Staggering. The number of entries, the quality of your menus, the sheer tastiness of the dishes you proposed – there’s no other word for it. Just staggering.

Let’s wind back a little.

After the success of asking which drinks to put in the game we thought it might be fun to go one better and let you add an entire meal.

So that’s a starter, a main course, a dessert, and finally a tasty drink to wash it all down.

We wanted you to tell us what your dream menu was. Our favourites would then make it into Restaurant City as courses which everyone could create using YOUR recipes.

There were prizes up for grabs of course, not that seeing your creation in the game wasn’t a huge deal in the first place; one prize for each of the four entries whose course or drink made it in.

We hit a slight snag at this point but more on that later.

Without further ado, the folowing are our lucky winners:

Nuttomaki is first up to whet all our appetites with a mouthwatering selection of dim sum using a recipe of prawns, pork and flour. A delicious way to start any meal, we’re sure you’ll all agree! Congratulations Nuttomaki, your recipe and 100,000 coin prize are coming soon!

Main course is courtesy of ColeWy in the form of roasted lamb with pomegranate sauce using a recipe of lamb, pomegranate and garlic. Congratulations ColeWy, your recipe is going to be in the game! You’re a 100,000 coin winner!

Dessert arrives in the form of the popular tiramisu and is compliments of Bruder. Bruder’s choice of ingredients were egg cream and coffee, and so it shall be in Restaurant City. Bruder, your culinary expertise will be whispered of for many years to come in the halls of Michelin Castle or wherever it is chefs secretly meet to whisper about culinary expertise. We’re pretty sure they must have some kind of pre-arranged meeting place for that kind of thing.

Finally, blackfir3 takes the honours for our favourite drink with saffron tea. Blackfir3’s suggested ingredients were saffron, tea and water. So simple we could make it ourselves. And, happily, we’ll soon be able to in Restaurant City! Congratulations blackfir3, enjoy your 100,000 coins and the inevitable fame and admiration which is the true prize of all Playfish competitions.

So the snag we mentioned earlier. Well, you see, some of those menus were amazing. Like, really amazing. All we essentially asked you to do was give us recipes for your favourite courses, but some of you went well above and beyond the call of duty and put an enormous amount of work into making sure those menus looked truly delissimo. We thought some of you guys who worked really hard on your menus deserved a special extra prize for your efforts.

Each of the following receive an extra 50,000 coins for effort:

tiancai for their absolutely beautiful illustrated menu.

restocityboy for their enormous selection of different menus. It must have taken you hours to make all that restocityboy!

Congratulations to you all! We hope you enjoy seeing the new menus in Restaurant City!

With three development studios already in Europe and Asia, it is with great joy that we announce our plans to set up a new studio in creative and energetic San Francisco!

Tapping into the talent of the San Francisco area creates an unique opportunity to assemble a fantastic team of talented individuals to create innovative social games to be enjoyed by millions of Playfish fans worldwide.

The new studio will be located in the existing Playfish offices in the heart of San Francisco, from where the group will be working closely with the global Playfish team of artists, coders, designers and product managers in other parts of the world.

Through our new team in San Francisco we plan to extend our open and collaborative culture and find new sources of inspiration in our mission to change the way the world plays games.

At Playfish, we love people who ooze with creativity, have an eye for quality, and a true passion for creating great games. So take a look at the job section on playfish.com as we are looking for people who share our dream of shaping the direction of the gaming industry in the years to come!

Kim Daniel Arthur is vice president of global studios for Playfish.  He heads new product development for the Playfish studios and manages the “Arctic” studio in Tromso, Norway, which is located 200 miles inside the polar circle.

We recently chatted with Kim about his role, what it takes to create a Playfish game and why they’re so popular around the world.  Enjoy!

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What do you do at Playfish?

Playfish has three fantastic and talented studio teams located around the world – Tromsø, Norway, where I am; Beijing, China; and London, England. Each studio has teams of artists, programmers and designers doing what they do best: creating Playfish games!

My role at Playfish is to help our studios focus on doing their magic by making sure we share ideas and learnings, and that we have a good development process and set of core values to assist us in creating great games.  We always say that in order to make fun games, we need to have fun while creating them.  A big part of my job is to ensure just that: make sure we have fun!

Where do game ideas come from at Playfish?

We have a very open culture when it comes to game ideas and game concepts, so the ideas can come from many sources.  It’s always surprising to see creativity in places where you wouldn’t typically go looking for it – such as from Playfish’s Finance Director, for example.  No offense, Tareq!

It’s refreshing to see people’s personalities shine through in their game ideas.  Product managers originate ideas inspired by business models.  Artists are inspired by a creative vision, and coders from a nice mechanic or algorithm they’ve been dreaming of.  Most gratifying of all is that each game gets its own identify from all the people working on it, and it really shows in the end product!

Once an idea for a game comes to life, we incubate it across the entire company and everyone has an opportunity to comment and spin into a more concrete concept.

How does a game get approved for development at Playfish?

As the game idea is hatched into a high concept we evaluate it from as many angles as we can, both from a creative and business mindset. We make sure to integrate what we’ve learned from previous games while staying focused on the core Playfish values: a game should be, first and foremost, fun and bring value to people playing it with their friends.

While there are many elements that go into making a good social game, the concept and prototyping phase are crucial to identifying if we are working on a new hit or not.

What makes a good social game?

Across the studios we have a very diverse set of experience and expertise, from hardcore console games and MMOs to casual online and mobile games. Creating a good social game has meant learning to work together in new ways and drawing on each other’s expertise in defining this new type of gaming experience.

At Playfish we put social emotions at the core of what makes a good social game.  Friends are interacting online in social networks and our games should help friends communicate, express and enjoy themselves while playing.

If we can make games that help friends share emotions, and even create new emotions, then we are happy with what we’ve achieved.  Above all, we aspire to create a high quality and engaging game experience that is instantly accessible and rewarding.

What are most important elements in a successful social game?

We try to create games that people love.

From a creative standpoint success means bringing friends together in a high quality and memorable experience.  Access should be instant, the learning curve manageable and there should be ways for players to be engaged with the game over a longer period of time. Most importantly, people should be smiling and having fun with their friends through a social game.

From a business perspective a successful game should drive its own distribution while achieving some target level of monetization through a combination of advertising and transactions.

What are the three biggest challenges to creating a social game?

Designing gameplay which entices friends to play together, express themselves and share emotions through the game. It is very different from typical game design on other platforms in that what we’re really creating is a toy for our players where the most important interactions are the interactions between the players and their friends rather than the player and the screen.

Playing together and alone is another challenge. Designing a social game takes a lot of careful thought in order to build something that can be enjoyed by as many friends together as possible, while at the same time being something you can spend time on alone. People have a need to express themselves and communicate, but they also want to enjoy the challenge and fun of a nice game mechanic. Finding the right balance is key!

Another is working on games as a service. Building our teams and organizations to work with games as a continually evolving service, rather than just a product that is completed and shipped, takes clever people working with streamlined processes and technology. Allowing our organization to grow and develop support for this rapidly growing business is a fun challenge.

Has Playfish ever started a game that ended not being finished?

Yes, we are very feedback-driven throughout the development of our games. Both internal and external feedback is used to decide whether a game has what it takes. We have put a few games to rest, some permanently and others to be revived when the time is right.

What do you see in the future for social games?

It really feels like we are at the start of a new era of gaming. It is truly the first time gaming experiences online are originated from friends who are already connected and communicating together. It brings with it some strong emotions that give birth to a new kind of game.

People are enjoying these new games together without the need for large upfront investments in hardware or software. It puts pressure on the whole industry to think in new ways with a fresh mindset.

It’s going to be fun to take part in shaping the future of social games together with our peers!

What do you like best about Playfish?

The people who work at Playfish and Playfish’s fans are what I enjoy the most.  It’s great to wake up in the morning and look forward to going to work and meeting your friends.  We are all connected throughout our four locations around the world and we have a great time together. It’s important that we work hard and deliver, it makes it even more fun to celebrate and enjoy when things go well!

Working as hard as we do, it really does build great confidence and team spirit from all the positive feedback and ideas we get from our players. We can’t thank everyone enough!

What’s your favorite Playfish game and why?

It’s one of the games we are working on right now. We are trying some bold new ideas and everyone is excited to see if players will enjoy it. I really wish I could say more about it, but this is one you will just have to wait and see for yourself!

How do you spend your spare time?  What are your hobbies?

I have a baby girl who is one-and-a-half years old, and another baby coming in September, so there is enough fun to be shared around.  I love photography – it’s my creative outlet and is a great way to remember all the fun things we do!

Is it true what they say about Norwegians?

Yes, come to Tromsø and we will show you!

Playfish is proud to announce Quiztastic!, the new quiz show game which makes you the star! Whether you’re going head-to-head with your friends in thousands of different TV show style quizzes or making a name for yourself by becoming a quiz show director, Quiztastic! is your chance for worldwide fame!

Quiztastic! is perfect for anyone who’s ever watched a quiz show and thought they could do better, whether in the hot-seat or behind the camera. Making your own quiz show is incredibly simple. Within seconds you can be broadcasting a quiz about anything from capital cities to how much your friends really know about you. You can even include photos from your Facebook albums or PC as part of the question – anything’s possible.

But that’s not all. Want to get to know your friends a little better? Quiztastic! let’s you quickly and easily create personality quizzes and tests. You even get to choose who can play, so you can make them private and personal for a few select friends or just share the fun with everyone!

The more people who like the quizzes you create the better your reputation rating will be, while your quiz intelligence (QI) rating shows how you rank compared to other people at playing their Quiztastic! quizzes.

In Quiztastic! we give you everything you need to create an authentic TV show quiz experience for you and your friends. All you have to do is create the questions. Playfish provides the studios, hosts and all other facilities! So go ahead and use all the creativity and knowledge you can muster. We’re looking forward to seeing your fantastic quizzes!

In future updates, we’ll be adding even more more studios, hosts and question categories so there will always be more ways to express yourself and have fun. As always, we would love to hear your feedback about how we can make Quiztastic! game even better, so please let us know what you think!

But enough talk. Time to take on the world as a quiz contestant, or sit in the director’s chair and make a quiz show of your own. Good luck! The cameras roll in 3, 2, 1… ACTION!

Having recently ventured into the depths of space with Crazy Planets, Playfish returns to Mother Earth with a whole new world for you to explore in our latest game Country Story!

Sometimes it’s great to escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and enjoy the tranquility of the countryside. In Country Story, you start your life in an idyllic village among friendly villagers, surrounded by lakes and forests and the sweetest fresh air.

The Mayor is the first of the villagers you’ll meet and he’s happy to help you decorate your home, tend your crops and prepare for your first harvest.  And with your friends’ homes nearby you’re never far from someone who can lend a hand. Or perhaps you’re more interested in keeping animals – maybe you can tend cows for their milk, sheep for their wool, or chickens for their delicious eggs!

A big part of life in Country Story is cooperating with your friends and the other villagers. Helping someone water their crops, participating in community events and finding ingredients for baking a birthday cake for a friend are all part of day-to-day life in the village. But take care – your friends may choose to take advantage of this charming environment and try to take some of your crops – so it pays to be on your guard!

As the village grows we’ll be adding more activities, quests and areas for you to explore.  You’ll soon see that there’s much more to village life than first meets the eye!

Throughout the pre-beta we’ve received excellent feedback on how to improve the game.  The ideas for new features have been a great inspiration for the Country Story team, so we thank you for all your support and look forward to hearing how you enjoy life in the world of Country Story!

Playfish is proud to offer a way for you to support World Wildlife Fund through Pet Society on Facebook. All of us at Playfish care deeply about animals and the environment. We’re committed to doing our part to build awareness for causes such as protecting polar bears and their habitat. Starting today, you’ll be able to find polar bear and other WWF themed items in Pet Society. Now through December 31, 2009, Playfish is pleased to donate 10% of the proceeds to WWF for each WWF item you purchase. Learn more at www.worldwildlife.org

There are fewer than 25,000 polar bears left in the wild and global warming is a grave threat to their survival. In fact, scientists believe that polar bears could be extinct within the next century if global warming continues at its current pace. WWF is providing vital funding to field research by the world’s foremost experts to find out how it will affect polar bears and other threatened and endangered animals. To learn more about this topic, visit World Wildlife Fund’s website where you can support WWF with a direct contribution or even make a symbolic polar bear adoption.

Polar bears really need your help. You and your pet can make a difference now!

Today Playfish celebrates the launch of its latest game Crazy Planets, where we blast you and your friends into space for intergalactic battles on an epic scale!

In Crazy Planets all the action starts from the headquarters on your home planet where you recruit your own team of space troopers, specially selected amongst your friends, to take on the invading aliens and robots at full force. To make things even cooler, you can personalise your character by integrating your profile photo into your space suit.  Your enemies will definitely know that it’s personal!

Through battles and adventures you’ll discover remote planets where you can gather precious gems and metals to create new, more powerful weapons! Each weapon has its own behaviour and special powers, so building your team of troopers will require strategy and planning.

As team commander, you return to your home planet with new found riches to grow your world so it becomes the most powerful and renowned in the universe!

The true test for any space commander is, of course, how they can hold up in a battle against their peers. We’ll soon be introducing a real-time Multiplayer Arena where you’ll be able to put the tactics you’ve learned against aliens and robots to use against the ultimate competitor – your real-life friends!

With Crazy Planets, we set out to combine more active real time gameplay with elements of longer term growth and tactical depth. At the same time, we’ve aimed at creating a fun experience that feels fresh and creative, with the familiar playfish graphical style and approach to gameplay.

Throughout the closed beta we have received a lot of great feedback on how to improve the game (thank you, beta testers!). We have a nice roadmap of new features planned in the coming months, and as always, we look forward to hearing your ideas and comments about how we can take the game even further, so keep them coming!

So, assemble your troops and get ready for some explosive, out of this world fun!  Who will reign supreme in your galaxy of friends? Start your adventure now!

We sincerely thank you for all for your great contributions to Playfish’s I Play Here! competition. Once again, we were overwhelmed by your talent, passion and creativity, and touched by your continuing enthusiasm for what we do!

We asked you to take a photo of yourself holding up a Playfish logo. Exactly where you took the photo and what you were doing at the time was entirely down to you, and we had a lot of fun looking through all your entries to see all your fantastic and inspired ideas!

From all the amazing submissions, we chose our 50 favourites to become finalists. With prizes on offer for the top 10, we let YOU vote for the photos you liked the best, and here are the results!

So, let’s see who you voted for shall we?

The winner and proud owner of a shiny new Apple MacBook (making us all very jealous here at Playfish) is Paula from France, who took a spectacular picture of herself and a friend standing on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. At least, we think it’s Paula behind that cute Pet Society mask! Congratulations from Playfish, Paula!

Second place goes to Minerva from the Phillipines who seems to have been interrupted at an awkward moment while playing Pet Society. It’s a good thing she keeps a print of the Playfish logo with her wherever she goes or that could have been embarrassing! Minerva wins an 8GB Apple iPod Touch, which she’ll also be able to take wherever she goes. Congratulations, Minerva!

3rd place goes to Hathairat from Thailand. Hathairat wins a Playfish T-shirt, a Pet Society figurine, 25,000 Pet Society coins on Facebook and Pro Pack expansions for the Facebook versions of Who Has The Biggest Brain?, Word Challenge and Geo Challenge. Hathairat’s photo was taken underwater, which we think might be an artistic metaphor for the aquatic nature of the name Playfish, or it might just have seemed like a cool idea at the time. Either way, the prizes are yours! Well done, Hathairat!

Additionally, Jermaine from the Phillipines and Angela from Mexico win a Playfish T-shirt, a Pet Society figurine, 20,000 Pet Society coins on Facebook and Pro Pack expansions for the Facebook versions of Who Has The Biggest Brain?, Word Challenge and Geo Challenge. Well done to you both!

Finally, Laszlo from Hungary, Pirun from Switzerland, Annelies from Belgium, Enita from the USA, and Ario from Indonesia each win a Playfish T-shirt, 20,000 Pet Society coins on Facebook and Pro pack expansions for the Facebook versions of Who Has The Biggest Brain?, Word Challenge and Geo Challenge!

Playfish congratulates everyone who participated in I Play Here!, and we thank you for your continued support. We hope you love playing each of our games as much as we love creating them for you!

Thank you all for your amazing entries to our competition where we asked where YOU play! With the entry period now closed it’s time for you to tell us whose entry you liked the most!

After much thought and sifting through all the many many amazing entries to the competition we chose the 50 finalists who we thought most deserved a place in the finals. Thank you to all of you who entered and a huge congratulations to the 50 contestants who made the final cut.

Now the voting is up to you. Which entry is your favourite? Which one makes you smile the most? Or laugh the most? Maybe you just like the way the photo was taken, or you wish you could play there too? Every vote counts, and with such amazing prizes up for grabs may the best entry win!

Vote for your favourite here!

Today we are proud to announce the release of our first social game for Android: Who Has The Biggest Brain? Like 15 million web users and countless iPhone users, Android fans will now be able to play together with their Facebook friends anytime, anywhere.

There are well over 3.5 billion mobile phones in use today. That is one phone for every two humans on planet Earth, in other words, mobile phones have become the most ubiquitous  platform in the history of mankind. Even the world’s 1.5 billion web users seem a small audience in comparison. Stats like this get us excited at Playfish where our mission is to change how the world plays games, no matter where they are played.

We’re committed to new and innovative platforms and are excited about our Android launch. We believe there is a revolution underway, transforming how games are played on mobile phones, through social network connectivity and friend-centric experiences.

Who Has The Biggest Brain?  is  available to download from the Android marketplace today, with Geo Challenge and Word Challenge to follow soon. We hope you enjoy it and would love to hear your feedback!