This week’s list of emerging Facebook games (identified by games under 1 million monthly active users that grew the most in MAU over the past week) contains many of the titles we’ve been talking about recently. The biggest surprise this week was Fantasy Kingdoms by Sneaky Games, which took the top position after coming in #4 last week. Another big gain of 218,499 monthly active users is setting a record high for this whimsical farming game that launched almost one year ago.

Another game with decent growth over the last week is Miner Speed, a King.com title reminiscent of Bejeweled and other Match 3 games. Miner Speed is one of the few games that the casual gaming website launched within its own application instead of on its new Facebook game portal that we covered last week. Some heavy cross promotion between King.com’s applications allowed Miner Speed to gain another 67,000 monthly players, breaking it into the top 10 emerging games this week.

Name MAU Gain Gain,% 1. Fantasy Kingdoms 727,231 +218,499 +43% 2. Bubble Shooter 270,370 +175,007 +184% 3. Gourmet Ranch 877,407 +157,666 +22% 4. UNO® Boost 975,726 +131,693 +16% 5. My Shops 930,174 +100,719 +12% 6. Okey Kenti 473,922 +95,934 +25% 7. DoubleDown Casino 931,922 +90,197 +11% 8. 瘋狂骰子(中文版) 261,692 +85,217 +48% 9. Mynet Çanak Batak 367,790 +74,433 +25% 10. Miner Speed 668,515 +67,763 +11% 11. DDTank 163,762 +63,251 +63% 12. IQ Expert 237,128 +62,907 +36% 13. Pirates Saga 151,085 +62,361 +70% 14. Castle & Co 473,201 +59,330 +14% 15. Poker Texas Boyaa 351,700 +54,735 +18% 16. 開心農場3 活力莊園 162,690 +54,450 +50% 17. Bingo Charms 400,028 +53,192 +15% 18. Game Friend Finder 219,820 +53,002 +32% 19. Daily Horoscope 988,891 +52,406 +6% 20. Footy! 428,687 +49,403 +13%

Castle & Co is an overwhelmingly cute city builder from Ubisoft that launched last May. The objective of the game is to build your medieval city and raise your level to unlock new buildings and decorations. It also features some elements from sim games like Crowdstar’s Happy Island or LOLapps’ Critter Island in that the wandering characters require micromanagement to keep them happy. Castle & Co hasn’t been hugely successful; at its peak it reached a height of 718,000 MAU. Currently making its way back up, Castle & Co saw a 14% increase in monthly traffic in the last week and is now at 473,000 MAU. Castle & Co is literally the definition of adorable and targeted to a young female audience, but as we noted last May the game lacks depth. Players quickly run out of things to do, which could be damaging Castle & Co’s maximum potential.

Pirates Saga is a newer game that we reviewed in December. We saw potential in the game due to a high level of polish and an iterative game design that made Pirates Saga feel like something new and fresh. It brings in many traditional MMO elements such as action bar style combat and multiplayer battles, however we felt that it could get a bit “grindy” over time (also not unlike traditional MMOs). Players never run out of things to do in Pirates Saga — although they may run out of the energy required to do them — and it feels like a breath of fresh air. The game had a 70% increase in MAU this week, bringing it up to 151,000 MAU. This Can’t Stop Games developed and 6waves published adventure game is just starting to take off, and could end up being a hit.

The data in this post comes via AppData, our data service tracking growth and trends across the Facebook platform.

Tami Baribeau is Senior Community Manager at ZipZapPlay and a contributor to Inside Social Games.