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Happy Pets developer Crowdstar continued their recent practice of releasing pets themed after famous fictional characters, this time opting for fairytale franchise Shrek.

Four pets are available in total: Dulok Swamp Ogre, Dulok Princess Ogre, Dulok Donkey, and Dulok Kitty. The two “Ogres” (they are actually green pigs) are modeled after Shrek, the Kitten is modeled after Puss in Boots, and Donkey is modeled after… Donkey.

One bit of trivia regarding these new pets – usually the Happy Pets parodies have fairly obvious names – Iron Cat for Iron Man, Catzilla for Godzilla, etc. But not so this time around. A quick Google search shows us that the term “Dulok” comes from the universe of Star Wars, oddly enough. Dulok Swamp on the moon of Endor is the home of the Duloks – a distant cousin to the adorable Ewoks from Return of the Jedi. Well played, Crowdstar.

Petville developer Zynga introduced a new food-centric Pet’s Drive-In Diner decoration set today. One nice touch is that the decorations include many dishes available in Zynga’s restaurant game Cafe World. The items are available in the furniture shop, not a dedicated food store, as in Playfish’s Pet Society.

The items have a distinct 1950′s art deco style, and really nailed the diner atmosphere (with a special animal twist, of course). New items include: Green, Red, and Pink diner counter and stools, Old school cash register, diner window, jar of sugar, diner booths, neon signs, a jukebox, a jukebox music selector, and several more.

A very large collection of new food items have also been introduced. New dishes include: strawberry milkshake, roasted chicken, steak dinner, pizza, overstuffed peppers, chocolate cake, carmel apples, pumpkin pie, spaghetti, pancakes, a hot dog, and many more.

Petville developer Zynga has given those players still working towards their yard a very welcome leg up. 5-packs of yard materials are now available on the Petville gifts tab! Considering that the entire yard requires 10 each of five different construction items, these item packs should considerably speed up construction times for struggling players.

As with all construction material gifts in Zynga’s games, players will have two random materials available to send to friends. So if you are looking for one specific material to complete construction, you will need to ask around to find a friend that is able to send it.

This extra yard help could be a sign that Zynga has big plans for Petville yards, and wants to ensure that as many players as possible have finished constructing theirs. Or perhaps the team just decided that the original construction process is just a little too lengthy. Whatever the reason, we aren’t complaining!

Petville developer Zynga made a few improvements and additions to the game’s neighbor experience, this week. When cleaning trash in a neighbor’s home, the home’s minimap will now display dirty rooms as red, and clean rooms as green. No more need to spend forever hunting down that final banana peel!

The new neighbor missions are an even cooler addition, though. Some of your Petville neighbors will now display a “Help!” icon above their portrait, which means a mission is available. When visiting, players can spend a little energy to hunt for *one* specific lost item, instead of cleaning up dozens of trash items. In our test, we were tasked with finding a lost watch. Petville’s example shows a lost cell phone. Once found, players earn some coins and XP for helping their friend out.

Happy Pets developer Crowdstar seems to have perfected the art of releasing special, limited-edition pets. Usually these animals are just normal dogs or cats with a fancy or themed paint jobs. But today, Crowdstar released a cat line-up that is truly special.

Four new “Catzilla” cats are now available: Microcat, Megacat, Ultracat, and Catzilla himself. The hook is that these cats are available in special sizes. Microcat is half the size of a normal Happy Pets cat, and the other three range in size, with the largest (presumably Catzilla) clocking in at THREE TIMES the normal cat size. That’s one big pet!

Catzilla carries a equally big price tag: 198 FB$ ($19.80). The other three limited editions range in price from 88 – 158 FB$.

If this pet line-up is a success, expect to see special ultra-big & ultra-small dogs, turtles, piglets, parrots, and more hit the Happy pets shop in the coming weeks and months.