Happy Pets: New vote and shoot camera feature has players saying 'Cheese!'

Want to get that cool camera view of your Happy Pets at home that you see below? Click the "Photo Show-off" icon on the top right corner of your game window. It's the camera that has the red check mark on it. Then a window will appear. Click the blue "Take A Photo" bottom on the top left of the window to launch your camera.

You can use the arrow keys or the letters W, A, S, & D on your keyboard to move the camera around, and the little plus and minus buttons on the left-hand side to zoom in and out of your snapshot. Get your pets to come running to you for a photo by using the laser pointer. Or drag 'em over by using the arrow icon. Then click the big red button when you're ready!

After that, you can submit your photos for a public vote. You can also post the photo to your Facebook Wall, and if your friends click on it there, it will count as a vote. All the votes and snapshots will stay up for 24 hours.
Happy Pets Camera View
Voting for your favorite photos of the day (you can vote 10 times per day) will earn you coins and XP! Right now the whole feature is a popularity contest, so there's no prizes or anything. But it sure is fun showing off your pets.
Happy Pets visit user in Photo Show-off
And the best part about this is, you can visit the homes of the photos you love the most, and get to see the other people's pets in action! You don't have to be friended to them either. Just go to any photo and click "Visit User". This means you can play with new pets and collect money from other piggy banks too. This makes it much more than a photo sharing camera -- it's a method of in-game traveling!

Happy Pets: New 'My Little Pony' inspired horses are here to stay

Happy Pets Amethyst Appaloosa, Bronze Zebra, and Jet Black Pegasus
Thirteen new permanent horses trotted into the Happy Pets store last week, and I'm happy to say that none of them are Limited Editions, though they're all going to cost you some real world money. The cheapest ones go for 50 Facebook Credits ($5 USD), while the most expensive ones -- which are the winged horses and unicorns -- cost 62 FB Credits ($6.20 USD) due to their popularity.

Here are the Limited Edition ones from last week, if you want to see 'em, but they're all sold out now. Just a caveat, you'll still need to build a Horse Stable in order to keep horses in your game. Read our Happy Pets: Horse Stable Guide for more info.
Happy Pets new permanent horses
Happy Pets Psychedelic Horse1. Violet Horse - 50 FB Credits
2. Cherry Horse - 50 FB Credits
3. Orange Pinto Horse - 50 FB Credits
4. Pinto Clydesdale - 50 FB Credits
5. Snow Clydesdale Appaloosa - 50 FB Credits
6. Zebra - 52 FBC
7. Amethyst Appaloosa - 54 FB Credits
8. Bronze Zebra - 54 FB Credits
9. Psychedelic Horse - 60 FB Credits
10. White Clydesdale Pegasus - 62 FB Credits
11. Jet Black Pegasus - 62 FB Credits
12. Cotton Unicorn - 62 FB Credits
13. Jet Black Unicorn - 62 FB Credits

Happy Island pays homage to Miyazaki films with an Anime Collection

Many item releases that come out of Facebook games deliberately tap into holidays, ever popular themes, or pop culture. But success depends on timeliness, and Crowdstar's Happy Island definitely marches to a different tune with a different beat from all the rest.

Between their Charlie the Unicorn and Avatar: The Last Airbender themes, and now, Anime Collection, the Happy Island creators have proven themselves to be quirky super-nerds that prefer to celebrate what they love, on their own time.
Happy Island Anime Collection in store
The Anime Collection features four Limited Edition premium attractions that once collected, will earn players a free Dog Taxi. These four are the House of Popo, House of Toto, Grand Spirited Castle, and Steam Moving Castle. Each costs 35 Facebook Credits (or $3.50 USD). Right now, only the House of Toto and Steam Moving Castle are visibly animated. Toto has a lawn of moving grass, while the Steam Castle blows steam and hovers. But that can all change, because players of Happy Island know that buildings can be upgraded, which evolves them into a different design.

The discerning animated movie geek, or just general otaku, would recognize these buildings as famous ones in Hayao Miyazaki films.

House of Popo is the house from Ponyo (2008), Toto is from My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Grand Spirited Castle is the bathhouse from Spirited Away (2001), and Steam Moving Castle comes from Howl's Moving Castle (2004). Check out the image below where the one on the left is the Totoro house and to the right is the Ponyo house...
Ghibli houses: Totoro and Ponyo
Lastly, the Dog Taxi is based on the famous Catbus from My Neighbor Totoro:
Totoro Catbus

Happy Pets: Get a free Pink Glow Bunny today only

Happy Pets free pink glow bunny
Every once in awhile a game developer surprises us by giving out free things for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Tonight is one of those nights, and Happy Pets sure is making us happy. Anyone who logs in to the game before 7am Pacific Time tomorrow morning will get a free Pink Glow Bunny delivered to their gift box. This little glow bunny is part of the new Glow Animals set, which contains a lot of different glowing animals.

When placed in your home, this little pet glows a light pink and hops around like any good bunny rabbit should. While Crowdstar are calling this a special fan giveaway, you don't need to click a link on the fan page in order to get it. Simply log in to the game anytime before tomorrow morning to get this exclusive pet.

Did you get your Pink Glow Bunny yet?

Zynga's competitors welcome the IPO with open arms ... right

Come on, these guys have to be just a little jelly, right? (It's kinda' hard not to feel a bit green when a guy can sell a home that he's never lived in for $8 million.) VentureBeat reports that a number of Zynga's rivals have congratulated the 4-year-old company on its initial public offering, which is trading right now for 10 bucks a share. The general consensus? This is good for everyone.

"Zynga's IPO is great for the industry, providing a focal point for many to learn and get more involved in important industry trends," Digital Chocolate CEO Trip Hawkins told VentureBeat. "The IPO should also prove to be a catalyst for many future transactions that will help the industry." (Note: Hawkins founded EA in 1982, which Zynga could very well outpace today after four short years.)

Other industry higher-ups not only applaud the FarmVille maker's debut on the Nasdaq, but are confident that it can perform in the long run."Could 30 percent [of Facebook users] play Zynga games over time? Yeah," CrowdStar CEO Peter Relan told us recently. But reading Kabam CEO Kevin Chou's words, makes it crystal clear as to why exactly these folks are psyched.

"It's the most important event in the gaming industry in the last decade, and Zynga didn't even exist five years ago," Chou told VentureBeat. Ah-ha! We get it now. You see, if Zynga does well on the stock market into 2012, it essentially validates what its competitors have been trying to do, too, inspiring more investors--both public and private--to get in on social gaming. In other words, Zynga could make it rain on everybody.

[Image Credit: AppyHourTV]

What do you think the Zynga IPO could mean for the rest of the industry?