So for today, I'm going to talk about The Hotel Transylvania Social Game game/app on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/HotelTGame) by Sony Pictures Imageworks.

As usual with most Facebook apps/games, quests are generally easy to find. But if you're new or still clueless, old and new quests for Facebook apps/games are always on the left side of the game itself. It's not that hard to locate and you do have to click on it to understand a little more of what exactly you need to do to fulfill a quest.

Basically, you start off the game with a Hotel Lobby and a small graveyard plot that consists of 1 available Zombie Bellhop. Dracula himself will guide you on your first steps in playing the game, and what you need to first do to get your Hotel Transylvania running is to first purchase a small bedroom and build it, and that my dearies will be your very first quest. Let's face it, without room(s), how on earth are you going to run a hotel with only a hotel lobby, right? But here's a little tip before you go any further: Don't use HYPNOSIS (that blue swirly thing) unless Dracula asks you to, as it's very easy to use them all up without realizing it.

And not forgetting bed(s). Once your very first hotel room is built, at least purchase a bed, just as Dracula guides and hints at you along the way. Would you want to sleep in a hotel room without the comfort of a bed, right on the floor? I won't, I knpw that. And none will your ghoul customers either in the game. Once the room is built, your first customer (a skeleton) will show up. And before buying the bed, you cannot check-in the customer. So remember, beds are of utmost importance!

Once everything is done, you may proceed to check in your skeleton guest. And the undead customers will keep on coming, so keep building at least a few more small bedrooms and buy beds if possible. And you also need a zombie bellhop to guide guests to their respective rooms. The very first zombie bellhop you can raise is a Slow Zombie, whereby Dracula will need you to use a HYPNOSIS to speed up the raising. Slow Zombie bellhops can only serve 10 undead customers before they go back to their graves, and the only way to make them last more than 10 undead customers is to feed them brains.

And this is where we proceed to go on to the next important aspect of the app/game itself, Crafting.

Crafting. What game doesn't let you prolong or advance a little better without the use of crafting? Over at The The Hotel Transylvania Social Game, you can craft up to 12 different items and they are namely:

• Brain - To feed Zombie Bellhops so they last longer
• Dracula Costume - For visiting/renting a room at your neighbor(s)
• Frankenstein Costume - For visiting/renting a room at your neighbor(s)
• Gremlin Costume - For visiting/renting a room at your neighbor(s)
• Happy Potion - To make undead guests happy when they'v waited too long to check out
• Hypnosis - To speed things up
• Steve Costume - For visiting/renting a room at your neighbor(s)
• Mummy Costume - For visiting/renting a room at your neighbor(s)
• Quasimodo Costume - For visiting/renting a room at your neighbor(s)
• Wayne Costume - For visiting/renting a room at your neighbor(s)
• Yeti Costume - For visiting/renting a room at your neighbor(s)

And luckily, each crafted item needs different items to be crafted. So you need not worry about the same items being used in 2 or 3 different crafts. Once you have the necessary items from checking your undead customers out of their activities, just go straight ahead and craft the Brains, Happy Potions and Hypnosis.

Another tip to take note of: Do not craft costumes until any quest(s) asks you to. Waste not is the real reason. You may possibly get extra EXP from a quest via Drcula only available crafted when Dracula wants it, so beware of early-crafting.

However, certain items needed to craft unique items such as HYPNOSIS for example, may take ages to collect, so use the ones you have with caution too. It seems tempting to speed up lots of buildings/constructions just for the sake of finishing an old quest fast in order to get new ones and level up. But don't be tempted!

And for the record, undead guests that are waiting to be checked in does not need to be fed Happy Potions, these potions are only used on guests that have been waiting too long to be checked for, example, you go to bed and wake up 8 hours later to find out a skeleton has been waiting to be checked out since 6 hours ago.

Crafting a Dracula costume when there's a quest for it rewards you with:

• 150 coins
• 20 EXP
• Brown Bat Table (For decorating your hotel room)
• Moon (For crafting Wayne Costume)

This now brings us back to the topic, which happens to be my favorite, Zombie Bellhops!

As mentioned, the very first Zombie Bellhops you can raise are Slow Zombie which costs nothing at all. The only downside is that a Slow Zombie can only serve 10 undead guests before it goes back to the grave for good. Hence, that is why you don't need to speed up much stuffs. Save up the HYPNOSIS and BRAINS for when your Hotel is at a higher level, has more rooms and need more Zombie Bellhops to maintain.

Average Zombies need 1 minute to be raised but costs 150 coins while Slow Zombie is free but needs 1 hour to be raised, so you may want to use the free ones instead to save up your money for a rainy day, especially if you hotel has a few rooms or you are still at a lower level.

And here's a list of available codes up for redemption through the app/game itself for room decorations:

• GRIFFIN
• YOUTH
• OPENSEASONMOVIE
• FRANK
• EUNICE
• DRACULA
• Wolves
• Johnny
• SMURFS MOVIE
• SMURFS2

VERDICT: TO be honest, I've tried other "goth" related Facebook app/games from as early as when I initially had a Facebook account. The game itself was rather simplistic to the point of being boring to play with and I dread each day as friends sent me requests for it. But looking back at those vampire games, maybe I should be glad that they existed in the early days of Facebook.

As right now, Sony Interactive has launched a new social game on Facebook called The Hotel Transylvania Social Game. And Sony Pictures is definitely setting the buzz going by introducing a game version of it's animated movie.

The game, just like the movie, is set in Count Dracula’s lavish, five star resort. A place where monsters (a.k.a undead guests) can live the good life away from the prying eyes of those pesky humans, namely you and me. The game play is actually interesting and definitely not what I expected. But it can be a little complex here and there, such as adding rooms for guests, furnishing hotel rooms to increase happiness, and grow your zombie bell boy legion to use them as Bellhops. Let's face it, you can't expect hotel guests to check themselves in and out and carry their luggage all over the place huh?

Like any good social game that are a plenty too many on Facebook, you can check back daily to collect rewards, share gifts with friends/neighbors by sending them gifts, although there's only 3 type of gifts available to choose from. And not forgetting, entertaining your hotel guests via usage of certain hotel facilities to accumulate EXP and points. Of course, as with most social media games, if you want to get ahead in the virtual world, you can do so via the in-app shop.

The last time I played something similar was called Hotel City although this game is defunct. So, I'm rather glad something similar such as The Hotel Transylvania Social Game coming along and filling up the void, despite it's apparent flaws. And now that we're already in the wonderful month of October, I do sincerely hope that certain noticeable flaws are fixed before the arrival of Halloween itself. Or it'll be a shame to be playing a flawed Facebook game during the spooky wonderful days leading up to Halloween.

The Hotel Transylvania Social Game game/app on Facebook is free to play for everyone who has a Facebook account. Go over to https://www.facebook.com/HotelTGame for more info.