Wedding Dash®: Ready, Aim, Love!™ is a great sequel to a brilliant series. Weddings were a place the Dash series should have gone, and did go successfully. In this installment you do more of the same: “plan” weddings and administer them. I’m not a person who cares much for the stories in games of this genre, so I won’t get into that here. Set-up stories don’t matter in a time management game, game play matters, and Wedding Dash: Ready, Aim, Love has plenty of it. I like time management games that set up opportunities for stringing together easy-to-access, logical combinations of actions. Ready, Aim, Love was designed and tuned with this in mind. It’s fast-paced, well-ramped and just plain fun to play. It’s everything I expected in a sequel, and everything I demand of a time management game. .
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Strong theme, well-produced, very clicky and easy to grasp. I highly recommend Wedding Dash: Ready, Aim, Love to all who like strong, rhythmic game play. Even if you’re a guy, and even if you think a wedding theme is too girlish, try it. Because this is a solid time management game.
Dream Chronicles®: The Chosen Child is a beautiful game, and if atmosphere were everything in a casual game it might be the best I’ve played in a year. The graphics and environments are stunning so even if the game was terrible (which is certainly is not) it would be a pleasure to simply navigate through it. Like the other Dream Chronicles games it draws its visual and game-play inspiration from the classic MYST adventure games of old. Movement through the MYST-like world of The Chosen Child is smooth and easy. What a pretty game. Okay, so we got that out of the way. The game looks great. But atmosphere is not everything in a game. Fortunately it’s also a rewarding play experience.
Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child is essentially a light adventure game. A story unwinds as you explore a mysterious location, requiring you to combine various objects and solve simple logic puzzles in order to advance through the game’s world. Finding these objects, such as gems and keys, amidst the gorgeously rendered scenes of The Chosen Child is painless and (mostly) easy on the eyes. Though some smaller objects can be a bit tricky to find (that darn key in the pumpkin patch!), most of the many little trinkets and puzzle pieces are placed so that even those of us with aging eyes can find them. The story unravels organically and is fairly intriguing, as far as a game story goes. I really wanted to discover who these people were and I enjoyed how information was delivered via dreams, the journal and a crystal ball.
I found the puzzles were a bit contrived and there was some unnecessarily annoying navigation the designers seemed to have trumped up for the purpose of extending game play. Go here and get that, go there and get that. Scattering objects around the world has become a cliché in this genre and is tedious for the player. But I didn’t really mind it though, because as I said, wandering this world is visually satisfying. There’s just so much to look at in this game. It’s really a feast for the senses. I tip my hat to the developer, Kat Games who did a wonderful job of lighting and rendering. Come to Shockwave on May 19th, download Dream Chronicles®: The Chosen Child and prepare yourself for a treat.
Get ready for more New Releases coming your way from Shockwave!
Soon you will be able to enjoy these hot titles:
• Plants vs. Zombies™ - Coming May 20th!
• Laura Jones and the Secret Legacy of Nikola Tesla
• Dream Day Wedding: Viva Las Vegas
• Mystic Emporium
• Flower Paradise
• Mandragora
I just love a bright and happy game. After so many dark and brooding hidden object games and serious-minded adventures, I am always ready for something sweet and life-affirming. Mark & Mandi’s Love Story is just such a game. The set-up is that you’re helping to bring a young couple together, playing the role of Cupid as you guide them through various stages of their courtship. Each round is set up sort of like a date which is bookended with dialog between the shy and somewhat romantically inept Mark and the more assertive Mandi. The game-play progresses as their relationship grows, and as you add elements to their date in the park. By completing puzzles you earn wishes that you can spend on objects (flowers, birds, a park bench etc.) that become part of the scene. Adding these scenic elements unlock more game modes.
The artwork in Mark & Mandi is unique, though simple and somewhat monochromatic. But don’t judge a book by its cover. The game may look sparse, but its clean, stripped down art has lost of style and personality. It offers a nice change from the heavily rendered look of most games and is easy on the eyes. No squinting in this game; which is mainly a spot-the-difference puzzler with some matching and memory games thrown in. Though it doesn’t do the best job of conveying its depth (there’s no map or other visual aid to help you gauge the scope of the game), it is a deep game. There are a lot of different types of puzzles and the designers did a great job of recycling the puzzles’ elements to create more mini-games. The story is on the sappy side, but it’s cute and well-written for a download game, and the music matches the look and feel perfectly.
I didn’t think I’d be into this game, but I really was. The more I played it the more I found to like. So, all in all, a very well produced title. If you like find-the-difference games, puzzles, picture scrambles, and innocent love stories, Mark & Mandi’s is sure to satisfy.
When I first saw My Tribe from Grubby games, I was skeptical. It looks almost exactly like Virtual Villagers. In fact, there’s no way not to call it a clone. I loved Virtual Villagers, so I was prepared to hate My Tribe. It appeared to be a blatant rip-off., but this is one book whose coverI misjudged because My Tribe is a fantastic clone. As much I liked Virtual Villagers, I found it to be a bit inaccessible. I thought the game was a little harsh. But My Tribe was much easier to play and I found myself getting more things done, and getting them done quicker. The tutorial is nothing less than excellent. I was instantly hooked and maybe that was because of the voice-over narration. The voice is soothing and bright. Grubby Games did a fine job of casting.
But Grubby Games did a fine job on everything in creating My Tribe. They didn’t simply clone a game, they improved upon a formula and made it more user-friendly and more fun. And this is no surprise. Grubby is one of the most underrated game developers out there.They are incredible designers. Their Professor Fizzwhizzle games are genius. The attention to detail in their games is always superb and My Tribe is no different.
From the get-go My Tribe feels more inviting and more empowering than Virtual Villagers. The soothing female voice makes you feel safe and secure. Choosing your own island is a nice touch too and you have full access to the island right away. As I said, the game’s tutorial is excellent. It guides you through all the necessary tools and tasks of the game rather quickly. Now, this is not a typical download game. Unlike a match-three or a time management type game, My Tribe takes more patience. It’s not about instant gratification – though there is enough of that to sustain game play. In a game like My Tribe (which ‘persists’ while you’re NOT playing it) you have to take a different approach.
The game is about establishing a thriving, healthy community of people on a small, uninhabited island. You are given several people to start – a mixture of males and females who can have children to increase your island’s population. You must find food, explore the island to exploit its natural resources and develop technology and skills that will help grow your community and keep it going strong. In My Tribe this is relatively easy. The game is foolproof, and I did not have that depressing experience of coming back later to find that my tribe had all perished (like I did the first time I played Virtual Villagers). And this is important in a game like this because a big part of the game is about what happens while you were gone.
I recommend playing My Tribe in small doses for maybe thirty to sixty minutes ata time and then putting it down for a few hours and coming back to see how things have changed.
Each tribe member can be put to a specific task (gathering wood, building, fishing, farming etc) and I like that in My Tribe you can set each ‘person’s’ priorities. The entire user-interface for My Tribe, from the map functions to the on-screen buttons and controls, are very well designed. It is not at all intimidating to find information, mix potions, make new clothing for your islanders or build structures. The game is very kind to the player. The overall vibe is gentle, soothing and pleasant. I never felt punished or stupid, or, that I didn’t have control over the game environment. To me this is the hallmark of a great casual game.
Grubby did an excellent job with leveling and progression of game play. The system of rewards and bonuses is well conceived and well-tuned. I particularly love how they use ‘Stardust’ and ‘Moondust’ – two objects that randomly (and frequently) fall from the sky. These objects are universal catalysts and helpers that give the player all kinds of boosts and extra powers. There are many mysterious objects to explore and unlock too. The game is filled with intrigue and feels very deep.
There feels like so much to do in My Tribe and so much to discover. And the game is just a joy to play, not just because of its premise (establishing a new community through hard work, teamwork and the resources at hand feels like a poignant allegory for our troubled times) but because it is so well produced. Grubby Games is a developer to watch and My Tribe is a great game.
Dream Chronicles®: The Chosen Child is a beautiful 
advance through the game’s world. Finding these objects, such as 
