Now you can venture into ForestVille in the good old US of A, too

But for whatever reason, The Big Z didn't make a big stink of it. Zynga has released ForestVille for iPhone and iPad to the US App Store for the wonderful cost of "free". However, the company merely made the announcement on its blog, rather than its usual teasers through the media. ForestVille has been available on the Canadian App Store for a few days prior.

"Farms, frontiers, cities and castles are all important and familiar 'Ville' territory," Zynga wrote in its announcement. "Today, we head to the wilderness to bring you Zynga's newest mobile game ForestVille. And we're sure you'll find it quite a different kind of 'Ville' and forest when you look beyond its trees."

We were under the impression that the game's presence in Canada was merely a test. As it turns out, ForestVille is ready enough for release. We first heard word of the woodland creature-filled addition to the 'Ville franchise through a series of domains registered by Zynga, and later the game's Facebook fan page was found. It seems that Zynga decided to simply let the cat out of the bag.
Gallery: ForestVille on iOS
We've had a chance to look at the game in depth since it hit the Canadian App Store. And just as this writer estimated before, ForestVille isn't much different from the stable of 'Ville games already available on both Facebook and mobile devices. Nevertheless, the game's free, so it's worth a shot to see if forest critters are more your thing than human beings.

Click here to download ForestVille for Free Now >

Have you tried ForestVille yet? What do you think Zynga can do to spice up the 'Ville franchise, or should it move on?

Zynga Mobile Chief: Mobile is a 'new social gaming frontier'

Everyone else is right there with ya, big red. During an interview with The Guardian, Zynga Mobile SVP David Ko said, "We believe that mobile represents a new social gaming frontier. We've always said we want Zynga to be the best content creators in the world, and we are platform agnostic." More and more Zynga fans expect to play its games on their phones and tablets, which wasn't exactly where CEO Mark Pincus's heart was many moons ago.

Regardless of whether Zynga has been creating mobile games since Zynga Poker hit iOS devices in 2008, it was only the advent of Facebook Connect that motivated the company to dig deeper into the platform. From that we got games like FarmVille and CityVille Hometown, neither of which are feature-complete versions of their Facebook counterparts. (The latter of which is a different game entirely.)

Now, The Guardian reports that Zynga is looking to take advantage of mobile devices' key features like cameras and accelerometers in future games. And tablets appear to be a big deal in Zynga HQ--Ko told The Guardian the company was "very bullish" on the idea. And HTML5, the emergent web coding language that's been touted as the proverbial messiah for cross-platform social gaming, is something Ko admits the company is interested in.

"HTML5 is interesting, although I do feel it is early," Ko told The Guardian. "With those acquisitions, you can see into our thinking in this area a little bit." (Ko there is referring to companies like Newtoy and Dextrose.) Zynga already released one game through HTML5: Mafia Wars Atlantic City.

However, HTML5 games have yet to achieve the complexity of, say, Hanging With Friends, which Zynga just released on Android devices. Regardless, all eyes--including Zynga's--are on those 4-inch screens that rarely leave your side. And with companies as unlikely as Capcom making buku bucks on mobile games, you can bet Zynga is a' hustlin'.

Are you waiting for more mobile games from Zynga? What would you like to see the developer do next on smartphones? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment