Kris Kringle makes a sudden dramatic appearance in my Kingdom.

The first major task was to build a Gift Shoppe, which I can then use to create many different gifts. It looks like the Shoppe can produce four different gifts at the moment: a Fruit Cake, Holiday Slippers, a Stuffed Unicorn, and a Wind-Up Beastie. The more gifts I make, the faster I can help Kris Kringle fill up his gift bag and I’ll earn some nice rewards for myself.

The Gift Shoppe is a nice festive addition to my Kingdom.

One thing I don’t have is time. It looks like Kris Kringle needs me to complete all of his quests in nine days or less. Christmas is right around the corner, after all!

While I was harvesting, another Gloom Rat attacked. I yelled for Rafael to come help me, but he was too busy admiring his reflection in the Pond to lend a hand. Note to self: Rafael may be nice to look at, but it’s difficult to get him to lift a finger around the Kingdom.

A Gloom Rat attacks my wheat fields while Rafael stands idly by.

Fortunately, it only took three swift blows from my gardening hoe to dispatch the Gloom Rat and then I was able to finish harvesting my entire wheat crop.

As I was packing in the last of the wheat, I noticed that my Maiden’s Tower had been fully staffed. I was able to complete the construction and I was greeted by a huge fireworks show. Splendid!

Fireworks celebrate the construction of the Maiden's Tower in my Kingdom.

One of the first things that Alastair asked me to do was to gather materials and construct a Maiden’s Tower. This is a kind of Royal Building for my kingdom that will make my castle more valuable. It also requires 3 friends to fully staff it. I set to work building it by first purchasing one at the Market. That gave me a foundation and then I had to gather some stone and wood to complete it.

Once I built my Maiden’s Tower, however, I was attacked by two Gloom Wolves. Nasty creatures! I fought them off quickly, but was exhausted by the experience and was running low on energy.

My Maiden's Tower looking over my resident fair maiden.

Meanwhile, the Duke showed up again with another quest for me called Prepping for an Invasion. Sounds ominous. He wants me to build a Workshop and craft a Wood Club. Apparently, using the Workshop to produce weaponry will make it easier to fend off attacks by the Beasties.

All my beautiful grapes have withered!

I was left with two choices: attempt to unwither the crops or clear them and start over. Clearing uses up energy but gives you back money and experience. But you can also restore the crops via unwithering. Friends to the rescue! The most efficient way to restore withered crops is to have friends visit and tend to them. I put out a call for help and within an hour, several friends had come and restored my poor little grapes, allowing me to harvest them at last. I also learned that there are other means of unwithering, including potions that you can craft in your Kitchen. I don’t have one yet–all in good time.

Gloom Wolf Attack

While I was waiting for friends to arrive to help with the grapes, I decided to tend to my chickens. Just as I was feeding the cute little things, a very unwelcome visitor arrived–a nasty Gloom Wolf.

A nasty Gloom Wolf attacks while I'm tending my little chickens.

These horrible beasties are bigger than the Gloom Rats and require a bit ore fighting. Whereas I had to whack the rat three times to defeat it, the wolf required five sharp blows to the head. In the end, I knocked him out with some clever karate moves I had picked up while traveling in the Far East. In speaking with the Duke, I learned that once I build a workshop, I’ll be able to craft clubs and other weapons that will be much more efficient for killing beasties than hand-to-hand combat.

Today, Yvette needed me to help her with a series of quests known as the Nature Lover quests. It started with one called From Gloom to Bloom, and she wanted me to plant some flowers, feed my animals and clear some rocks so that she wouldn’t stub her toe. Excuse me? Stub your toe? It’s beginning to dawn on me that Yvette, while pretty, is very high maintenance. Nonetheless, I complied with her wishes and got to making her house quite decorative with some newly purchased flowers from the Market. A few minutes later, the chickens were well-fed and nearby rocks had been removed.

Her next quest was called 14 Carrots, and if it wasn’t immediately obvious, she wanted me to use my newly developed farming skills to grow some carrots for the animals. I had to create some more farm plots around the pond, but an hour later, I had plenty of carrots for her. She also wanted me to help out with a neighbor’s farm, so I made a quick visit to the Duke. After I was done, Yvette had another quest, but I decided to hold off until tomorrow.

I waved a friendly good-bye to Yvette and headed over to Raphael’s house.

Raphael has deeper concerns. There is a stranger caught in the Gloom to the south and he has a series of quests for me to perform to learn more about this mysterious stranger and to help bring her to freedom. The first quest was called Walk to the Light, and Raphael needed me to perform three tasks. First, to establish a Campfire (I bought one at the Market). Second, to fish in the Pond for two pails of water. This was just in case the campfire burned out of control. Third, to clear some rocks, plants, dead trees and stumps for the safety of others in the kingdom. Wow, everyone’s concerned with stuff lying around on the ground here.

I got to work on the campfire and the clearing right away. The pails of water were easy to fill in the Pond nearby. Of course, no sooner did I finish this task when Raphael had a second quest for me, called Work the Kinks. Apparently, he’s got a plan to lure this mysterious woman out of the woods with a promise of one of his famous rubdowns. He needs me to get him some honey, stones for a hot-stone massage, and a rolling pin to roll out the knots. I’m happy to oblige, but does he think this will work? Well, if not, then perhaps I’ll insist he give the massage to me instead.

Getting the rocks is easy, especially since there are plenty lying around on the ground. The honey comes from all the flowers and it took a little while to collect the 6 he needed. Unfortunately, there’s not a rolling pin to be found, so I’ll need to ask my friends or fork over some crows to purchase one.

I think this is going to take a while.

The biggest improvement is the art. The game is beautiful. The graphics are very rich and detailed and they’re perfect for the fantasy/medieval setting of the game. The music is also very nice and it quickly gets you into the mood. I really liked playing the game in full-screen mode.

Here’s what I did on my very first day of building my own kingdom in CastleVille.

Arriving

Upon my arrival, the Duke and Yvette were fighting some nasty rat creatures.

Well, when I first arrived, everything was a mess. I stumbled upon two people fighting off some nasty creatures called Gloom Rats. These two people turned out to be the Duke and Yvette. The Duke is my very first neighbor in CastleVille and Yvette is the first citizen in my kingdom. After I helped them fight off the Gloom Rats, the Duke started me off with some quests to get me familiar with my new kingdom. The first thing I had to do was build Yvette a house.

I had to mine some rocks and chop down some trees to get the materials, and almost immediately I got to level 2, which meant that I could now buy chickens, build a workshop, assemble rubble walls, and create farm plots. This kingdom ruling is already getting complicated! Anyway, before long I had Yvette’s house build. Doesn’t it look nice? Perfect for a pretty little girl like Yvette. Apparently she liked it because as soon as I built it, fireworks went off all over the place!

I build Yvette's house and suddenly fireworks go off.

Yvette gave me my next quest, called Get Plucky, where I had to buy four chicks at the Market. They are adorable. Then I had to feed them. Not bad work, really. But just as soon as I had finished…

Trouble in The Duke’s Kingdom

The Duke summoned me to his kingdom to help fight off more beasties. There was another Gloom Rat there, but I gave it the old heave-ho pretty quickly. I stuck around to admire the Duke’s kingdom (or would it technically be his duchy?). He lives large! I helped out a little and tended to some of his flowers and crops while I was there.

The Duke is living in style.

Back to Work

After admiring all the bling that the Duke has, and resolving to one day have an even nicer kingdom of my own, I figured I better get back to work. Especially if I was going to out-do that guy. I headed home and had a nice surprise upon arrival: I had leveled up again. Now, the Logging Camp, Table, Maiden’s Tower and the cute little Cow were all items that I could add to my tiny empire.

Getting access to cows was a fortunate thing, because Yvette already had another quest for me. It was called No Bull, and she needed me to buy and feed two cows and then purchase a trough for the animals to drink from. Easy enough. A quick trip to the Market and I had everything she needed.

Meeting Raphael

Raphael the hottie woodsman.

Well, the next thing I knew, the Duke was encouraging me to start exploring some other areas of my kingdom. All the surrounded spots were gloomed, or dark and a little scary. I tried to explore but it turned out I needed more Castle points. So the Duke got me started by having me build some rubble walls. Once I had place about five, I had enough Castle points to start exploring.

Next I headed southeast to where there was a dark and mysterious guy waving at me. It turns out that this was Raphael, and I have to say he’s a hottie. Apparently Yvette noticed this, too. Note to self: send her off on a dragon-finding quest as soon as possible.

I helped Raphael build a house in my kingdom–as far away from Yvette’s as possible. He was happy to move in and asked me to help him on some quests to help free a stranger from the Gloom. I was a bit tuckered out from all this house building but agreed to help him tomorrow, after I got some rest.

Standing in front of Raphael's new house in my CastleVille kingdom.

And so ends my first big day in CastleVille!

According to the biography that was posted last week, we know that Raphael is a handsome ladies man who likes to drink, tell stories about his adventures, and woo the women. He was orphaned as a young boy when Beasties attacked his village and now he spends his time helping adventurers take on the forces of the Dark One.

He likes charming ladies and exploring, big axes, killing Beasties, and giving or getting honey rub downs. He dislikes boredom, villains, and shirt buttons (they get in the way of showing off his muscular chest).

The company has been very silent about the game while it’s been under development, but they recently unveiled it along with many other upcoming releases at a special mediaevent in their new headquarters in California. Although CastleVille will build upon concepts that most Facebook gamers are already well versed in, it is epic in scale and will introduce many more traditional fantasy and roleplaying elements to the world of social games.

Quite a bit of the gameplay and mechanics remain a secret, but here’s what we know thus far. You can build your castle in a fantasy medieval world, show it to your friends, and craft things like potions. There’s an epic storyline to the game which you will follow along as you progress. CastleVille will introduce the concepts of crafting and trading to the world of the Ville games. You will be able to assemble your own items from raw materials and either utilize them for your own purporses or trade them with your friends and neighbors. And you have to defend your town against beasts who are outside the walls. You’ll do a lot of exploring throughout your kingdom and find that the storyline becomes customized based on the choices you make throughout. A lot of the game is driven through your interactions with the main characters. Your goal will be to make them happy and then unlock new interactions. Ultimately, your goal in the game is to spread happiness and joy throughout the kingdom. Just like a fairytale!

One of the characters you meet in CastleVille is Tom the knight.

Helping out and interacting with the different characters in the game will form the backbone of your experience. One such character is known as Antonio the Woodsman and one of the others is is Tom, who is an aging knight with a kind heart and a thick Scottish accent. Another main character is the lovely Giselle, a beautiful princess with an equally lovely singing voice. In earlier games on Facebook, these computer-controlled characters have been mostly shallow and functional in nature. In CastleVille, interacting with the different characters will be an integral part of the game.

The game will also be highly social. Friends will be able to assist in building and decorating your castle, and you’ll be able to show off your progress. Your progression in the game will be significantly aided by trading items with friends. What’s more, there will be craftable items in the game. You’ll be able to combine raw materials to create potions and other items that will help you achieve your objectives. There are lots of beasties to fight in the game, and you’ll need the help of your friends to defeat some of the bigger and nastier meanies in the game.

All in all, CastleVille promised to combine exciting elements from classic fantasy gaming with the fun and enjoyment of social gameplay.