Woodland Heroes from rookie Facebook developer Row Sham Bow combines cutesy anthropomorphic animals with a strategy game akin to the classic Battleship board game. The game officially launched late last month.

According to our traffic tracking service, AppData, Woodland Heroes currently enjoys 130,000 monthly active users and 10,000 daily active users.

Woodland Heroes casts players in the role of a male or female raccoon person that must do battle with the evil Bear King’s army to make the forest safe again for all animals. The core gameplay loop has players building combat units out of a workshop and then leading these units into turn-based battles to earn resources to spend on building more combat units. New unit types unlock as the player levels up and the difficultly of battles increases as the player progresses through the main story toward a boss fight with the Bear King. An energy gauge restricts gameplay sessions by depleting each time the player moves a unit across the world map or each time the player attacks an enemy during the combat phase.

Combat is carried out between machines places along grids of squares with each machine occupying more than one square in various configurations of squares. The player can see where they’ve placed their own units, but cannot see where on the opposing grid the enemy has placed theirs. In order to find and destroy units, players select squares of the grid to target with their machines at the beginning of their turn.

If the player has successfully targeted a square containing an enemy unit, that square reveals some battle damage, hinting at the machine’s actual location. Once the player has struck a majority of squares that contain an enemy unit, the entire unit is revealed and can be destroyed once all of its squares are hit. An additional “hint” element comes in the form of a enemy unit list that the player can view to determine how many and what configuration of squares on which the enemy units are placed. Players can repair their own units that take damage during combat using either Facebook Credits or coins, the game’s soft currency. Once destroyed, a player completely loses that unit and must rebuilt it from the workshop during the non-combat phase of the game.

Social features include the standard gifting and Wall-posting functions of most social games. The most compelling feature, however, is the Visit ability where players can fight any of their friends’ impending battles with the Bear King’s armies. The catch is, the guest player can only use one unit to take out the enemy — but the combat doesn’t cost the guest player any energy. If successful, the player can choose to take a reward of in-game currency or leave behind a marker that gives their friend a combat advantage for that battle when they choose to play it. There is no player versus player mode planned for the game that we know of.

Woodland Heroes monetizes primarily through the sale of energy — which can only be gifted by friends or bought with Facebook Credits. Special combat units can also be purchased with Credits and certain units can only be repaired during the combat phase using Credits while other units can be repaired using coins, the game’s soft currency.

Speaking to Inside Social Games, Row Sham Bow CEO Phil Holt says the game isn’t finished “by a long stretch.”

“We launched with a small set of features expecting to deal with initial performance problems that most new games face,” he tells us. “This team has a lot of experience with supporting live features and live games, so I think we were well prepared for launch. We’re continuing to address the first-time user experience flow to optimize for retention. This is our current area of focus.”

Row Sham Bow formed in Orlando, Florida from a team of ex-EA Tiburon developers. The studio secured a $3 million first round of funding from Intersouth Partners.

You can follow Woodland Heroes’ progress on Facebook using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

Developed by Hungarian studio THX Games PLC, Triviador is a unique mix of strategy and trivia game presented like the classic board game Risk. It supports up to three simultaneous players in real-time matches.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Triviador currently has 110,000 monthly active users and 20,000 daily active users.

In Triviador, three live players compete to take over the world, one country at a time. It begins with a conquest phase, for which the game asks all three players a series of four trivia questions. These are used to divide up the four soldiers available for that round. The questions are based around amounts and years, allowing players to enter their own answers. Once time’s up, all three players’ answers are shown, and the soldiers up for grabs are divided based on who’s answer was closest to the correct one.

Once the soldiers are assigned, players are given the opportunity to place theirs on the map, one per country, until all have been used. At this point, war mode begins. In this mode, players are asked to choose the soldier or castle belonging to an opponent in a space adjacent to their own soldiers or castle. When a target is selected, a battle begins. The fighting takes the form of a multiple choice trivia question. The player with the correct answer wins the country. If both players answer correctly, another question is asked. Players not involved in battle are allowed to rate the quality of the questions. If a player chooses to attack another’s castle, the defender has three chances to answer correctly. If they should fail, they’re counted out of the game and can watch as the two other players finish. A real-time chat feature is present during gameplay but can be disabled.

A variety of power-ups, which eliminate a certain number of incorrect answers, and so on, are available for use in the war mode. These must be unlocked via leveling up. Players level up by winning, and by completing missions, the more basic of which involve simply using the requested power-up once, or winning a certain number of games. Players also receive achievements for performing well, along with gold, the game’s soft currency.

Players can add their friends and play with them in private matches. Other social features include a global leaderboard, friend leaderboard, and a scoreboard displaying the current point total for all participating countries. Players are able to set their home country from the game’s menu in order to participate in this ranking. Bragging about wins via viral channels is also supported.

Triviador is monetized through the purchase of soft currency, which players can spend on power-ups. More adventures (plays of the game) can also be purchased, although they are automatically regenerated every day.

THX Games PLC has discussed a number of planned improvements to the game on its Wall, including a feature that will allow players to submit their own trivia questions for consideration and more detailed player statistics. The developer has also pledged to regularly add its own new trivia to a database which currently includes more than 10,000 questions.

You can follow Triviador’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

iWin, publisher of Facebook versions of popular game shows including 1 vs. 100, Family Feud, and Deal or No Deal, has added another to its lineup: the $100,000 Pyramid. This version of the TV show, which premiered in 1973, launched in beta on September 1.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, $100,000 Pyramid currently has 360,000 monthly active users and 90,000 daily active users.

Pyramid is a single-player game where players have to answer three rounds of six questions, each round following a specific theme. If they’re able to do that, they progress to the Winners Circle, which contains three additional questions, worth higher values. The questions are set up such that the answers are single words: people, places, or things. Players are given two clues as to what each word is, and are able to purchase an extra clue using Clue Coins. There’s a timer that counts down over the course of all six questions in a round, adding urgency to the player’s responses. The game also requires that players answer a minimum number of questions in the three main rounds correctly in order to enter the Winners Circle.

The cash that players win can be used to purchase items for over two dozen collections, each containing five items. The first item in each collection must be won by playing the game. Some of the items are priced at over $1 million in in-game cash. Playing the game itself costs one episode token; players are given five to begin with, and earn one additional episode every 12 hours. More episodes can be purchased, or earn by completing collections.

Social features of $100,000 Pyramid include friend invites, which earn players additional cash once accepted, and sharing when players level up via viral channels. The game also features a real-time leaderboard that compares players’ scores against their friends.$100,000 Pyramid is monetized in two ways. The first is through the use of Facebook Credits to purchase additional Clue Coins. These come in bundles costing 5, 10, 30, 50, and 100 Credits. The second way is by players purchasing extra episodes, also using Facebook Credits. They’re available in groups of three to 100 episode tokens, ranging from 20 to 400 Credits.

You can follow $100,000 Pyramid’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

Mystic Warlords of Ka’a is based on a fictional card game played by the characters in popular CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. The game was brought to life on Facebook by Dire Wolf Digital, in conjunction with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Warner Bros. Television is one of the production companies on the show.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, The Big Bang Theory: Mystic Warlords of Ka’a currently has 65,760 monthly active users and 6,324 daily active users.

Mystic Warlords of Ka’a is a fairly straightforward, fantasy-themed collectible card game in the vein of Magic: The Gathering. Players square off in card combat with other Facebook users and their friends in an attempt to reduce their health to zero and win duels and battles. There are two different types of games, differentiated by the way the cards themselves are played, and both can be played directly or “auto-played.” The basic game system takes into account the rank and runes printed on each card, with higher ranks or runes overruling lesser ones, with the winning card dealing the amount of damage printed on it. When one of the players has their health reduced to zero, they lose. Participating in duels or battles requires energy, which refills automatically over time or can be purchased.

Cards are broken down into “squads” of 10, with players able to select two squads to enter battle with. Winning matches rewards players with coins and experience points. There is a quick duel mode, in addition to a story mode containing missions (various battles) to take part in. This mode includes the player’s Stronghold screen: a world view of Ka’a that features their stronghold, barracks, and other buildings that become unlocked as the player levels up and completes missions. These are locations that players use to build their squads and buy new cards. The screen is also home to the player’s airship, which can be used to go on raids, in which they battle to win ingredients used to craft special cards back at their stronghold. In another part of the game, players can challenge characters from The Big Bang Theory to duels five days in a row to earn special cards.

Players can invite friends to play the game with them and, once they’ve started playing, visit them once per day in order to earn extra energy, experience points, and coins, the latter coming from participating in a daily duel with their friends. Free gifts, including energy, cards, and crafting ingredients, can also be sent to friends.

The game is monetized via a combination of soft currency (coins) and Facebook Credits. Coins, won in combat, can be used to purchase additional cards and other items. Energy refills and additional coins can be purchased using Facebook Credits. Single cards, campaigns and stronghold extras including decorations can also be purchased using Facebook Credits.

Dire Wolf has been upgrading and patching Mystic Warlords of Ka’a on a regular basis since the game launched in July, and continues to do so. The developer recently recently overhauled the animation system, resulting in smoother gameplay, and has added new cards and other content.

This game marks Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s entry in social games. The video game publisher is best known for its core video game franchises like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Scribblenauts, and various licensed games around Warner Bros. Pictures properties. In the last year, the company has been acquiring developers to beef up its in-house offerings.

You can follow Mystic Warlords of Ka’a’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

14 social companies showed hiring activity this week, based on information from LinkedIn and other sources, though most of the developers bringing on only one or two new individuals.

Out of these, three – SponsorPay, We R Interactive, and Wild Tangent – made managerial hires. As part of SponsorPay’s U.S. expansion, the company brought on Dave Westin as its new SVP and general manager where he will focus on U.S. sales and business development activities. Christian Purslow joins We R Interactive’s board as the newly created non-executive independent director. And as for Wild Tangent, it gains Brett Orlanski as its new director of business development.

As always, if your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please let us know. Email editor (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get it into this or next week’s post. Also, please note that the information about most new hires, below, comes directly from company updates from LinkedIn, and is only as current as each person’s profile.

Looking for new opportunities? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Here’s this week’s full list:

5th Planet Games

• Colby Schneider, QA Lead — 5th Planet Games brings on a single hire. Schneider was previously a QA analyst for Zynga.

CrowdStar

• Aggie Cheung, Artist — Joining CrowdStar this week, Cheung was previously an artist for Playdom.

Gaia Interactive

• Yvonne Chow, User Interface Designer — In an internal shift at Gaia Interactive, Chow was previously a graphic designer.

GSN

• Matt Durgavich, Game Programmer — GSN brings on Durgavich, a former programmer for Rockstar Games.
• Lauren Foye, Mobile Publishing Manager — Also now a part of GSN, Foye was formerly a marketing manager for Isabella Products.

iWin

• Christian Hernandez, UI Designer — iWin fills us in on the hiring of Hernandez, whose previous experience stems from Hitatchi GST.
• Ariel Katz, Software Engineer — Also joining iWin is Katz, who is formerly from Sony.

Kabam

• Jill Hu, Flash Developer/Software Engineer — Now at Kabam, Hu was previously a software engineer for Ohai. That said, the hiring appears to only be a late update.

Nordeus

• Vladimir Mitrović, Software Development Engineer — Joining Nordeus this week is Mitrović. He was previously a lead iOS developer for NextWidget.
• Venijamin Živković, Software Development Engineer in Test — Also joining Nordeus, Živković was formerly an analyst team leader for ApexSQL LLC.

Playdom

• Samson James, Manager – Human Resources — Starting off a trio of new Playdom hires is James. James’ prior experience includes an HR executive position at Mind Source Consulting Services.
• Stephen Justice, Quality Assurance Lead — In an internal change at Playdom, Justice moves up from a quality assurance tester.
• Gitin George, QA Test Engineer — Also joining Playdom is George, a former test engineer for e4e.

Playfish

• Seema Dookie, Scrum Master — Joining Playfish this week is Dookie, who was previously a business analyst at Rank Interactive.

PopCap Games

• Carter Edwards, Finance Department Intern — Marking a single hire for PopCap Games, Edwards was most recently a lead manager for Eastside Boat Manager.

SponsorPay

• Dave Westin, SVP & General Manager — As part of its U.S. expansion, SponsorPay brings on Dave Westin as its new SVP and general manager. Before SponsorPay, Westin was VP of sales at Gambit and later SupersonicAds.
• Maria Virginia Baptista, Operations Manager — SponsorPay makes an internal change as Baptista shifts roles from a customer services agent.
• Jessica Eliason, Recruitment Manager — Prior to SponsoryPay, Eliason was an assistant at Hays.

We R Interactive

• Christian Purslow, Non-Executive Independent Director — As noted prior, Christian Purslow joins the We R Interactive Board and is now in the newly created role of non-executive independent director. He was previously a managing director for Liverpool FC.

Wild Tangent

• Brett Orlanski, Director of Business Development — In yet another major hire. Brett Orlanski joins Wild Tangent as its new director of business development. Previously, he was VP of business development at Virtual Greats.
• Enric Pedró, Sales Coordinator, EMEA — In an internal change at Wild Tangent, Pedró moves from his prior role as consumer marketing, EMEA.

Zynga

• Jana Johnson, 3D Contract Artist — Kicking off a fairly small week of new hires for Zynga is Johnson, a former 3D contract artist for Disney Interactive Media Group.
• Antara Sara Mahthai, Producer — Now at Zynga, Mathai was previously an assistant manager for Star TV.
• Truman Simpson, QA Engineer — Simpson was formerly a senior quality assurance tester for Sony Computer Entertainment America.
• Rainer Knopf, Community Support Specialist — Also joining Zynga this week is Knopf whose prior role is unknown.
• Mauro Fiore, Senior Game Designer — Fiore was most recently a senior game designer for Rockstar Games.

FIFA Superstars Nominated at Best Free-to-Play Game — Electronic Arts and Playfish have received a nomination for the GameMaster Golden Joystick Awards this week for FIFA Superstars. The awards ceremony will take place October 21st.

Zynga to Gain EA Executive — Another executive from Electronic Arts is defecting over to Zynga, reports Develop. According to a “U.S. source” Jeff Karp, one of EA’s social games executives, is slated to join Zynga after 11 years at EA.

Jeremy Verba Leaves Zynga — According to VentureBeat, Zynga general manager Jeremy Verba has left the company after 19 months to become CEO of dating site, eHarmony.

OpenFeint Releases New Social Features — Aside from its activity in China, OpenFeint has begun its roll out of new social features for Android. This includes player status updates and a new message wall.

Mobage Releases for iPhone in Japan — DeNA has released its mobile social games network, Mobage, in Japan’s App Store this week, reports Penn-Olson. Though the platform has been available in mobile browsers, it did not have a dedicated app.

Zynga vs. Vostu Lawsuit Clashes Abroad –  Last week, Zynga filed its copyright infringement lawsuit against Brazilian startup Vostu, again, in a Brazilian court. This led to a preliminary injunction against Vostu. Now, TechCrunch reports that U.S. District Judge Edward Davila has issued an order that restrains Zynga from enforcing the Brazilian courts decision to shut its games down.

[Launch] Greenopolis Stays Environmentally Friendly in New Mobile App — The environmentally friendly Greenopolis has launched a new mobile app for iOS and Android dubbed RecyclePix. The social title allows users to take pictures of themselves and friends recycling and share them on social feeds. Doing so earns “Greenopolis Points” which can then be redeemed for real world rewards and discounts.

[Launch] Yazino Socializes Bingo as a Team Sport — Yazino announced the launch of its newest social game, Extreme Bingo for both Yazino.com and Facebook. Combining traditionally Bingo rules with the use of strategically placed power-ups (on the Bingo “Battleboard”), players are able to compete in synchronous, team-based play.

Uno Boost is a single player variant of the popular family card game from Mattel developed by GameHouse for Facebook. The game is enjoying steady growth, with a monthly active users north of 1.1 million and daily active users at 110,000, according to our traffic tracking service AppData. GameHouse credits the game’s rapid growth to fully embracing Facebook Credits.

Gameplay in Uno Boost is similar to GameHouse’s companion title, Uno, which we reviewed back in 2009 when the title launched as “Live Uno” or “Uno Live.” Play follows the traditional color or number matching rules of the Uno card game, with the exception of “Boost” cards, a limited resource which can be substituted for cards in the player’s hand at any time when they’re in a tough spot. This keeps play flowing quickly and smoothly, and most games are over in a matter of minutes, if not less. Uno Boost focuses on solo play against computer opponents rather than multiplayer action.

“Uno Boost is in a unique place,” says GameHouse Director of Business Development, Braden Moulton. “In terms of product quality, we benchmark against games like Bejeweled Blitz. While the game is different, the notion of providing a fun, concise experience to our users is similar.”

The game is monetized primarily through the sale of the aforementioned Boost cards, which can be purchased individually or in “packs” using either Facebook Credits or in-game currency. Certain packs are only available using Facebook Credits. There’s also an offer wall powered by TrialPay and a video ad service powered by Live Gamer that nets players individual Boost cards per viewing in exchange for viewing video advertisements.

“Facebook Credits is the hard currency within Uno Boost,” says Moulton. “We are fully embracing Credits and since launching them in Uno Boost in March, we have seen significant improvements in conversion and monetization. [...] We’ll continue to evolve our monetization strategy in parallel with our partners at Facebook.”

Going forward, the developer plans to roll out additional gameplay features planned in collaboration with Mattel over the next four months. Ian Fliflet, Director of Social Strategy at GameHouse, tells us that we can expect player achievement awards in the next month or two. He also says that GameHouse is looking to capitalize on new Facebook viral measures, though he declined to elaborate on what those might be. We know that the developer could implement the Buy With Friends viral discount feature, because the game uses Credits as in-game currency.

GameHouse currently enjoys a total MAU of 3.9 million and 538,000 DAU across all 23 of its Facebook apps. Fliflet tells us that the company has more titles in development that span both original intellectual property and licensed IP. GameHouse recently announced a partnership with Fremantle to bring CBS game show Let’s Make A Deal to Facebook.

You can follow Uno Boost’s progress on Facebook with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

Less than two years ago, teen-dominated social portal iminlikewithyou changed its name to Omgpop, partnered with like-minded MyYearbook, and began producing hit title after hit title.

Late last year, Omgpop moved onto Facebook with Cupcake Corner, a restaurant tycoon simulation akin to Zynga’s Restaurant World. Though Cupcake Corner appears to have reached the pinnacle of its popularity and has begun a slow decline, Omgpop shows no signs of following suit. January’s announcement of $10 million in additional investment to integrate with Facebook and iPhone has resulted in bringing what is arguably Omgpop’s most popular title, the tragicomically named Draw My Thing, to Facebook.

Draw My Thing is a fairly straight-forward online version of Hasbro’s Pictionary. Groups of two–to-seven players attempt to guess what is being drawn. Different colors, varying pencil widths, paint fill and other methods of helping the player to complete the image are available but with 60 seconds on the clock it is rare that they are used. If no one has guessed by 30 seconds, the word (not phrase) begins to fill in; if the word is guessed, both the person drawing and those who guessed correctly earn points.

Monetization is achieved through the purchase of the ability to choose a different term to be drawn, buying extended time, or buying hints in the form of letters before they become available to the room. Every three games a Super Tool unlocks – but only for that instance. I was given the option to purchase a t-square (yeah! straight lines with a mouse) for 15 Facebook credits; refuse and the offer becomes unavailable for at least three more games.  The immediacy and utility are strong motivators to purchase these Super Tools.

A successful answer to the question of how to match and begin a multi-player synchronous game on Facebook has to date, been out of reach. Omgpop has solved this elegantly with lobbies, hosted by the players, started by the players (small or large groups), and more importantly private games.

Private games are managed using Facebook chat. Upon starting, the player receives notification if any friends are in an active game. From here, the player starting the lobby can invite any friend who shows as available in Facebook chat through one of three ways:  friends available through chat appear in a dropdown for bulk invite (though it doesn’t refresh); friends in active games can simply be click upon;  a final option copies a link directly onto your clipboard. All of these use Facebook chat for notification either automatically, or in the case of the last by the player pasting a link into chat. The link does not work outside of Facebook.

In its native environment on omgpop.com  – not in an iframe – Draw My Thing has a few additional customizations such as a cosmetic choice of pens or the ability to buy a vowel. None are particularly important or detract from the experience on a smaller canvas. The move has been done elegantly, with efficient lobby design and exemplary positioning for micro-purchases. Most impressive is the near linear growth curve of players older than the original audience since launch. What lies ahead for Omgpop and Draw My Thing is not finding an audience, but keeping it.

Few members of any entertainment medium in the United States can boast of more than 500 published creations in their field; certainly no board or card game designer. Not so of Reiner Knizia, a household name in Germany and most of Europe. Dr. Knizia has been creating board and card games since he was a child. In 2008, he made the leap to interactive media when card game Lost Cities was published on XBLA. Original titles for the Nintendo DS and iPhone soon followed. With the release of Lost Cities in November of last year, Knizia entered the social game space. In early January, publisher Zabu Studios followed up with the release of one of Dr. Knizia’s fastest selling titles ever, Pickomino, and a promise of more to come.

Pickomino (known originally as Heck Meck) feels like a mash-up of Bunco, Yahtzee, and Farkle. Using eight 6-sided dice numbered one through five with the sixth side a dragon worth five points, the goal is to earn the most pearls. This is achieved by rolling the dice and earning 21 through 36 points; each score is represented on a tile. Pearls are earned for each tile, for doing so with as many dragons as possible, for completing scores in numerical order and so on. If a dragon is not rolled or the needed score is not achieved before all eight dice are used, the most valuable tile is removed.

The game is simple to learn, the UI clean and intuitive, visuals are pleasing, and the sound reinforces positive achievements.  There are three different modes: Classic – trying to roll for tiles worth 21 to 36 points; Random – six random tiles are placed in a bonus pile with the remaining ten that will be pull from as the player tries to clear five (the ten can be numbers 23-32); and a newly released Progressive mode that uses both fewer and greater quantities of dice, dice with greater numbers, lower and higher valued spectrums and vary the rules with each successive round.

As a dice game in and of itself, Pickomino is pleasing but not particularly outstanding. What Zabu Studios has done to integrate the title with its first release, Lost Cities, and its upcoming releases (all Knizia titles) is where this truly shines.

Like Lost Cities, at the end of each game, the player receives gems as a reward. There are four different gem colors, and three win options available: a chest with a red gem and one other, a chest with 2 to 3 gems, and a third with one to five gems. These gems can be used in wildly varying combinations to purchase power-ups in both Pickomino and Lost Cities. Additional energy to continue playing requires using Facebook Credits. As Zabu Studios and Knizia continue to publish, the gems will be available in Lost Cities, Pickomino, Ra, Take it Easy, Poseidon’s Realm, Buccaneer, Deck Buster Poker, and Tower Tycoon.

The mitigated risk behind the design is rather impressive. As proven titles that work well in single- as well as multi- player the risk of designing a bad game is very low; board/card/dice games require a far less rigorous development schedule and allow for greater polish; and in using the same designer to create a network of games with a shared currency, building a sticky player base is much simpler task. Zabu Studios could still fail, but I for one, would be surprised.

Today’s release of Monopoly Millionaires seems a natural symbiosis between EA’s Hasbro licenses and its acquisition of Playfish. With the success of Family Game Night on the console, it was just a matter of time before said titles arrive on Facebook.

Much of Monopoly Millionaires is familiar to players of the classic board game from Baltic Avenue to the “metal” game tokens (everyone starts as the race car). The art style and music are pitch perfect but this is not your grandfather’s, or even your, Monopoly game. The key aspect – monopolizing the board – is left out of the gameplay in favor of each player having their own board.

All players begin with the ability to place houses on every property; all it takes is Monopoly Money.  Each property color requires housing of the corresponding color with ever increasing prices. Place a single house on each, and hotel construction begins. In order for construction to complete, friends must “invest” by clicking on a wall post a prescribed number of times. For investing, said friends are paid.

Rent can be collected from completed houses every few minutes but only if electricity is run to the homes. This is purchased in blocks of five minutes to 24-hours. Rent is accrued over time; there is no need to check in every few minutes..

Collecting property is achieved by visiting a friend’s board. Rolling the dice and landing on their property will earn them rent but also grant you the opportunity to earn a card of that color. A full set can be traded to upgrade a home for increased rent.

Circling the board can be expensive, though. Not only will you pay rent, you will contribute to the Community Chest, Free Parking, and Luxury Tax each time you pass. Land on them and you might win serious Monopoly Money but until then simple play can drain your funds.

Upon returning to your own board, you will collect any funds earned from friends visiting your board, collect your rent, upgrade buildings and hope a few hotels have completed.

Interaction between friends is a requirement. There is no earning of properties on your own board. Though hotels can be purchased with gold, it will become costly very quickly. At the same time, the wall posts quickly become spammy. In 15 minutes of play, I had five hotels needing upgrades by three friends each as well as notifications of money to share, free dice rolls, leveling up and mission completion.

A final note should be made regarding the in-game advertisements. Charles Schwab chimes in to give game advice whenever the game loads, a player returns from a friend’s board, or it sits idle too long. The news suggests sending a friend a 3^rd Generation Prius, then Mr. Schwab says hello. Hopefully, time and balance will tone down the commercial interruptions.