Wonderburg

Background: A witch and her friend dwarf are bound to solve a problem regarding the devastation of houses in their town and in neighbouring towns. They go from one place to another to help the town folks rebuild their houses and also build special buildings that will help in the improvement of the town such as warehouse, school, and lighthouse. Their task also includes fighting off creatures that worsens the situation of the town. There are ghost pirates, giants and dragons that they need to eliminate using magic.

Tips/Strategies: One should concentrate on the goals in each of the game since there are time limits. Some levels don't need enough money to finish the level. Usual goals would be to achieve a certain amount of rent, build special buildings and eliminate negative forces. To be able to reach the highest rent, upgrade option can be used. Each of the houses is capable of upgrading until three stars. But there is also a special building which is Architecture that will give permit to upgrade to a fourth star. As part also of cost savings you can strengthen your house so that you wouldn't need to repair it every time and you can also charm the house so that hunting forces such as ghosts or giants would go away. There are also spells available when you build a school. Those can help you out to earn more money or make your dwarves work faster. Certain buildings also make the cost of dwarves and woods cheaper so better have the buildings built at the start of the game.

Review: I think this is a good game. The thing is after completing all the levels I still replay some of the games where I didn't achieve gold medal. Gold medal is achieved at a certain time limit and the importance of getting the gold is because you can unlock extra games for a certain group of levels. So its a game you could redo and be better the next time around.

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Play Miracles

Background: There's a complicated story beyond this game. A girl, outcast by the magic world because of her parents, tried to prove herself that she's also a good sorcerer of her time. So the game basically is easy. You need to go from places to places where the people need help in terms of money, love, fortune, knowledge and other things they want. You just have to throw the things they want and collect happiness from them. As for the complicated story, there's just a complicated guy and a complicated evil girl who made things worse for the magic world. So you need to do some complicated jobs.

Tips/Strategies: Make sure to buy some gems that will improve your magic. Some gems will help you generate your magic faster or some would strengthen your money or love or fortune magic powers. Also, you have two life lines available that you can use and there are choices. That's why better pick up the 2 that you think will be very helpful. Sample life line is making the people confuse about their wish, one is making the time stop, and other magic related help.

Review: It's a little addictive for somebody who likes to play simple games. You just need to shoot the people with your magic and "voila!" the people are happy and you got your goal. It gets faster like any other games so it's not that boring though.

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Ice Cream Craze - Tycoon Takeover

This is one game where I realized that having a business is not that easy. Ice Cream Craze is a game with only 2 goals – to build up Level 3 ice cream stands in all the available locations and to earn $5000. At first I think it's very simple, but I found out that there are 9 locations to build the level 3 ice cream stands.

Basically, there are a number of tasks to do to be able to achieve your goal. You will start from day 1 where you need to first gather money by working in your ice cream truck. You will need money to pay the tasks you need to do. Once you succeed on a task, there is a particular reward such as getting a level 1 ice cream stand or gaining items that can help you out on your next tasks. When you get low on cash, there are available locations where you can still sell your ice cream without paying anything. So you just earn the cash. If you don't succeed on a task, you can still do it again provided you get enough cash to pay. So if you want to make sure that you can retry the task right away, you need to collect more money first. So it's some motivation to the players to make it right the first time.

The excitement is finding out the new tasks each day of the game. And the challenge is getting the least amount of days to fulfil your main objective. This game really takes a lot of concentration and focus on colours. Yes, ice cream colour is a little bit tricky sometimes plus you need to put different coloured syrup. Finally I beat the Big Company on Day 175. So it's really takes of hard work to build a successful business and it doesn't happen overnight.

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Shop-n-Spree

A time management game and an object seeking game in one. If you enjoyed those detective games of finding things from a vast number of chaotic rooms and still want something different, Shop n Spree is something you will enjoy. The objective of the game is basically to build a better mall than a newly built store of a competitor.

What's good about the game is that you have a number of departments to play every level. Some new ones open as you progress. I enjoyed playing on new stores because it makes it more challenging where you need to familiarize yourself again to the structure of the shelves and places where the items are, and not to mention new items. Just like other time management games, you also encounter different customers – rich man who would buy all the pens on your shelf, a busy man hurrying up, a lady who don't know exactly what she wants, and some common customers that are willing to wait until you give them what they want. In every store you played, there are some mini games where you could gain hints if you have succeeded.

Overall, I think the game is easy. At first I enjoyed the different department stores of the mall. But as I move up the levels, the game happens in the same stores as the earlier levels so it becomes easier. You could have a day playing the game until it ends though you might not want to dwell on a repetitive game every level. But this game is still worth a try to mini games addict like me.

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Facebook Games Craze

So I have created my blog page because I'm looking for a game that will substitute on the temptation to play Facebook games. And yes, I failed. I failed not because I get tired on my mini games but I failed my promise that I will not get addicted to any of the Facebook games.

Now what's the big deal and why does everybody loves to play games in Facebook? I have only one simple reason - that I got to play and try to beat my friends everyday. I tried to imagine just playing the games with only the computer to beat. It would really be boring and I would just get tired of it. But in Facebook, you have your friends to play with and you have other people out there (who you don't usually know) you can beat with the help of your friends. You could also ask your friends to do something for you and there are a lot of ways to interact with them. It promotes social networking with a lot of fun activities.

Don't worry I'm still on my mini games and looking forward to blog my latest love Big Fish game. And I'm also in Vampire Wars and Pirates: Rule the Caribbean games in Facebook. Enjoy!

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Mystery Case Files: Madame Fate

Madame Fate is just the same as Ravenhearst which is also from the Mystery Case Files games. An investigative and item-seeking game, this is a little more difficult because the items are more small and confusing. I almost finish it with the help of my other siblings because I just need more eye to play this game. Also, we found the puzzles in each of the levels either a lot easy or very difficult to figure out so I usually skip those, which you can easily do so without losing anything.

The background of the game is that a certain Madame Fate, a psychic working in a carnival, tried to hire you to investigate a threat on her life. She predicted that someone's going to kill her at midnight and you need to know who the suspect is before that time lapse. You will need to investigate from the different workers in the carnival, a contortionist, an acrobat, a clown, etc. Madame Fate, in return, promises to give you your own future reading. Though it's not so much to offer but I think the game is worth the experience.

In every level, you need to investigate a certain individual, go around the carnival area to seek for things and sometimes solve puzzles to unlock areas where you need to find items too. Puzzles include crosswords, jumble word games, hangman game, and other word games that you'll find out when you try this MCF game. At the end of the level you will need to solve a more complicated puzzle, it goes more complicated every level though and hard to figure out. Enjoy!

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My August Games Update

I've been having less time for some leisure and/or extra time on PC gaming. I just happen to learn to enjoy reading the Harry Potter books and just can't take my nose out of it. I'm expecting to finish all seven books in a little more than a month. So I'm stuck and can't review much for now.

Though I think I would recommend the games I'm currently playing whenever I get tired of my reading craze. I have one from Pop Cap titled "Big Kahuna Reef" and one from Big Fish which is the "Mystery Case Files: Madame Fate". I'll probably review the latter one once I got the chance to finish the game. It's something to look forward to for me.

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Pop Cap Games on my list

Just got a hold of some of the games collection from Pop Cap. Its really different from Big Fish games as the games are really simple, their concept might have originated from the earlier computer games. I'll try them out and see if this games would interest me.

I've been playing Pop Cap games before like bejeweled and bookworm. But I would probably look for more of their games and looking forward for the best game they have.

I'm not sure if I can reach really high scores on their games but probably try to know techniques or strategies.

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Midnight Mysteries - The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy

This is another one of the hidden items game from Big Fish. I'm not a fan of Edgar Allan Poe's work but I've read some of his tales and poems. The game is basically based on his stories or somehow with the sense of how he interprets his investigative mind to his narratives. I'm not really sure if the stories in the games are very same as those in his tales so it's up to Edgar's fans to judge.

Though this game is shorter than other hidden item games such as Ravenhearst, there's still some uniqueness in the puzzles. There are jigsaws, strategy puzzle, IQ challenge, etc. And this is easier because you get a lot of help including also that there's no time pressure.

In the course of the game you have the chance to experience collecting information from the people you encounter in the game. They will try to give you relevant details for the case you are investigating. The investigations mostly involve cases that Edgar Allan Poe has written in his tales. But the bottom line is to search for facts regarding Edgar's murder.

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Youda Sushi Chef

Japanese food fans or not, this is a game that'll challenge you in cooking the different kinds of sushi. Plus you got to learn the Japanese names of each of the sushi ingredients.

In Youda Sushi Chef, you got to mix sushi ingredients, accept takeout orders, accept reservations, order more sushi ingredients from your supplier and do tricks when your customers are getting angry waiting for their food. I think the most challenging is memorizing the different mix of sushi recipes especially when you are under pressure. You need to have better focus or at least a chef mind to remember all those stuffs. Though you have full time access to the recipes all throughout your game, make sure you don't take a lot of time peeking on every sushi recipe.

Takeout orders and seat reservations are part of the game and somewhat confusing when they pop out on top. These things might be optional but it helps you get more respect from the customers and that means more money.

Every level you got the chance to name your own restaurant. You also have the option to identify your player as either a male or female.

Rating this game, I'll still favor Cooking Dash in terms of seeing Flo move around the restaurant and in having different restaurant concept for each level. But if you're the kind of person who likes cooking and fond of memorizing things, Youda Sushi Chef gives you those stuffs.

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Cooking Dash

Flo's work doubled in Cooking Dash now that she needs to cook and serve all her customers with a little help from grandma and from her chef friends. The first game, which is Diner Dash, where Flo's work is to get orders, give seats to customers, serve food and clean the tables will have additions in Cooking Dash. So basically, the cooking activities will be added. This is a time management game where you need to earn a certain amount of dollars to reach your goal and go up another level.

For those who have not played Diner Dash before, no worries because I think Cooking Dash is better. In Diner Dash I was thinking it's unreasonable to just have one waiter in a restaurant that has a lot of customers, though sometimes you get to call help. In Cooking Dash it's the same thing but at least you're trying to push Flo's career in this one to get to the top and be the best chef in town.

What I like about this game is that in every level you got to work on a different kind of restaurant. Like for once you have an all breakfast restaurant, another is a fast food and a Japanese restaurant. In this game you need to think fast on a strategy where you need to satisfy all your customers and don't make them wait longer. You don't have any helper here except another chef that does sandwiches or salads, a coffee maker to boost the moods of your angry customers and a radio which you don't want to waste time turning on (really takes a lot of effort and making your other customers wait longer).

One strategy I did is to prepare all the food that doesn't spoil once prepared. These are the ice cream, fruit shakes, sandwiches and salads but make sure that you have a 2 plate table to accommodate the prepared food. Once there are orders getting in you can just grab them and be sure to replace them right after for the next customers that will order the same.

This is really a simple game and if you like challenging time management game, this one's a good play.

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Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst

And the story traces back the mystery behind Ravenhearst Manor. In the first Ravenhearst, you need to solve the case behind the death of Emma Ravenhearst. Now Emma's soul wants to help Charles' other victims through your effort to investigate the case further.

If you have enjoyed the first instalment of Ravenhearst, you will enjoy this more. Why? First is that the story is more interesting, not like the first one where you don't mind what the story is all about. This time you'll enjoy the special effects because the characters are basically people acting on cam. This might be a little scary especially when you're playing alone at night. J Another good thing about this game is that you have the chance to see the whole place by walking along every parts of Ravenhearst Manor and you can even go back to all the places you have searched before. The puzzles are also more complicated and unique. You got to collect items from each of the places or rooms you have gone to and used those stuffs to help you go further and discover more clues and items.

I think the thing that stopped me a little on my way to finish the game is when I didn't find the item I need in one of the stage in the game. Though the game has a Strategy Guide, I didn't follow it step by step because it would ruin the detective feel of the game. That's why I find it hard to know where to get the item I need. If you encounter these things, you just have to go back to the places you have gone to. You do have to consider all the areas in the Ravenhearst Manor throughout the duration of the game if you need to find more things. Some puzzles or clues in the game are hard so you have to check with the strategy guide if you can't think what the puzzles' goals are. Though somehow the strategy guide would not give you all the answers or explain how they come up with the solution to the puzzle. Anyway, there are some forums where you can ask gamers on the solutions if you really can't figure it out.

Rerturn to Ravenhearst is the best detective game I had played so far. It's a good game that keeps you thinking on the puzzles and its story will keep you going until you solve the case and save Charles' victims from eternal suffering in his hands.

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Be Rich

Basically, Be Rich is a game for real estate tycoons wanna-be or for those who just want to play something where they can experience doing big business. This game has simple graphics, a simple community presented with empty lots where you got to build the houses and businesses available to you provided you have enough money.

For the Career Mode, the challenge of the game is to be able to finish your objectives in the specified days allotted to you. However there is no penalty and you don't lose if you won't get to reach the deadline of the projects on time. But if you want to get the awards and be tag as an expert, you need to meet the deadlines. You also have an option to continue playing once you completed your goals.

For the Sandbox Mode, you get to play only one game at a time. Once you finished a game for a specific place or town, you will be able to unlock other places.

Be Rich game is not that much interesting but when you get to play and get familiar with the goals of the game, you might got caught up with it. I think the challenge I have is not having knowledge on how the other accessories in the game works. The decorations that add value to your properties is something you should take into consideration. Another challenge I found is how you should arrange the buildings and decorations within the community to be able to get the most population, most daily income and most appearance score. Therefore, it's a good strategy game in its latter levels.

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Farm Craft

In my quest for a game that would probably substitute the temptation to start playing addictive games from Facebook, specifically Farmville and Barn Buddy, I found this game Farm Craft. Yes, this has garden plots, cows, chickens, sheeps, honey bees, flower gardens plus you got to earn money from all your hard work. The difference I think it has from Facebook games is that you play on your own here, not like Farm Buddy where you get to play with your friends. Another thing is that this is fast paced unlike the Farmville where you can harvest your plants after 4 hours to a number of days. The avatar doesn’t change in Farm Craft but it’s fine since you don’t need an identity to play this game.

One good thing about this game is there is a story behind why you need to develop and improve the lands provided to you. For instance, there is this company that’s making the lives of the farmers hard by selling substitute products to the market. So you need to prove to the people that farm products are still the best they can have. Another challenge that you’ll have here is the Farm Fair where you need to win the grand prize.

Winning in this game is easy though. I actually didn’t experience losing one of the games. I was thinking there’s no time limit. Nevertheless, in the later levels there’s a lot of objectives you need to accomplish and they will post another set of objectives while you’re not finished with the earlier ones. So that makes it a little challenging to work harder in the game. One thing that I learned is that you should attain first what the first objectives say and then the next one even though all the materials are already available for you to use. Also it’s more logical to do the first things first so as to not make the structure of your farm chaotic.

I may say this is addictive because I’m fascinated with the story and I’m still playing the game over again. The one thing I didn’t want with the story is when the girl tried to improve the farm of an old man just to learn her own identity. That’s a little not fair for the girl, isn’t it? Well anyway maybe I was just caught up with the story.

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Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst

Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst is a detective game where you need to find specific items from different rooms. There are puzzle games that you need to solve to be able to pass through certain doors.

The game has time limits so you need to find the items fast to be able to get through the final puzzle. After you complete the pieces of the puzzle, you will figure out the next pages of the diary. This is what you need to complete to know the truth behind the crime that happened in the house. The story of the game is basically something you would not take into consideration once you are caught up with the searching stuff. And the diary write ups are somewhat long to read, you wouldn't waste your time reading. It's actually not a big deal in the games anyway.

I have played this game for about ten times. The thing is that the objects being searched for specific room changes every play so it’s still difficult and challenging. Every time you play it, the struggle is to lessen your time for the whole course of the game until you solve the case. I think the secret is not to force yourself to find the items but to just take it easy.

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Tumblebugs 2

Tumblebugs is basically like Zuma where you should shoot matching colors of a chain of round stuff. For Tumblebugs, you’re gonna shoot captured bugs and make sure that they don’t reach the hole where they will be prisoned forever by the black bugs.

I have played the Tumblebugs 1 before but didn’t have it in my current laptop so I have Tumblebugs 2 to review. Anyway, Tumblebugs 2 is the upgraded version of 1 and this has more levels, i.e. 12 levels with 6 mazes each, and two difficulty selections. Though this has more levels, there are repetitions on the mazes and the differences are just the speed of the bugs moving towards the hole.

Compared to Zuma, Tumblebugs’ interface is a lot better. The animation is great for a game with a simple objective. There is also an option for color blind people so that it’ll be easy for them to identify the color differences of the bugs.

You have 3 lives to use and can achieve more if you’ll be able to collect letters. Plus you can have different power bugs to help you like the bugs that you can shoot on any color or the ones that can stop the flow of the bugs for a little while. One thing they didn’t adopt from the first version of the game is the option to save the game when you have a lot of lives and retrieve it when your lives are getting fewer. In Tumblebugs 2 you can only save the game when you exit your ongoing game. But it just makes it more difficult and challenging for the gamers.

Overall, this game is addictive. Though I have not yet finished the last part for the Expert level, this just makes it more challenging for all those who like to play this type of game. Good animations, more levels which means longer time for playing, and they have a lot of funny quotes in between mazes.

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