Happy Aquarium envisions underwater soccer played by lion cubs

Happy Aquarium's Zack the Soccer-playing Lion
To go along with their World Cup 2010 wallpapers, Happy Aquarium has decided to bring in a "Soccer-playing lion" cub. Say what? Yeah, you read that right.

Happy Aquarium Soccer BallAnd to continue with their Disney obsession, the new "Zack, the Lion", looks very much like the lion cubs from Disney's 1994 film, The Lion King. Zack, in particular, looks like Nala, but with Simba's coloring. But Zack has been done up with spiky, wild blue hair, a red scuba breathing apparatus, a white shirt and blue gym shorts. Oh, and he carries a soccer ball with the promise of some "pretty fancy footwork when you click on him in your tank!"

You can buy him under the Tank Mates section of the in-game store for 58 Pearls or 48 Facebook Credits ($4.80 USD). And for those who can't shell out the money, Zack's Soccer Ball can be gotten for free under the game's gifts page.

Happy Aquarium creator CrowdStar plans to take its games mobile

In a recent press release, it was announced that CrowdStar's recent explosive growth has led the studio to release two of its games, Happy Aquarium and Happy Island, on Yahoo! Japan through DeNA's Mobage platform. Recently, CrowdStar encroached on the coveted Number 2 position as most popular Facebook developer under the almighty Zynga.

This is a pretty impressive feat considering CrowdStar, a largely independent studio with backing from the YouWeb entrepreneur platform, beat out both Playfish and Playdom for the position, backed by Electronic Arts and Disney, respectively. The company plans to release several more Facebook games by the end of 2010 and continue to hire more team members.

"CrowdStar has its foot on the gas -- we're aggressively scaling the company to build on all the momentum we gained this summer," said Niren Hiro, CEO of CrowdStar. "We're prepared to go to the next level."

Apparently, the next level for CrowdStar is in your pocket as the developer released a bullet list of plans for the future which includes, "Upcoming launches of mobile versions of all its Facebook games through YouWeb-incubator partnerships." Hopefully this means mobile versions of CrowdStar games similar to Zynga's FarmVille for iPhone, which recreates your actual Facebook farm within the mobile app.

While the developer is reporting record growth and shows no signs of stopping with hires aplenty, CrowdStar is going to need some truly new game ideas if it hopes to compete with Zynga much less maintain its Number 2 spot. Especially considering Zynga seems to have caught on to the idea of new game mechanics; it should be an interesting winter.

Happy Aquarium Black Friday Sale begins 10 a.m. PST

CrowdStar has been preparing for this day for a long time, gathering just the right sales for this fine Black Friday. Today starting at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST) in Happy Aquarium, all critters will be 40 percent off for just three hours. On top of that, all wallpapers, gravel and tankmates are 15 to 30 percent off. Feeders and cleaners are 15 percent off with all Potions to be reduced by 40 percent. Oh, and those sales are good all day long. So, don't fret if you can't make it for the big event--you'll save one way or another this Nov. 26.

Better yet, the first 100 players who log in at 10 a.m. sharp (PST, of course) will be rewarded with the exclusive Black CrowdStar-Fish. According to the official CrowdStar event page, there are over six thousand players waiting for that item. So, expect stiff competition for a item that's so limited. I know my trigger finger is ready, but what about you?