Virtual City Playground for iOS looks like HD CityVille ... on your phone

So, CityVille Hometown is great, but I get the feeling some fans were looking for something more like the actual web game. It looks like G5, a Stockholm, Sweden-based developer of mobile games for iOS, might bring the goods. Virtual City Playground, a free version of the original with a much more social twist, is set to hit the App Store this Aug. 25, Pocket Gamer reports.

The game will allow players to create and cultivate their own city on an enormous scale in pseudo-3D, isometric graphics. The game will guide players much like Zynga's city-builder does, but offers support for far more friend interaction through Game Center Support and Facebook friend challenges.

Your job, essentially, is to grow your city by populating it with homes and businesses that grow off of one another all the while being supplied by agriculture, like any old city game. This updated version also brings an in-game currency, completing that old quarter pit feeling. That's right, Virtual City Playground is 100 percent free to play.

Virtual City Playground
However, to speed things up, players will have the option to purchase 85 of the game's quests, if they really can't wait. The game could be the city-builder of scale you've been looking for, but check the trailer below to see what we mean:

PapayaMobile's mobile social game network gets friendly with iOS

OpenFeint and Mobage might want to watch out ... or get a delicious fruit in their logo somehow. Beijing-based PapayaMobile announced that it has expanded its mobile social game network from Android to iOS devices. iPhone and iPad game developers can now incorporate PapayaMobile into their game much like they would OpenFeint or Apple's Game Center.

But not only that, developers can create their own social games from scratch through PapayaMobile's Social Game Engine, and launch said games across both iOS and Android devices at once. PapayaMobile's social game network works across both iOS and Android. This means that if a mobile game uses PapayaMobile on both its iOS and Android versions, players can issue challenges, send game invitations, view leaderboards and more between both versions of the game.

PapayaMobile's main goal is to connect both Android and iOS gamers through a single network, something that can't be said for most mobile social game networks (well, aside from OpenFeint). Surely PapayaMobile hopes this cross-platform move will boost its player base of over 30 million. It looks like the mobile social games arena just met a new challenger.

Well, make that a few new challengers. The first games to hit iOS with PapayaMobile include X-City by Aidi Game, Contagion by 2Clams, and Burger Joint by Arctic Empire. Something tells us Facebook missed a golden opportunity with Connect.

Do you think there's room for another mobile social games network? Which network do you prefer using right now with your mobile games?