Meryl.net » Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk

Game du Jour: Week of 8 November 2009

2009-11-07T15:26:33Z

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Sun. November 8th: 50% off on The Conjurer

Mon. November 9th: 50% off on Campfire Legends: The Hookman

Tue. November 10th: 65% off on Elementals: The Magic Key

Wed. November 11th: 65% off on Fairy Nook

Thu. November 12th: 65% off on Kitchen Brigade

Fri. November 13th: 65% off on Fishdom: Spooky Splash

Sat. November 14th: 65% off on Cake Mania Main Street

PC Game Review: World of Zellians: Kingdom Builder

2009-11-04T03:43:05Z

In World of Zellians: Kingdom Builder, you take on the role master builder Zorn’s student. The city planner teaches you how to work with the kings and queens to build and fix up their kingdoms. It doesn’t take long before the student becomes the master causing the jealous Zorn to respond no-so-kindly by creating disasters and setting madmen loose to mess with your hard work.

Build-a-lot fans will recognize some similar game play, but this one doesn’t spend as much time on the building aspect as Build-a-lot does. World of Zellians: Kingdom Builder also has a different graphic style with a more cartoon and colorful design.

The citizens of the kingdom also come out of their homes and go about their day, much like in Fairy Godmother Tycoon without the humor. (Except for the madmen.) The kingdoms vary in style from the tundra and desert to the coast and the valley.

You begin every level by meeting with the monarch to find out the kingdom’s needs. You also run into politics side as several have feuds going on that it becomes a game of one-upmanship. Some of the lands have tricky requirements because of barriers, spacing issues and things that you can’t demolish because they’re sacred — the ruins and the trees in the prairie — or unbreakable.

Gold, materials, population. Every shop, social building (homes), production and special building types give you at least one of the following: gold, material and population. Some buildings require you to build others before you can build it.

For example, the grocery store requires a grain farm, orchard and four people. A grain farm requires water and eight people. It sounds disorienting, but the game does a great job of providing you with the information you need.

Experienced players will find the game too easy and unchallenging with all the time in the world and no consequences. If you mess up, you can restart the level. While this could be a drawback, it makes for a more fun and relaxing experience from the other building games that tend to get stressful.

I couldn’t help but want to keep on playing World of Zellians: Kingdom Builder to see the next kingdom and theme, to see what new shops appear and to see what will stand in my way. The buildings vary all the way to the end, so you never get tired of the scenery. If anything bores, it’ll be the lack of challenge. Go on and give it a try. The free time will be enough to help you decide whether to buy or deny.

Game du Jour: Week of 1 November 2009

2009-11-01T19:28:32Z

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Sun. November 1st: 65% off on Trapped The Abduction

Mon. November 2nd: 65% off on The Jolly Gang’s Spooky Adventure

Tue. November 3rd: 65% off on Mystery Masterpiece: The Moonstone

Wed. November 4th: 50% off on Sally’s Quick Clips

Thu. November 5th: 50% off on Campfire Legends: The Hookman

Fri. November 6th: 60% off on Kelly Green Garden Queen

Sat. November 7th: 50% off on HdO Adventure: Frankenstein

Game du Jour: Week of 25 October 2009

2009-10-26T12:02:13Z

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Sun. October 25th: 65% off on Romance of Rome: I helped behind the scenes with this one.

Mon. October 26th: 50% off on Miriel’s Enchanted Mystery

Tue. October 27th: 65% off on Ghost Town Mysteries – Bodie

Wed. October 28th: 65% off on Zulu’s Zoo

Thu. October 29th: 100% off on Wizard’s Hat

Fri. October 30th: 65% off on Department 42: The Mystery of the Nine

Sat. October 31st: 50% off on Little Shop – World Traveler

Game du Jour: Week of 18 October 2009

2009-10-18T12:43:40Z

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Sun. October 18th: 50% off on RichMan Games – Monopoly of New York

Mon. October 19th: 50% off on Zombie Shooter

Tue. October 20th: 50% off on Zombie Shooter 2

Wed. October 21st: 50% off on Alien Shooter – Revisited

Thu. October 22nd: 50% off on Alien Shooter 2

Fri. October 23rd: 50% off on 4 Elements (I love 4 Elements!)

Sat. October 24th: 50% off on SPACEDROID Attack Episode I

PC Game Review: Avenue Flo

2009-10-17T14:14:02Z

Diner Dash’s Flo steps into her first adventure as she helps Wedding Dash’s Quinn prepare for a wedding or Mr. Big’s daughter to Tony, the pizza maker. Everything goes wrong. Avenue Flo starts with many mishaps. The bride’s white dog runs away looking like a lobster after a run in with red dye. The rings disappear. The cake spoils. The dress falls apart. Quinn calls her friend for help.

Those who have played many games from Playfirst will recognize characters throughout the adventure. No worries if you’ve never played a drop of these. It’s like hearing an inside joke when you come across the characters.

The adventure retains the friendly and eye-catching cartoon styles in the Dash games. Story updates appear in cut scenes that you can speed up. The story splits into four parts based on the locales. Flo will move around each locale to complete the tasks that Quinn has asked her to do as well as the favors she does for folks in order to get something Flo needs.

Avenue Flo doesn’t occur in the past or take place in Greece or some other popular time. Its theme makes it different from the other adventure games out there. Flo talks to the characters in every store and out ‘n about the neighborhood to find out what’s going on and to receive clues. She also needs to collect butterflies for the wedding and bottles for recycling to get subway tokens as three places require the subway.

At first, the game doesn’t look like a long one. Then as you move along, you discover it’ll keep you busy for a good while. Flo keeps notes so she can stay on top of all the things she needs to do or find to complete her tasks. A map also comes in handy for every location; although every location has a T-shape for easy navigation. One street goes from one end to the other, and in the middle there’s another street that takes you in a different direction.

My six-year-old loves this game and keeps pushing me to play the game when I had other work to do. He helps me with some of the mini-games that blend in with the game’s story. For example, the beads from wedding dress fall off and Flo needs to find them all. (See the second image from the mini-game.) She also offers to sew them back on with a fancy stitching gadget. The sewing part becomes a mini-game in which you need to put the beads on in a pattern. Obviously, this makes a great game for the family.

In another mini-game, Flo meets a hen chorale. To get eggs from them for the wedding cake, she plays a Simon-style mini-game. This involves watching the hens sing and repeat their song. While I dislike Simon “do what I do” games, it works well in this situation. When you complete the adventure, you can play any of the mini-games, which extends the game’s replay value.

While I may be deaf, I’ve come across annoying sounding voice acting that compelled me to turn off the sound. Not in this one. It sounds like you expect a cartoon to sound: pleasant and friendly. Avenue Flo contains all the ingredients of a good adventure game: cool graphics, good story, humor and plenty of action.

Download the game from your favorite site

Game du Jour: Week of 11 October 2009

2009-10-11T15:13:22Z

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ’one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Sun. October 11th: 65% off on Bato

Mon. October 12th: 60% off on Hero’s Tale Enhanced Edition

Tue. October 13th: 60% off on Dawn’s Light

Wed. October 14th: 60% off on Little Space Duo

Thu. October 15th: 60% off on Foxy Fox Game

Fri. October 16th: 60% off on Mole : Great Adventure Game

Sat. October 17th: 50% off on SPACEDROID Attack Episode I

PC Game Review: Princess Isabella: A Witch’s Curse

2009-10-08T23:17:12Z

Princess Isabella: A Witch’s Curse starts with a happy beginning in which Isabella prepares to marry her prince (marrying a servant just doesn’t have the same thrill, I suppose). She goes out horseback riding when her castle goes all “Beauty and the Beast” falling under a witch’s curse (bet you didn’t see that coming). Instead of turning people into teacups, candlesticks and silverware, the staff and royalty turn into mirrors.

You play Isabella. Tinkerbell — at least her doppelganger — has your back as she flits and flees around helping you break things, burn things, blow things and all that jazz. She doesn’t have the ability to do anything when you first meet her. Instead, she lets you know what you need to do or what’s happening in the room. As you make way around the darkened castle, you’ll find potions to give her abilities.

Your job is to undo the curse in every room of the castle by finding items, using them with other objects and completing puzzles. Some items you’ll use in the same room as you found it, or in another room. At times, you’ll enter a room or object in which you need to do a traditional seek and find. You’ll find and pick up the broken mirror pieces.

The rooms also have broken mirror pieces for your collecting. When you have all the pieces for a mirror, you put it back together jigsaw puzzle-style to release the staff member or royalty. After freeing them, they give you clues for your journey.

The castle has many rooms that you can lose track of where all the rooms are located. It’s dizzying when a game has you walking in circles. However, you won’t have that stress getting in your way as you can access a map anytime that lets you jump from place to place.

Many adventure hidden object games lean heavily on the latter. Not this one. You never know what to expect in Princess Isabella: A Witch’s Curse other than fix all of the mirrors. So you won’t zone out while playing.

I had trouble loading the game a few times. Once I realized this, I left it open until I finished the game. This happened prior to buying the full version, so you should know if it’s a problem on your computer or not.

The story flows nicely with its bite-sized snippets spread throughout the game to avoid bogging you down with too much text. Although, some of the text and annoying audio had me close to putting a curse on the game. After you chase out the bad spirits from the room, the fairy will say something and then “Yay!” It’s worse than corny to my cochlear implant.

Princess Isabella: A Witch’s Curse may not sound like an original story, but the whole thing together provides a delectable adventure lasting just the right amount of time.

Download the game from your favorite site

Game du Jour: Week of 4 October 2009

2009-10-05T11:43:00Z

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ’one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Sun. October 4th: 50% off on Hospital Hustle

Mon. October 5th: 60% off on Party Down

Tue. October 6th: 60% off on Mary Celeste

Wed. October 7th: 60% off on Mystic Emporium

Thu. October 8th: 60% off on Plan it Green

Fri. October 9th: 60% off on Righteous Kill 2

Sat. October 10th: 50% off on Aveyond: Gates of Night

PC Game Review: Zuma’s Revenge

2009-09-28T22:36:05Z

Game developers who decide to come up with a sequel to a smash hit — especially one as big as Zuma that won various Game of the Year awards in 2005 — have a difficult task in keeping the formula of the original while enhancing the sequel to ensure it doesn’t feel too much like the original. Zuma’s Revenge retains the familiarity that made Zuma popular while adding a few enhancements and game modes so the game isn’t identical to Zuma.

Once again, players control the stone frog that fires colorful balls at the chain of balls to make a match of three or more. Unlike match three games, the frog can shoot a color ball that creates a pair or stick in between two other different color balls. However, the player will have a harder time clearing the chain when the ball doesn’t create a match of three or more.

New power up effects include lightning, laser and tri-shot. All the original Zuma power ups also appear in the game including slowdown, explosion, reverse and accuracy. The frog hops around more so it can reach tough spots by jumping between lily pads or sliding back and forth. On some levels, the frog stays put.

In Zuma’s Revenge adventure mode, the frog finds itself on a Polynesian island where he treks through 6 islands for 60 levels and 6 battles with the big tiki boss at the end of his stay on each island. Each tiki boss has a special power and frog must dodge them or else become weak for a few moments. One sends poison darts that put the frog in a daze, another sends insects that slow down the frog’s shots and another moves so fast it’s tough to catch him. And he has minions, too.

After you finish Adventure Mode, you’ll have unlocked the other modes including Challenge mode with 70 levels to challenge you in reaching a minimum score with a little help from bonus multipliers all within a set time on the clock and Heroic Frog takes you back through all the adventure levels with increasing difficulty. The modes add to the game’s replayability beyond Adventure mode and you’ll want to play them. Not all games have other game modes worth playing, but this one does.

Though Zuma’s Revenge doesn’t feel too different from Zuma, it has enough additions especially with its superb almost 3D-like graphics and sound effects that have you celebrating the big moves. We’re happy to have our favorite stone frog back with new scenes, power ups and game modes even if the game has us cursing under our breath when we accidentally shoot a ball between two different colored balls.