h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

From the beginning when I joined Facebook, I liked the fact that I could play games via the site.

I began with a small virtual garden and then added a random "app" that allowed me to "throw" a virtual sheep at my friend's page, and she could throw one back at me. Neither of those games lasted very long before Facebook deleted them, though.

I then obtained a virtual pet, which was a very simple game - just a picture of a cat in a room that I could decorate with virtual stickers, "feed" with a variety of virtual food and enter into "races" (which were just pictures of animals in the order in which they won!).

I next found a much more exciting virtual pet - my pet could move around, ran races while I watched, and had several rooms that I furnished. There was a bedroom, with a lightswitch to make it dark at night, a lounge with TV and games console, a kitchen, a bathroom and a nightclub(!), plus a garden. I could also dress my pet up, and zhe had some very cute dresses and some very smart suits (not to mention tiaras and a fedora). That game was deleted not so long ago, too.

I also had a go at The Sims - I used to play The Sims on my PC several years ago, and always wondered if it would allow me to create a gay couple. I wasn't successful in the PC game, but I didn't play it for very very long. The Facebook Sims was rather cissexist, as my characters had to have a gender assigned to them and couldn't cross-dress (the cool leather jacket was automatically taken away from the male character when he became female, and only the female could wear skirts) but my gay couple got on very well Unfortunately, after that the game was updated, so it took ages to load and was really difficult to use, and then the game was deleted because it wasn't being used

Now all I have left is my virtual garden in Fairyland A87788470 - another low-tech game with pictures rather than interactive animated items, but which is nonetheless good fun!

Deb

[Amy P]