The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the one-deal-a-day web site dedicated to indie and casual games. Wonderful choices this week!

Mon. Apr. 14th: 50% off on The Rise of Atlantis

Tue. Apr. 15th: 50% off on Race Cars: the Extreme Rally

Wed. Apr. 16th: 50% off on Inca Ball

Thu. Apr. 17th: 50% off on Star Defender 4

Fri. Apr. 18th: 50% off on Aquitania

Sat. Apr. 19th: 50% off on Cradle of Persia

Sun. Apr. 20th: 50% off on Atlantis Quest

The adorable (c’mon admit it!) imps return for their third game, Magic Match Adventures. You might know ‘em from Magic Match and Magic Match: The Genie’s Journey. Peak into the imps’ lives in the land of Arcania where they enjoy working and playing until something evil trips them up. They need our help in restoring order.

Travel and learn the stories of the kingdoms of Arcania consisting of water, Earth, air, and fire. Reading the stories, however, is difficult because of the text formatting. Whether you’re into stories or the text bugs you, just skip the story and head straight to the Magic Realm.

There in the Magic Realm is the match three game for collecting red potion to fix anything the evil wizard does. We also gather mana for using power ups. After collecting enough red potion, return to the scene where evil cast a spell and see the spell in action. The imps reward you with bonuses to help you in your adventures in defeating the darkest evil.

The match three game grid has at least four different elements and your goal is to destroy the minimum for each element. One calls for 60, another for 40, and two for 25. As you progress, you deal with more elements.

Cradle of Persia players will recognize some similarities in Magic Match Adventures especially in how the elements move. If you make a match from left to right, the entire row or column moves from left to right. You also deal with frozen, locked, and double locked pieces in the form of rocks and volcanoes. Coins, potions, and power ups also count as an element.

Tiles appear in green, blue, and beige colors. Destroying all of them doesn’t mean anything in this game. Instead, you want to grab as many as you can of blue and green, which contain mana for increase blue and green potions. Half of the spells use the green mana and the other half use blue. Mana points are for the eight spells, which vary in the number of points needed to use the spell.

Figuring out what each spell / power up does takes experimenting. Plus, only a handful are worth the effort while you want to save points for strategic reasons.

With every kingdom comes a new evil wizard and a Dark-O-Meter counter. The counter shows the number of evil spells needed to stop and duel the evil wizard in a different kind of game.

The duel involves you and the evil wizard taking turns creating matches to get the required elements. The first one to clear all of the elements first wins. Frozen tiles and other barriers don’t appear during the duel, however, evil wizard puts up a few to slow you down.

By the time you figure out the game and its rules, it’s near the end of the adventure. Magic Match Adventures has 33 levels and doesn’t take long to play compared to the average game. Since it doesn’t have other game modes, players won’t likely want to keep replaying the game except to try to earn all the trophies. This one could use an arcade mode since it has the right elements.

I’d also love to see more interaction with the imps. Right now, they interact a little bit — the drummer will beat the drum when you click him, for example. Nonetheless, Magic Match Adventures provides an adventure worth traveling along with a few new tricks for match three games.

Could this be a Cradle of Rome follow up? Awem Studios announced that Cradle of Persia is coming soon:

Persepol – a mysterious heart of the Ancient Persia. Luxurious palaces decorated with gold and gems, exotic gardens alluring with their peace and freshness. Inscrutability and tempting beauty of the East. Soon you will be able to guess all of its riddles by making a miraculous trip to the land of The Thousand and One Nights! You will need all of your skills and keenness of wit to build a city in the heart of oasis, but what you get in the end will surpass all of your expectations! Cradle of Persia – is coming soon for those who would like to create a miracle with their own hands!

As a fan of Cradle of Rome, I’m eager to see what this one is about. Aquitania also looks intriguing. Similar match three style as Cradle of Rome, but without the building of a city.