Casual games are fun on your cell phone or to blow 10 minutes playing in a Web browser. Gaming on Facebook.com adds another layer of sociability by letting you play against—and chat with—your friends and family. And when you eventually get sick of the games discussed here, tear yourself away from Facebook and visit MacLife.com, where we’ll highlight more Facebook games worthy of your clicks every month.
Make Me A Celebrity
Work your way to fame by taking gigs—when your energy is high enough.
Facebook features several RPG-style apps, but our favorite is Mesmo TV’s Make Me a Celebrity, just because there’s so much you can do. Work menial show business jobs to build your fame, hit the clubs to find beautiful people to add to your entourage, spend money on cool stuff to increase your “hotness” quotient, face off against other celebrities to see who’s hotter, and challenge friends or strangers to a wide variety of casual games for more cash and celebrity points. Everything you do builds your celebrity status, unlocking more possibilities, but we wish the games had a Pause button. (Some of us are playing at work here!) The app keeps trying to get you to buy more energy, upgrades, and in-game currency, but it’s OK to ignore all those and just play for free. If you’re the type who stops by Facebook multiple times a day, you’ll be a big-shot celebrity in no time.
More games are unlocked as your celebrity level increases.
Mytopia 
The other players at our roulette table could be on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, or just playing from Mytopia.com.
Still in beta, Mytopia is a set of casual puzzle, card, board, and casino games available on Facebook (plus MySpace, Friendster, Bebo, and Hi5), as well as on www.mytopia.com. It’s also coming soon to the iPhone and other smartphones (BlackBerry, Palm OS, Symbian, and Windows Mobile devices). Here’s the cool part: Facebook players can play against MySpace and online players, and they can’t tell that they’re using different platforms—the experiences are the same. This is thanks to Mytopia Labs’ RUGS (Real-Time Universal Gaming System), which lets game developers code in whatever language they already know, then compile native apps for smartphones, Java, and Flash. Mytopia lets players set up leagues, earn experience points, sock away gold and silver and use it to buy virtual and real prizes, and of course, play the 14 games (and counting) alone, or against friends or strangers.
