Disney has put its game face on for the social games races in 2012. On the heels of a major announcement with mobile social game maker DeNA, Disney Social Games (also known as Playdom) has revealed that Animal Kingdom Explorers is slated to release on April 9.

By Joe Osborne From games.com

In Animal Kingdom Explorers, players save the natural world's wildlife from being poached and rendered extinct by finding them in hidden-object scenes. Players can then purchase found animals to add them to their very own wildlife preserves. This is Playdom's third hidden-object game on Facebook

"We're taking the players someplace new, we're giving them a new decorative space, we're adding new mechanics. I've been working in the games industry for, I dunno, 14 years now, and that sort of differentiation, novelty is critical to serving your existing audience," Animal Kingdom Explorers creative director Eric Todd told. "Players don't really want to play the same thing again, they want to play something new. And that's exactly what we're reaching for with The Animal Kingdom."

That said, the first Facebook game branded around a theme park does present a relatively new theme to hidden-object games: hidden animals. You can likely expect more Animal Kingdom Explorers news come Earth Day, April 22, which is also when Disney's Chimpanzees conveniently hits theaters.