While I’ve admired the Diner Dash series, I never could get through them as they’re hard. Plus, I always thought the customers look out of place with Flo’s cool cartoon style. The developers behind Flo take a different approach with Cooking Dash and I enjoy it more than the Diner Dash series.

The customers finally receive an upgrade and match the rest of the game and Flo’s style. The characters also get a face lift with subtle animation. No more taking orders and putting the tickets on the diner order spinner thingy (blanking on name).

Flo helps out at five restaurants while Cookie goes off to be a start in yet another chef slash cooking reality show. Grandma makes two dishes while Flo seats folks, runs around to pick up food, throw food that needs cooking on the grill, serve the food, and pick up the dishes.

Each restaurant has a different theme and food to keep things interesting. The grills, ice cream machines, desserts, and Grandma’s station appear in the same place each time. But it becomes tricky when you have to figure out what the customer wants from the grill as the grilled food doesn’t look the same as the uncooked food.

Grandma makes sandwiches, sushi, salads, and pizza. American (three different types of diners), Italian, and Japanese food are covered. The last restaurant takes place on a TV stage complete with an audience that cheers when Flo makes great moves. I love this — it’s exciting and different. Who doesn’t love an applause?

You get a feel for the customers — those who order slow vs. fast, eat slow vs. fast, lose patience slow vs. fast. Other than that, they don’t have much personality. Some diner-style game customers have great personality while others are bland. This falls in between.

No mini-games in Cooking Dash. Although, the game comes with a Story Mode and Endless Mode. They are as you would expect. Story mode tells what’s going on with Cookie’s show and why Flo moves from restaurant to restaurant. Endless mode just repeats everything for as long as you can. Five stars appear on top of the screen. As long as you have one star, you keep on going. Once the last star disappears, end of game.

Customers sit at the counter instead of tables, another nice change of pace from the Diner series’ tables. Two grills sit on both sides of the kitchen. Often times, customers would order one item from each side. Occasionally, they’ll order just one item. In one restaurant, the left grill contains French fries, onion wings, and wings. The other side contains fish, shrimp, and lobster.

I’m so grateful the game takes care of matching dishes for me. For example, I have one customer requesting rice and kebabs while another wants soy beans and octopus. Sometimes, I mix up the two items, but no matter — Flo gets it right. The only time it goes wrong if you put together something no one orders. That’s when it turns crazy — when you have lots of grill requests.

A customer ordering fish and chips sends Flo off to the left side to throw the fries in the fryer and the right side to toss the fish on the grill. A green indicator lets you know it’s cooking and when it comes full circle and blinks, the dish is ready. Wait too long and the food overcooks, but you can still serve it — just no bonus points for perfectly cooked food. Sometimes you’ll have to add condiments to the dish.

Upgrades appear between levels with them falling into two groups: looks and function. The looks change the counter, floor, windows, and so on. While function speeds Flo and Grandma, adds a coffeemaker and jukebox, and faster stoves. I have no problem buying all of the upgrades at least two levels before reaching the end of the round.

Chaining remains important as in the other Dash games. They can make or break the goal level. Also, customers have different colored clothes. When you match the clothes to the chairs, you gain bonus points. You can even get 3x, 4x, etc. if you keep putting the same colored customer on the like chair.

It doesn’t take me long to get through 50 levels. I have to replay a few several times before I can pass it. Those who can conquer Diner games will find this too easy. Those who are tired of the difficulty level (me) in the Diner games will appreciate this one. Cooking Dash takes a different approach from the Diner Dash series and it works well.

Download Cooking Dash from your favorite site:

• Big Fish Games
• Reflexive Windows / Mac

Filed Under: Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game Reviews, PC Games, Time Management

It feels like the original Cake Mania came out years ago because it’s one of the first casual games I reviewed. Here comes Jill Evans (no relation to me) again in Cake Mania 3 – this time as a bride trying to prepare for her wedding. Nothing can go wrong. Yeah, right. A time bender appears on the scene falling to the ground and shatters. The family picks up the pieces and disappears.

The disappearance mystifies Jill who sees one piece left. As soon as her fiancé, Jack, comes to the door — she grabs the piece and goes >poof<. She arrives in limbo where she faces five doors with a relative lost behind each one. Here’s the exciting part: we get to pick the door for her to enter. Unlike many time management games, this one doesn’t follow a linear pattern.

Not only does she visit five places, but five different times and cultures: Egypt, China, England, France, and the Stone Age. Well, one more place, but I’m not in the business of spoiling things. Anyway, the customers’ dress also reflect the locale and some not (more on that later). She needs to bake cakes to raise money so she can free her relatives from wherever they have landed.

This one will be tough to get help on because with six locations going in any order can create 350 possible level combinations. So unlike other dash games, you can’t ask for help with level such ‘n such because it won’t be the same for all. This isn’t good for me now because I’m stuck in the third locale and have played it until my mouse arm went numb. It takes me longer and longer to conquer each level.

You could be cooking in France and see characters from Egypt appear. What’s up with that? Well, the time bender doesn’t work right. The cut scenes also differ from most games. Most games use comic strips to tell the story. Cake Mania 3 goes further with its animated scenes and talking characters complete with lip movements.

Of course, upgrades figure in the game except this time you can customize the kitchen a little. You can’t move everything at will, but you can make some changes. You can change Jill’s outfits, but I prefer to have her wear the current period’s costume. You can dress her back up as Marie Antoinette while in ye olde England.

Some of you might like mini-games and others tired of it. Cake Mania 3 gives you a choice to play ‘em or skip ‘em. Or play them later. One thing that bugs me is that you can’t replay a previous level in an attempt to reach expert level. You’d have to start over. No thanks.

Every period has a troublemaker. In England, Robin Hood will steal Jill’s hard-earned money if you don’t pick it up fast enough. In France, Napoleon won’t let anyone else be served until he’s served. In Egypt, Anubis turns other customers into mummies AND changes their orders if you make him unhappy. I do that too often.

Also, every period has its own special feature. France has a colorful button on the froster that lets you remove frosting. England has a crystal ball you can use once per level to see what the customer wants to order without having to provide a menu.

New feature Sugar Rush makes everything instant. Push a button to make a cake and it’s there. Put the cake on the froster and it’s done. Make tea or coffee — done. All these features require figuring out strategies and adapting as you go. Sugar Rush can start anytime based on your progress (a progress bar displays on top to give you a heads up).

The mini-games don’t excite. Not spectacular. In one, make a cake that looks exactly like the cake on display. In another, assemble a cake order from cakes that flow down the conveyor belt. Also, several bonuses sit at the bottom of the screen like lightning feet to make Jill move faster. It’s not clear how these bonuses work.

Cake Mania 3 brings a fresh eye to the Cake Mania enterprise that we haven’t seen in many time management games. The game starts slow, but give it time especially until you can upgrade Jill’s shoes. It’s worth the wait. After all, you need to eat your veggies before you get the dessert.

Download Cake Mania 3.

Filed Under: Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game Reviews, PC Games, Time Management

Rebecca and Robert return in Turbo Fiesta taking their high energy and crazy-paced business out of space selling Mexican food. This time management game never feels too slow, not even at the beginning. In fact, it doesn’t take long before I fail to meet the level’s goals.

I cruised — with lots of bumps along the way — in Turbo Pizza and Turbo Subs. But hit a brick wall (or space station in this case) early on with Turbo Fiesta. This is a good and bad thing. It’s good because those who complain they never feel challenged by time management games should meet their match here.

It’s bad because Turbo Fiesta goes from 0 to 100 too soon. I can’t be too bad if I finished its predecessors’ games. Novices to time management might want to skip this one unless they’re patient and ready to jump in head first.

When I say “out of space,” that’s what I mean. Location, location, location matters in the restaurant business. I suppose this game fast forwards to the future to a time when there are plenty of customers in the sky. The customers’ attitudes (their moods drop as fast as ever) remain the same despite being way up high in the atmosphere.

Robert does the cookin’ while Rebecca does the runnin’ to pass out menus, pick up orders, nuke food, and collect change. Robert has it easy since he has robot arms that help with the food. Although the game remains similar to the previous two, it adds a turbo meter that rewards combo actions. When making enough combo steps, the turbo meter cooks in and Rebecca becomes Wonder Waitress, moving as fast as a speeding bullet. I love this.

After turning on turbo mode three times in a level, you’ll reach Fiesta mode and have a ball. Unfortunately, the two times I reach Fiesta mode… it’s the end of the level so I hardly enjoy my siesta. The dark space scene brightens up with Mexican decor that comes with a piñata and Mariachi music. Ah, that’s the best part since everyone is happy and you don’t have to rush anymore. Alas, it takes work to get there.

The mini-game offers a fresh perspective of the Pipes game. Turn the pipes and parts until everything connects — except in this case, it’s to restore power. Clever way to blend the mini-game with the story as the restaurant loses power.

Plenty of upgrades await including one that lets Rebecca carry three items at once. Only a couple of games have this feature, so I keep forgetting she can carry a third item. Upgrades up the price of food items, add color to the restaurant, help Rebecca and Robert work faster, and more. The superb graphics still impress and the music lifts.

Turbo Fiesta needs to offer an easier mode even for us experienced time management players. It stinks to get stuck early in the game or else the game is no fiesta. While the latest in the Turbo series introduces only a couple of new features, it remains as hyper and colorful as ever.

Download Turbo Fiesta.

Filed Under: Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game Reviews, Time Management

When Farm Frenzy 2 hit the download stands, I couldn’t wait to install it and start running my farm. Ohh… big mistake. I can’t stop playing the game and I have games lining up by the day waiting for my eyes and hands.

Like Farm Frenzy, the sequel has me taking care of animals, producing goods, storing them, and selling them so I can buy more animals to make more products. The circle of life on a farm. The original contains sheep, ducks, cows, dogs, and cats. This one brings back the cows, dogs and cats. It uses chickens for eggs instead of ducks, and the expensive ostrich for producing feathers.

The first paragraph of my original review applies to this one: Its fun, colorful, and cartoon-style graphics easily catches my youngest child’s attention. For me, the game keeps me up late as I’m keen on earning at least a silver star in every spot as I work my way around town. Of course, I love the graphics style, too.

Instead of cupcakes and wool, this one cooks up cakes, meat dish (at least, the game doesn’t sacrifice the animals), cheese, fans, hats, and an atelier. An atelier is a workshop and I suppose we’re making dolls or doll clothes.

I wish the game would offer hints for the very difficult levels. Getting gold rarely happens. Just reaching silver feels like a huge accomplishment. I’ve played all the levels and still have some levels to replay because I haven’t earned the silver medal. One level gives gold for those who complete it in three minutes and ten seconds. I don’t even come close. Hints, please!

As I work around paths, houses and fences improve with every level completion. I guess not only do we work to accomplish tasks, but also improve the little country side. Not clear, but it’s rewarding to see improvements.

This comes with awards, but some of the trophies don’t come when you think you’ve accomplished them. I replay an easier level and add cats and dogs so they would pick up all the products and cage all of the bears. But I still don’t earn the trophy. Some trophies need more explanation. For example, “For expedient production.” OK, what counts as fast enough to earn the trophy?

One trophy — that I don’t figure out right away — comes when you find all the gags. On occasion, a bear will peak out from the top. Click them and you’ve found a gag. Well, gee, I don’t want to replay all the levels until I find all the gags. The game never says to click these gags, so I miss them early on not knowing I’m supposed to click them.

Players must unlock unlimited mode by playing career mode. The trophy room describes some trophies as getting X things in “Survival.” Not everyone will figure out Survival = Endless mode.

Farm Frenzy 2 has a few kinks. Every now and then, the game freaks out and spews out an error message. It may take a couple of reloads, but the game eventually works again. Its loading speed isn’t as good as it should be. Waiting for the game to load takes longer than expected of today’s games.

Gotta run. Farm Frenzy 2 teases me with the few remaining blue spots (where I didn’t earn a silver). Obviously, it’s addiction and a joy to play.

Download it from your favorite site:

• BigFishGames
• Reflexive

Filed Under: Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game Reviews, PC Games, Strategy Games, Time Management

And she cooks, too! When Cookie the Chef leaves Flo’s Diner to pursue a career on a popular cooking reality TV show, he creates a shortage of chefs in DinerTown by inviting them all to appear as guest stars. It’s up to Flo to pick up the slack with a whole new set of food service skills! Help Flo and Grandma Florence keep five DinerTown restaurants up and running…if you can stand the heat!

• Over 50 levels of game play
• Master the art of perfectly prepared meals in five different restaurants
• 3D rendered characters add dimension to the animation

Play Cooking Dash.

Filed Under: Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game News, PC Games, Time Management

Protesters stand outside of Dubois Cosmetic Labs protesting product testing with animals. Jade leads the charge and has an eventful meeting with snooty Madame DuBois. There, Jade meets the owner of a five-star spa and asks if she could work there. Jade begins her spiritual journey in learning therapy and treatment secrets from faraway places in hopes of opening an Earth-friendly spa.

I don’t get off to a good start with Spa Mania. The game feels like torture because it runs slowly and sometimes froze on a computer that more than meets the minimum requirements. The first few levels dragged, but I couldn’t do a review without giving it a chance. As upgrades came in and mini-games appeared, the game turned around. I contacted tech support and made changes to my video settings, which improved the performance but not 100%.

Players start with a couple of stations and a valet. The valet cleans up the dressing room and fills the hot tub. We do the rest of the work — mostly. That includes increasing customers’ happiness while lowering their stress levels, guiding them from one station to the next, making and serving green tea, and checking them out. The green tea adds another heart to a customer’s happiness meter.

Spa Mania looks like an ordinary time management game with no new formulas. Then I complete five levels of play in the first locale and met the first mini-game there. Jade learns spa treatment secrets during these mini-games and they tie in with the action. In the first one, she mixes formulas using her (yours) knowledge of color theory. The number of formulas players complete will provide her with special treatment to use on customers in the game.

The next time you play this color mini-game, it changes slightly adding another color to the mix to create a new treatment. But first, you need to play two other mini-games before playing one a second time. In the dream mini-game, players do a “Whac-a-mole” on red and mean-looking faces while leaving the sunny happy faces alone. Jade, sitting in a Zen pose, floats higher as players smash nightmares and let the happy dreams fly around. This mini-game assigns a dollar value to massages.

In the third game, you create incense to use for boosting the customers’ happy meters. Here, Jade runs left and right with a bowl in hand catching incense ingredients. The mix uses flowers, leaves, and fruits. That’s right! No find a pair mini-game or any of those common ones you see in every other time management game. After finishing a mini-game, you travel to a new country and enter a new spa with design reflecting the country.

Spa Mania lets players change Jade’s outfit and unlock new colors and designs. Her outfits don’t change drastically — mostly in color and with a pattern. You can skip this part of the game. Players can also replay mini-games between levels to produce more incense and treatments as needed.

The customers don’t have much personality and their main difference is their happiness level upon their arrival. You’ll help emos, business people, hippies, pregnant women, and seniors. Two employees become available as upgrades — when you have enough cash to afford them.

Spa Mania takes place in 10 locations with 50 levels of game play. The last level takes much patience and experimenting to beat. The intriguing story complete with a spy comes together nicely and with the right amount of dialogue between locales.

The great graphics, bright scenes, and creative and integrated mini-games should attract some fans. The patrons don’t annoy as much as they do in other time management games. They’re just there, but you have enough to do without worrying about their attitudes. While the places Jade manages are five-star spas, Spa Mania falls right in the middle of its genre.

Filed Under: Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game Reviews, PC Games, Time Management

Forget everything you’ve seen and heard about farm-style time management games. Sure, the time management genre has seen enough of this theme, but Ranch Rush will change your mind. You just feel like yippee-yi-oing while you work feeding the cows and sheep, making cheese and ketchup, collecting honey, and gathering up corn, tomaters ‘n other crops.

I may be a native Texan, but I’m far from wearing 10-gallon hats and cowboy boots. Once in a while I’ll see horses, cows, and longhorns while driving around my lovely city. I don’t even like country music and don’t envy my daughter’s recent month-long trip stop to the Country Music Hall of Fame (she couldn’t care less about it either). So if anyone shouldn’t like a ranchin’ game — it’s me.

Ranch Rush and its star prove me wrong. Sara loves working in a nursery where she experiments with new flowers. Boss Jim reports that he’ll have to sell the store to the developers in eight weeks unless things change for the better.

Rather than giving up on her home away from home, she remembers they have three acres of land and decides to open a farmer’s market to raise money for the nursery. With shovel in hand and a bag of seeds, she has eight weeks to succeed in fulfilling customer orders. Each week consists of multiple customer orders and she takes care of one customer at a time.

Instead of seeing a path of your progress, we see a chart showing eight weeks with an update at the end of each week. A skill meter that looks like a grain silo tower also appears on the progress report page. This identifies your rank.

The game’s built-in tutorial guides you in your first steps. Every time you create a new player, the tutorial appears again. It would be helpful to have a skip option as well as a back option while reading the story in case you want to re-read it again. At first glance, the game looks like an ornery farm time management game. But wait. It has surprises waiting.

You start with clovers, corn, and tomatoes. Then add a cow for milk (hey, animal rights folks — it’s all pixels — no animals get hurt in the game). Feed clovers to the cow to produce milk. Next come the bees that hang out at their hives and digging in the clovers. Make your move while they hover the clover or else get stung and no honey. Eventually, you’ll get a machine like the cheese maker. It takes two jugs of milk to make cheese.

The week begins on Monday with a customer’s order. Once you finish that, you move through the week until Saturday, Farmer’s Market Day. Here you race to turn in as many products as you can for a chunk of cash. Sunday is a day of rest as you’ve earned it. New crops, animals, machines, gear, and other useful tools pop up at a nice pace throughout the game.

After playing the whole game, you may want to play it again with a new ranch. It doesn’t matter if you have $100K and all the upgrades available, you only have so much space to store it all. That’s the beauty of the game — there’s no way to have two of everything (not counting crops) so you have to decide what you need and how many. Arrange your crops and objects in any way you desire and take a snapshot. Playing it again with a new ranch gives you an opportunity to play with different layouts and discover most efficient way to run your ranch.

I have a couple of bones to pick. Clicking ahead works great, but canceling actions doesn’t. Ranch Rush isn’t consistent here. You can click the crates three times and pick up three crops, but you can’t click water three times and click three crops in need of water. Also, the story doesn’t give you a way to pause or go back to a missed part. The last level (Friday in week eight) takes the game from challenging to impossible in casual mode (expert mode is available, but requires unlocking first). I try different tricks and can’t conquer the level.

Nontheless, Ranch Rush has roped me in with its charm, unpredictability, constant introduction of new features, and super whoopin’ production values. Yee haw! Ya gotta try Ranch Rush.

Get it from your favorite site:

Big Fish Games

Reflexive

Filed Under: Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game Reviews, PC Games, Time Management

Quinn returns in all new wedding planning adventures in which she competes against other wedding planners. Wedding Dash 2: Rings around the World sees Quinn planning weddings in five countries. Photographer Joe Wright joins Quinn’s crew and captures memories for the bride and groom.

This one retains much of the original Wedding Dash features including most of the guests, Bridezilla, funky dancing guests, and fires for Quinn to put out. The action remains the same: You seat the guests based on their preferences whether it be at a specific table or with (or NOT) someone. Take their gifts and put them on the bride and groom’s table then serve them a three-course meal.

New in this one is Groom-Kong who comes out when he sees his bride not happy puts an end to the level. We also meet a couple of new guests including two pairs that must always have two seats together. Social butterfly Chloe and her daughter, Kathleen make a pair. Chloe isn’t as popular as she used to be since becoming a mom. We also have twins who don’t have much patience and don’t act very social.

Forgetful Grandpa won’t order anything unless you wait too long to serve him. So you must keep track of what he has eaten and what to serve next. The Conan O’Brien look-alike who might be a hot dog eating champion returns as do Diane, Derek, and Uncle Ernie (the drunk). We have another uncle — a handsome one and everyone wants to sit next to him.

We also have to tell Joe when to snap a picture. At the end of the level, you can view captured snapshots — but it’s really just head shots of the guests. Still, adding Joe works well.

Wedding Dash 2: Rings around the World doesn’t treat us to many new features, which might disappoint some folks. However, those who just want more of Quinn and company will be happy except for one thing: This one is miles harder than the original. It takes me at least 20 tries to finally beat level 4.6.

The planning stage also returns with decorations, food choices, and bride and groom transportation. Sometimes the bride’s request doesn’t provide enough information to make a decision. Nonetheless, we receive more varied options from brides with stomach problems and actors to nature lovers and lovers of ’50s movies. Even when you pick a wrong item, you’ll see your incorrect selection appear in the level. So it’s nice to see we have control over customization — right or wrong.

The top notch graphics and swinging music compel you to keep trying no matter how many times it takes. Plus, the game brings about lots of smiles in watching the comedy while you frantically meet guest requests and stop disasters.

Wedding Dash 2: Rings around the World comes with two modes: story and endless. I never bother with endless as it doesn’t appeal to me. With five locales at 10 levels each, we get 50 fun-filled levels of battling and keeping brides and guests happy.

I have a confession: I prefer Wedding Dash to Diner Dash series. The wedding guests provide more entertainment than the customers in Diner Dash. Boy, oh boy… this one takes a lot of patience as you’ll have to try various approaches to reach the goal score. If you haven’t played the first one, you can skip it and go right to this one as it has more. Considering the new scenarios, locales, and guest types, Wedding Dash fans will be happy to help Quinn again.

Download Wedding Dash 2: Rings around the World.

Filed Under: Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game Reviews, PC Games, Time Management

Playfirst has a hit with its Dash series, so it makes sense for the company to capitalize on more Dashes. This time the action occurs on a farm. Even Diner Dash’s Flo appears in Dairy Dash, but that doesn’t help Dairy Dash win me over.

Oh, Dairy Dash still entertains and adds a component few have: multiple characters. We’ll get to that later. In the meantime, we meet the Smith family consisting of Mom, Dad, Emily and Ethan. They’re not quite the farming family. In fact, they’re the opposite and enjoy technology as much as any other modern day family.

One night, they go out for a family dinner at — where else — Diner Dash Flo’s place. Dad hears from Uncle Bill who reports his farm could go under if he doesn’t get more help or buyers. After talking to Uncle Bill, Flo tells the family she knows restaurants in need of good organic produce. Being the supportive family they are, the Smiths leave city life behind for the quiet and hard-working farm life.

Dad Smith starts feeding the animals, milking them, gathering eggs, making cheese, and growing crops. Mrs. Smith joins him and the two work in sync. The action feels frenzied from the get go and chaining feels unnatural. A little practice helps, but chaining doesn’t work as well as the other games. Furthermore, the game won’t let you cancel an action. At least, you can click a few actions ahead.

They call Emily to help when they discover Uncle Bill has another farm, but she refuses. Mom and Dad continue working on their own. Eventually, Emily and Ethan join them. The later farms don’t change much — things shift a little, but not drastic. In fact, drastic describes the fourth farm, which looks like something from 2010. Oh wait, that’s less than two years away.

A mini-game enters every few levels for a break from running around. One uses match three to sell produce, another involves picking good apples before they fall, and another catching fruit in a basket. Nothing spectacular, but not boring as some mini-games can be.

Story mode works as expected — hearing a story and making your way around four different farms for 52 levels. To move to the next level, you need to reach the goal score before the rooster crows. You can also challenge yourself to surpass the goal score and aim for the expert score.

Also, Flo calls from time to time with a request, so you never know when the phone rings. Mr. Smith occasionally has to stop farming to fix the truck so they can deliver the goods. These factors keep the game from becoming predictable and repetitive.

Endless mode provides three levels of difficulty. This one’s endless mode should please plenty as it begins with a goal score. When you hit the goal, a new goal appears along with more elements to increase the challenge. I’ve never been a fan of endless mode, but this one has a good set up instead of having players play until they falter.

The Smiths can fill up on lemonade for a boost of energy to move faster. Unlike most time management games, you can’t bribe the animals to make them happier. The game requires little strategy as the best thing to do is click and act as requests come. Because of this, Dairy Dash might be an easier game for the youngsters than other Dash games.

The animals look pitiful when they’re hungry or thirsty and not much else. In other Dash games, the characters ooze personality. Dairy Dash doesn’t have the charm or personality that we’ve come to expect of a typical Dash game. Moreover, farm-themed games have been milked to death, so Dairy Dash feels ordinary by time management standards. Nonetheless, time management fans will find it a joy to play thanks to its multi-characters and variety.

Filed Under: Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game Reviews, PC Games, Strategy Games

It may be this blog’s birthday, but the presents will go to readers like you. All the birthday details here. Here are the games up for winning!

• Reflexive contributes a total of 10 copies of three games! Some are for Mac.
  • Big Kahuna Reef 2: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)
  • Ricochet Infinity: 2 copies (PC)
  • Airport Mania: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)
• One full copy of Orchidia PC game from Joyboost. See Meryl’s Orchidia review.
  • One full copy of Spinword PC game from Joyboost.
  • One full copy of Astraware Classic Collection, which includes Astraware Sudoku, Astraware Solitaire, and Astraware Board games. Astraware is one of Meryl’s favorite — if not the best — developer of handheld software.
• Two full copies of Magic Farm Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93.
• Unicorn Castle from PC game from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93.
• One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger. My Magic Farm review.
• One Alawar PC game package including full copies of Virtual Farm, Curse of Montezuma, and Alex Gordon.
• Full copy of First Class Flurry PC game from Chanon Sajjamanochai of Viquagames. Meryl’s First Class Fury review.
• Full copy of Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper PC game from Mark Kanter of Bang Out Games. Meryl’s Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper review.

Filed Under: Arcade Games, Card Games, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game News, PC Games, PDA Games, Puzzle Games, Strategy Games, Word Games