Wandering Willows review

I don’t think I’ve come across anything like the fanciful Wandering Willows since I’ve ventured into the casual gaming arena. You could call it a cross between role-playing games, Virtual Villagers, adventure games, simulations and Pokemon. Let’s just say it brings an innovative new world to the casual games industry.

Floating in a hot air balloon, a bird pokes a hole in the balloon whisking you to a land where people are happy. Well, a few grumps do live there to keep things lively and humorous. You’re not the first person to arrive on this island. Everyone who has come before you has stayed. But like Dorothy of Wizard of Oz, you want to go home and that means you need to get to know the island’s residents because they can help fix your balloon.

Before you start exploring Grassland Island, you need to create an avatar complete with style and colors for hair, eyes, and skin. Now you’re ready to start your adventures with a pet who climbs and digs for you. PETA folks can take comfort knowing these are beautifully and intricately drawn animated pets and you take good care of them by making sure their energy levels stay up by feeding the animal its favorite foods (it lets you know what it likes and dislikes).

You only have one pet with you at all times, but can change your pets at your heart’s desire. As you meet other creatures on the island, you’ll occasionally come across an egg that you can incubate.

Every creature has three numbers — thus resembling RPGs — climbing, digging and energy. As it climbs and digs, its energy levels drop. The amount of drop depends on its strength and the strength of the object or animal it interacts with. The game comes with 40 creatures including robots. Animals also have the ability to charm other animals to get them to give up an egg, recipes or items.

Characters also have likes, dislikes and unique interests and personality quirks. Art Gunderson loves to wear fuzzy costumes and ballgowns. Two roommates live in a tent refuse to eat anything that isn’t organic — or rather one does while the other complains.

You also meet twins, a professor, a captain and more. Just when you think you’ve met all of the characters, you discover more. That’s what makes the game special — it surprises you throughout the game.

Your new found friends have a friendship meter. They start as strangers and as you complete tasks for them or treat them to something they like, the number climbs as you work to become everyone’s best friend. You might not be all of their best friends by the time you build your balloon, but don’t rush to do it either. This game and its journey need savoring and enjoying.

You pick up recipes, items, clothing and collar patterns and much more along the way. In total, the game contains 162 tasks, 200 recipes and 150 patterns for making different types of clothing including swords, helmets and capes.

I never care for wardrobes and dressing up characters … until now. This comes with more than just shirts and pants. With sunglasses and funny hats, the characters (and you) wear your creations until you change them. The collars give the animals added powers or abilities. But power of the collars don’t look obvious.

The wondrous land has three stores: cooking, sewing and gardening. You can buy some supplies while others you need to make yourself. You can also sell items in these stores so you can get more Willowbees aka cash, moolah, currency and bucks. You can carry 100 mushrooms, but you may not be able to carry 20 different objects depending on the size of your backpack. I love that about this game — it lets you carry all you want of individual items, but limits the different types of items.

Wandering Willows lasts a long time. Even after you fix your balloon, you can keep on playing and you most likely want to. Some of the simulation types of games encourage you to continue interacting with the game, but you feel like the fun is gone. Not so with Wandering Willows. I only have three uncompleted tasks by the time I repair the balloon. I’d like to see a few more than that, but at least I have plenty of trophies to earn to compel me to trek on.

During the entire game play, I worried about the game crashing. Its colorful and calming scenes constantly jerked as if I didn’t have enough screen power. It only crashed once, but continued to flake even though I closed all other applications.

Another feature I’d like to see is a list or chart of all the animals that travel with me and things I make. With many animals and recipes, you lose track and I’d like to meet each creature once and make each item. Although the character eventually finds a way to move from place to place a little faster, it gets tiring waiting for her to get where she needs to go. Speed up!

It won’t surprise me if this one wins awards and accolades. I wish we could see novel games like this more often. Not only does Wandering Willows contain charming and adorable scenes and characters, but also humor and the freedom to do things in no particular order.

Review by Meryl.net

Passport to Perfume

Passport to Perfume is a PC/Mac game that offers players the chance to engage in an end to end perfumery experience where you play the role of Sophia, a young adventure-seeker, perfume maker and shop owner in the 1940’s. Sophia’s quest is to uncover the formula for Marie Antoinette’s perfume before the rival gets it. Passport to Perfume is different from your average time management game as it creatively blends three different game genres into one: time management, economic sim and hidden object to deliver the entire luxurious experience of being a perfume maker.

Daily objectives comprises of setting up your shop inventory on how much you need to stock up and what type of upgrades you want to buy for your shop. The cash is a little difficult to earn here as you progress though the game so do consider carefully before you spend your hard earn cash on an upgrade. It’s not that difficult if you are easily satisfied for completing the level at the normal goal, but if you are a perfectionist and prefer to complete every level with expert score then I’m afraid you might have to replay the same level a few times. Thankfully you are able to put in extra add-ons for the perfume in order to earn the extra cash even though the customer might not ask for it. So my only advice here is… Feel free to exploit every customer that comes in and make sure that they pay more than what they have asked for. Haha! (Don’t practice this on real-life customers though!)

Another cool thing in Passport to Perfume that I like was if you have created a blue perfume with all the add-ons to it and realise that the customer was asking for a green one instead. Not to worry, all you have to do is to bring it back to the yellow perfume dispenser and you can just blend it to a green one. Well… at least you don’t have to recycle it and start all over again.

Players will also get to travel the globe hunting for exotic ingredients to create custom scents for their perfume shop. This is where the hidden object gameplay comes in. You have to search through the scene to collect your ingredients and bring it back to your shop where you can customize your perfume. Since there isn’t any time constrain during the hidden object gameplay so no worries if you can’t differentiate which flowers or which bottle you are suppose to collect. Feel free to click, brush or dig at everything or anything on the scene as there will not be any penalty for it.

The ingredients and bottles that you have found during your travels will be brought back to the shop. The ingredients will go into your customization of your perfume and the bottles will be placed in your shop for sale. Don’t just dump in every ingredient for your perfume as you have to take note of the time needed for the perfume and the pricing. It wouldn’t be effective to sell an expensive perfume but because of the time spent, you might end up losing more customers instead. So… try to balance up a little when you create the perfume. As for me, I will choose to have a perfume that has a faster timing than the pricing as the add-ons worth more than that.

Overall, I find this game pretty neat with the nice storyline, the hidden object quests and the customization of the perfume. Even though it’s pretty challenging at times especially if you strive to get expert score for every level but it was still attainable after a few tries and exploiting. All in all, I find that this game really nice and definitely worthy of its number one position in the top 10 games.

Review by Jasmine

Kuros

As Katya, you're in a bit of a high-pressure situation in Kuros. Someone has been tampering with the glyphstones that keep the world in balance, and you're the only one who can restore them. Unfortunately, you've woken up with no idea of who you are, where you are, or what you're supposed to be doing. Hope you're a fast learner, or it's the end of everything.

Kuros bills itself as a hidden object game, but that's a bit misleading. You will have to scour locations for items, but they're the tools you'll need to solve the game's many puzzles, so it's more like a classic adventure game.

The most important items you need to find are map pieces; you can't proceed to a new location until you track down all ten bits of the map that will lead you there. You can also find chromatic lenses that will reveal hidden items in a location, but even more valuably, they'll tell you when you've found everything there is to find in a particular level. Several of Katya's quests will have her searching multiple locations for a particular set of items, and knowing when to move on is extremely helpful. Scrying orbs will give you a pass on puzzles, but like the chromatic lenses, they're quite rare - use them wisely.

In her travels to save Kuros, the world where the glyphs are kept, Katya will travel through five elemental lands: wood, fire, water, ice, and metal. Given that the world's in danger, you'd think that the guardians of those lands would be eager to help Katya on her quest, but they all want something in exchange for their assistance. You'll have to find ten seeds scattered throughout the wood land, figure out how to forge an orichalcum rod, restore life to a field of wilted metal lilies, just to name a few.

Some of the tasks are simple fetch quests, but most require some amount of puzzle solving, and this is where Kuros really shines. The puzzles are varied, both in type and in difficulty, colorful and clever. Whether you're reconnecting pipes, guiding a ball through a maze, or figuring out the correct pattern of crystals, the puzzles of Kuros are never boring or repetitious.

Your final task before leaving a land is restoring its glyphstone. After you clear away the detritus that surrounds it, you'll have to complete the inscription carved into its face by figuring out the pattern of symbols. This is the one area of Kuros that may frustrate some players. The patterns are logical, but if you can't tune into the particular sense that they make, this part of the game can be a bit of a roadblock. The glyph puzzles can be solved just with trial and error, but they reset after three wrong guesses, so it's faster to try and figure it out the proper way.

Kuros has smart puzzles, gorgeous graphics, amusing characters and decent voice acting. It's a wonderfully entertaining journey and it's over far, far too quickly. If you're a puzzle aficionado, or a hidden object pro, you'll be done in just three hours. Katya drops some heavy hints about a sequel, which I can only hope come to fruition; it feels like Kuros barely scratches the surface of its potential. You're given a wand and a scepter, but hardly have to use them at all. There could have been more puzzles in each elemental land, too - it feels as though you've just gotten to later levels, like the library, when it's time for you to go.

Hopefully we'll have a chance to join forces with Katya again sometime. For now, this delicious appetizer of a game will just have to do.

Review by Vanessa Carter

Create a Mall

The modern shopping mall is a magical place, filled with gleaming riches, scrumptious culinary delights, technological marvels and exotic imports from far-off lands. All of which are yours to enjoy, of course, in exchange for braving the milling throngs and endless sea of parking spaces.

Thankfully, business simulation Create a Mall puts the power to build a better shopping center in your hands, giving the people what they want while also raking in a healthy income. We just wish the creators understood a simple underlying principle: Time equals money, and you'll be aghast at just how much can be wasted on any given session.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. Assuming you don't mind, as random heroine Kelly, decking out strip malls, coastal commercial centers and glistening gallerias, the title offers a fairly economical approach to playing entrepreneur. Taking a cue from seminal outings like Build-a-lot, play's largely structured around installing and operating different types of shops - e.g. book, toy and shoe stores - as well as upgrading holdings as needed. The catch being that you're limited by several factors: Money, manpower and resources. Let's not forget time, by far the most important, either. Because although creating a thriving marketplace is, at the surface level, as easy as clicking to select and place the desired shop or prompt immediate renovation, self-gratification is never immediate. Frankly, pleasingly straightforward interface and simple financial back-end aside, the greatest hurdle you'll face here is the sheer amount of waiting necessary to progress.

You see, money makes the virtual world go round. But it's only doled out at specific intervals, when a slowly-filling cash meter reaches a specific endpoint. Moreover, you're only allotted X amount of dollars each time, though it's possible to boost revenue by adding retailers and giving existing stores an overhaul.

While a fairly easy system to follow in principle, amassing wealth can be a tricky endeavor. Accessing different stores and entertainment options requires blueprints, which cost money to buy. Building these outlets takes labor and building supplies, all of which are offered in limited quantities, and require additional expenditure. As such, you're required to perform a constant juggling act, balancing costs vs. inventory and income, slowly socking away enough moolah to achieve specific goals. Unsurprisingly, these objectives (i.e. build X many jewelry stores, achieve Y level of daily revenue, add Z number of vendors with multiple upgrades) are always hard-won.

That goes double when you consider additional concerns, e.g. popularity. The more types of a single variety of shop built, the unhappier patrons become, and the more foot traffic (depicted by animated characters who wander across each featured backdrop) suffers. Space can also get limited, requiring use of the demolition tool to scroll back progress, and time tight, although you're not technically under any real constraint save artificial deadlines, which dole out special bonuses if met. Still, the biggest challenge here is mostly dealing with general frustration and boredom. Although extras include collectible trophies and options to earn shopping credits that let you buy virtual stereo systems and TVs, let's be honest. With even early level goals fairly challenging and time-consuming, play often feels more like simple busywork than fun.

To be frank, it really takes a certain type of personality (say, those of us who suffer from OCD, or a love of micromanagement) to enjoy this sort of outing. Even more so when you consider the title's general lack of audiovisual variety, and overall nonexistent sense of personality, which can quickly lead to burnout over extended sessions. Good, bad, a cure for insomnia... it's really all in the eye of the beholder, however. Because Create a Mall is exactly what the title promises, nothing more, nothing less - and given how unglamorous the process can be in real life, you shouldn't expect much more than that.

Review by Scott Steinberg

Delicious: Emily's Taste of Fame

The newest installment of the Delicious series, Emily's Taste of Fame takes you on a journey with Emily and Francois as they make their way to Emily's new cooking show. With all sorts of hazards and detours along the way, it will take creativity and strategy to proceed in this outstanding new time management title brought to you by GameHouse.

The game begins with a flashback to one month ago, where a wrecked car sits on the side of the road near a diner. Emily and her friend Francois enter the diner to think of what to do next: they're on their way to Emily's new cooking show, but they don't have enough money to repair their car. Instead, Emily strikes up a deal with the owner of the diner to do what she does best: cook and work in the restaurant and earn enough money to get their car fixed. Emily and Francois find themselves in interesting new places at every turn as they make their way to Emily's cooking show, but time is running out and the producers are waiting!

Emily's Taste of Fame is the fourth official Delicious title in the series. Continuing the legacy of the series, Emily's Taste of Fame is a restaurant-based time management title controlled solely with the mouse. Emily must cook and prepare food in a variety of combinations for a variety of customers, all while being careful not to make them angry and instead have them leave satisfied.

Delicious features two daily goals: a standard goal that will allow you to progress, and an expert goal. Achieving the expert goal allows Emily to earn extra money, which can be used to decorate the restaurant. Each decoration has a special quality that will improve Emily's service or the customer's actions in the game. True to the previous installments, Delicious: Emily's Taste of Fame also features five main restaurant areas with ten days each, for a total of 50 bustling levels. In each of the 50 levels are hidden a mouse, allowing for bonus play and challenges all while maintaining the restaurant. There is also a variety of Easter eggs that GameHouse has cleverly slipped into various levels.

Emily's Taste of Fame is a whole new animal compared to the previous and even recent Delicious titles, improving and expanding with flying colors. This particular title features a new and refreshing feature in which every single day has a particular challenge or task that needs to be accomplished in addition to running the restaurant.

Tasks can be as simple as picking up packages, or complicated as saving a life. The tasks are also varied in style, some departing completely away from time management and straight into the genre of hidden object. With a strong non-corny storyline and lovable characters, and furthermore an entirely new cast of customers, this game is a beautiful blend of heart-warming adventure, hidden object, strategy, and of course true to its core, time management.

Featuring an improved sprite and animation style, in addition to a thoroughly enjoyable and environment-complementing soundtrack, Delicious is more expressive and enjoyable than ever. But that's not all. Instead of taking place solely in restaurants, this title allows Emily to also work in shops, and even on a farm. While previous titles may have felt repetitive due to the strict restaurant environment, this one is anything but.

The only drawback to this title is the fact that "Emily's Diary," a feature in the previous game Delicious: Emily's Tea Garden, will not be returning. Emily's Diary allowed the player to play through various days with various special challenges, including a non-stop game mode in which you served as many customers as possible until three left angry, or allowing you to perform such challenges as cooking strictly barbecue for customers. Hardcore fans of the series may be disappointed to see this feature gone, but Emily's Taste of Fame still provides a good amount of replay value in the mice, Easter egg, and trophy challenges.

Without a doubt, Emily's Taste of Fame is the best game of the Delicious series yet, and takes it in a whole new direction without straying from the core and heart of the series. It does an excellent job of balancing old with new, providing a seamless adaptive gameplay for veterans of the series and an outstanding tutorial and hint system for people new to the game.

Hints and tutorials can be skipped or turned off at any time, but even more impressive is the adjustable difficulty, allowing each player to choose exactly what fits them best. Hardcore fans can play at the super-hard difficulties and those new to time management can play it at easy. The normal difficulty level is a very sound line that should be comfortable for old and new players alike. The difficulty can be changed at any time, even during gameplay. It's an excellent feature that should really be implemented into more time management titles.

Delicious - Emily's Taste of Fame is a truly wonderful game for anyone: young or old, new to the series or well-acquainted, and has rightfully proven itself as one of the best time management titles released yet.

Review by Tawny Ditmer