including a dirty blue van and a submarine, and many, many more.

All in all, this is an extremely impressive Petville update. You can see out extensive picture gallery of the new Petville attics, Tahiki Magic Door, and Tahiki decorations below. This post now sets the record for the most pictures snapped for a single SGC blog post!