In Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal (I keep typing “Reporter”), you play a new journalist in the 1920s who deals with prejudiced males who think women should not be in certain jobs and a scandal involving politicians and starlets. This hidden object adventure game comes with a few twists and a fascinating story that’s sure to win over experienced and new hidden object adventure gamers.

Valerie starts her job with the local newspaper. Even though a female is a star reporter there, she paid her dues, and she’s no ally of Valerie’s. Valerie ends up in plenty of hot water as she pokes her nose where it doesn’t belong. She digs deep into the case involving a famous starlet, the mayor, the chief of police, a boxer and a director.

In the search for the truth, Valerie schleps around town visiting police station, mayor’s office, the gin joint, her apartment and other spots. She’ll study the scenes for clues that appear in the list of things to find. A lot of them, however, have nothing to do with the story. The game also tries to make the object finding harder by describing items instead of giving you their names, such as “hand warmer” for gloves and “cuts things” for scissors. If an item’s name or description perplexes you, click it to see its silhouette.

Another twist is finding multiple items of the same type such as newspapers, umbrellas and so on. Press and hold the mouse button and touch each for bonus points. You can do this when Valerie rides the train to travel to another location or in a scene asking you to find X number of items.

You’ll also search for two batteries in every scene to receive additional hints as well as 100 bells. When using up a hint, you still have to wait for the light bulb to fill back up before you can use another. If you don’t find all 100 bells by the end of the game, you’re out of luck unless you have the patience of Job and can replay the entire thing.

Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal lets you feel like a reporter as Valerie types up stories with your help. The typewriter enters a few words, and then you select the word or phrase — from a list — that should come next in the story. Once you finish the story, you set the headline filling in the blank slots with the metal plates like they did in the old days. So pay attention to the story or else you’ll end up guessing the words until you get them right. What a clever way to ensure you follow the story.

When you have interactive conversations with the suspects and city officials, sometimes you’ll need to figure out the next line for Valerie to say. Rather than guessing, you have a puzzle where you trace the “correct” answer to the right statement by following the curvy lines. It’s a nice way to involve the player in the dialogue. You also do word searches based on conversations you’ve had and other mini-games. Most of the mini-games do repeat, but at least it’s not to the point where it becomes tedious or monotonous.

You revisit scenes and see the same objects when you revisit, but you rarely (if ever) have to find the same objects you’ve found before.

You’ll develop photographs by lining up two overlapping photos. This was difficult to figure out at first as the game didn’t accept the work — it looked clear. But after a few tries, it came together.

The scenes reflect the culture and design of the 1920s with gorgeous graphics with a touch of art deco. Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal is an excellent production that’s a pleasure to play. While not without a few annoyances, Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal keeps you captivated through all aspects of the game — something few games manage to do.

Download and try the game.

FTC Discalimer: Copy received from publisher.

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 15th: 60% off on Zombie Bowl-O-Rama

Mon. November 16th: 50% off on Party Planner

Tue. November 17th: 50% off on Imperial City: The Crown of the King

Wed. November 18th: 50% off on Hexagonal Chess

Thu. November 19th: 50% off on Byzantine Circular Chess

Fri. November 20th: 50% off on Jack’s Home

Sat. November 21st: 65% off on Gardenscapes

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.

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

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 and try the game.

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

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

• Big Fish Games
• Reflexive / Game Center Solution

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.

Despite the “3″ in the name, Farm Frenzy 3 is the fourth game in the Farm Frenzy series. Farm Frenzy Pizza Party wasn’t worthy of a number despite its success. Anyhoo, Farm Frenzy 3 brings more of the same while adding international locations and heavy-duty graphics that slow down the game’s performance.

In the latest incarnation, you take care of animals, store the goods, produce other goods and sell them. Cows, chickens and ostriches make it back in this one as do the bears and dogs. This one adds llamas, yaks, penguins and walruses. The international part comes in when Scarlett travels to Africa and other faraway locations to help with the farms as a step toward her goal of becoming president of the farmers union.

Scarlett has different goals to meet for every level. The goal could be earning a set amount of cash, collecting X amount of products or making X amount of products. Sometimes you have one goal and sometimes four. Anything goes.

She also has to buy and upgrade equipment for managing her farm including transportation, product making machines and defenses like cages to trap the bears. Many of the levels require you have certain upgrades before you can play them, so you’ll have to play other levels or replay them until you collect enough cash to upgrade.

The strategy and planning aspect of Farm Frenzy 3 remains one of its strengths. You can’t always play the next level and you’ll have to experiment with different strategies to earn the gold or silver star. This approach prevents boredom and predictability while boosting replayability.

One of the flaws in the game is the graphics. Oh, they’re gorgeous, but too much for the game’s performance. When clicking bears to cage them, the game jerks and the graphics flake. This happens too often. I’ll take performance over graphics every time.

Farm Frenzy 3 has a couple of strange features. For one, the dogs that keep the bears away from the animals now roll off the screen with the bears. I like that the bear gets out of my way instead of just stands there while the dog barks. But the way the dog rolls off freaks you out. The other problem is the African farmer who looks like an inappropriate stereotype. I appreciate the developers try to reflect the African culture — but it’s not the best representation of Africans.

Despite the performance issues, Farm Frenzy 3 keeps you hopping and never bores. The game comes with 95 levels, 30 animals of which 5 are the enemies, and 33 products to produce. Because of its diversity in game play, animals and scenes, you’re more willing to try reaching for the gold though it means replaying levels many times.

Download and try the game.

Drawn: The Painted Tower tells the story of Iris, who has the ability to restore the light in the midst of darkness. She’s imprisoned high up in a tower with darkness making its way there. Iris draws pictures to help you unlock each floor of the tower to make your way to the top where she waits. This point and click adventure game contains breathtaking scenes and mesmerizing music.

You interact with the game picking up objects, using them together and on the scene and solving many mini-games where no two are alike. Franklin’s portrait provides you your latest tasks to advance in the game. He also gives hints when you need it. When you use one, his picture goes gray and must refill before you can use it again. You can use hints for help, but the hints aren’t always enough.

Some of the mini-games make no sense even as you try to move things around. After so much time passes, you can skip then mini-game when it drives you up the wall. Before skipping them, be warned! You can’t revisit them later unless you play the whole game again and not everyone has patience to do that. Drawn could’ve used a second mode that allows you to replay any of the mini-games.

The stunning and captivating scenes and cutscenes tell the not too exciting story with out using too many words, something some games overdo. The simple story doesn’t play a major role in the game other than you’re trying to rescue Iris with help from her drawings that come to life. That’s enough to make sense of the game play and enjoy it without feeling bogged down by too much text or story. However, some may become frustrated with the fact the game won’t let you skip or back up in any of the story — not even during the credits unless you press ESC.

Drawn: The Painted Tower is a massive download, probably due to its rich and detailed graphics. The larger download file is not a big deal, but it slows the game’s performance. The game lasted longer than expected considering every puzzle and every scene pays a lot of attention to detail. It runs about four to five hours.

Return to Ravenhearst fans will likely compare the two games. Nonetheless, both entertain and Drawn: The Painted Tower offers fans a new high quality game to play as they await another Ravenhearst release.