Dragon City brings dragon farming to Facebook, but it needs work

For some time now, the "dragon farming" genre has been picking up speed on the iTunes App Store, with games like Dragonvale and Dragon Story leading the way. Now, Social Point has brought this dragon-breeding gameplay to Facebook with Dragon City.

If you've played the aforementioned mobile titles, you'll immediately feel at home here, as the gameplay is almost the exact same as that often seen on mobile. You'll have access to raising dozens of different dragons, with each dragon having some sort of environmental affiliation (Earth, Fire, Water and Plant, as examples). Each type of dragon can be raised in a matching environment, and you'll need to feed these dragons over time to make them stronger. Food is earned by farming for crops, while habitats pay out coins every few minutes or hours, giving you more money to purchase crops and dragons. It's a fairly simple cycle that is pushed ever forward with the inclusion of a quest system that has you completing specific tasks throughout.

There is one thing that Dragon City arguably has over its mobile predecessors, and that's the easy access to social features via your Facebook friends list. While visiting friends' dragon preserves, you can click on farms and dragon habitats to earn free coins and experience points, but are limited to the standard five free actions per day. You can also send your friends gifts, including decorations for your "Dragon City" and even dragons themselves.

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Outside of simply hatching standard dragon eggs, you can also breed dragons after you've unlocked the Breeding Mountain. This allows you to combine dragons of different elemental types to create hybrids (a "FireRock" dragon, for instance). In this, Dragon City takes on a bit of a Pokemon feel, as you'll be encouraged to breed random combinations of dragons in an effort to have "one of everything." Still, this all requires you to set the breeding into motion and then sit and wait, likely leaving the game entirely, for things to happen, so it would have been nice to see more activities available to keep the game feeling fresh.

Unfortunately, the simplicity of Dragon City wouldn't be such a big deal if the game were on mobile devices, as play sessions tend to be shorter when "on the go." Here, the fact that the game has been inspired by such mobile offerings shows, as there's a lack of depth and complexity, making this one experience that you'll either love or hate, right from the beginning.

Click here to try Dragon City on Facebook --->

Have you tried Dragon City on Facebook? Do you think these dragon-themed games are better suited for mobile devices, or do you think's there a home for them on Facebook? Sound off in the comments!