Pet City for Facebook Lets Players Make the Purrfect Pet Pal and Pad
Russian developer Catalyst Apps has made its first foray into full featured Facebook games with Pet City. The game is a marked departure from company’s previous experience on Facebook with gifting apps Drinks for All and Show Some Love.
According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Pet City currently has 90,000 monthly active users and 20,000 daily active users.
Like other pet sims on Facebook, the gameplay experience in Pet City revolves around nurturing and building the best possible home for an anthropomorphic pet friend, either a dog or cat — or something in-between. The game begins with a screen where players can customize myriad appearance options, including their pet’s head shape, various facial features, markings, and color. After naming their pet, players proceed to a mostly empty home to learn the ropes of caring for their new bundle of joy.
Pets can be played with, cared for and fed, with the first two requiring players to complete collections if they’d like to earn more toys (each of which can be played with once daily) and care options. Feeding is actually a multi-step process involving selecting food from recipes, requiring that players have the appropriate ingredients and be of a sufficient level. Caring for and feeding pets once per day rewards players with coins, experience points, and items for collections. Leveling up in the game also awards cash, the premium currency, to players.
A large part of the game is spent decorating the pet’s new home, with deco options available from several virtual stores. Items include living room furniture, bath items, and a wide selection of floor and wall decor. When initially visiting the most basic furnishings store, players are given a several minute shopping spree with a limited budget. From there on out, the prices can be quite high, requiring what would seem to be several months of play to acquire some of the best items without spending real money on them. Once the player has reached a high enough level and amassed enough coins, they can purchase up to three additional rooms in their home to decorate.
Another element of the game that we’ve seen in pet sims before is playing dress-up with the pets. There are several clothing stores, including a seasonal Halloween themed one, where a large number of tops, bottoms, shoes, and accessories can be bought for soft and premium currency. The player’s home has a dressing/closet area for storage.
Pet City relies heavily on visiting friends as its main social feature feature. During these visits, players can interact with their friends’ pets by playing with them in a variety of ways, from tossing a ball around to singing a duet. There are also emotes, such as poking and high-fiving, that can be used. Players can do other things, like prepare and share drinks, and clean up to receive additional coins and XP on these visits. Back in their homes, players can designate which room they want friends to arrive in when they visit. In addition to the usual variety of viral channel brags and invites, players can send free daily gifts to friends and take photos of their homes to share to their Walls.
The game is monetized by players purchasing additional coins and cash using Facebook Credits. Available units are shown in dollar amounts ranging from $5 to $100, but are actually paid for in Credits once players initiate a transaction, so as not to skirt Facebook’s mandate on Credits in games.
You can follow Pet City’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.
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