Guamville

My co-workers and I shared a laugh over the Governor of Guam receiving his first ever "Be my neighbor?" request from Farmville. It was inevitable that it would come and led to speculation about other Facebook pursuits the Governor could be participating in. Imagine if he was the head assassin in Mafia Wars or had the biggest eatery in Cafe World - it'd be hilarious!

Talk of Farmville inspired one co-worker to suggest we create a Guamville version of the game. It would take place on a beautiful island in the Pacific with a unique culture and way of doing things. (Sound familiar?) The rules would be a little different, but completely recognizable to anyone from Guam.

For example, all your plants, trees, and other produce would be from Guam, so your plots would be filled with breadfruit, bananas, palm trees, mangoes, taro, papaya, avocados, guava, and a variety of melons. Your animals would be goats, chickens, carabao, deer, pigs, horses, cows, and, of course, brown tree snakes.

C'mon, you gotta have brown tree snakes! By the way, this a perfect time to introduce one of those OOG (which in this case stands for Only On Guamville) rules. You must feed and care for your animals in a timely fashion, otherwise, the brown tree snakes multiply until your "lanchero" is infested and looks like something from of a statesider's nightmare, with brown tree snakes hanging from everything! Extra value points are given for every rhino beetle you find and kill!

Another OOG rule has to do with your chickens. You can click "stay" as many times as you like, but c'mon umbre, you know they're still gonna go wherever they want! They particularly seen to like the McDonald's in Hagatna for some reason, but you can only visit there if you selected Hagatna as your home village in the Guamville preferences. Otherwise you have to wait for a special occasion or for the fiesta in December.

Not all of the action in Guamville requires you to stay in your own village. There are certain times you can visit other villages, like during a fiesta, or at certain holidays and specific events. For example, all players can visit the Chamorro Village on Wednesdays provided you collect a minimum of five chenchule points from the vendors or the Dededo Flea Market on Saturday mornings.

Guamville would be so much fun to play! You could watch your family's house grow as you added on an outdoor kitchen, storm shutters (remember that you get the most points for installing the metal ones that slide in by piece, although the accordion shutters are also worth a lot of points), or by adding a canopy or tarp in your front yard to act as an extra covered parking for your truck.

Other ways to earn points would be by giving away chenchule coupons at christenings or when your neighbor's children get married, attending Mass on Sundays and the occasional Wednesday, and by how many times you manginge' your elders. Like earning extra value points for each deceased rhino beetle, players can score big by winning pugua points for playing Guamville for seven consecutive days!

You can also lose points, thereby becoming mamåhlao, this occurs when you forget to bring something to the party, you don't have any change for the offering basket at church, or an elder deskas your ear in front of all your friends. This happens when you forget to tie your dog up in the yard on the three foot chain.

I should finish writing down all my notes for Guamville and then contact Zynga. This could be bigger than the "I'm from Guam so that automatically makes me cooler than you" page!