I love PopCap Games
Chuzzle
and Peggle.
. When you arrive on the home page, click “New Deals Everyday, Click Here” to see all the Winter Funderland deals.

Today’s deal is the first FREE “level pack” for Peggle Nights. Available exclusively at Popcap.com, the Peggle Nights “Holiday 2008″ level pack features five all-new levels, with holiday themes or themes related to other PopCap titles – or in some cases, both. The new levels can be played in the Quick Play or Duel modes of Peggle Nights, and there are also ten new challenges in Challenge Mode based on the new levels. Additional level packs will be forthcoming in 2009 and beyond.

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. December 8th: 40% off on Laxius Force

Tue. December 9th: 60% off on Cruxade

Wed. December 10th: 60% off on StoneLoops!

Thu. December 11th: 60% off on Saqqarah

Fri. December 12th: 50% off on Santa’s Breakout

Sat. December 13th: 50% off on Gunslinger Solitaire

Sun. December 14th: 50% off on Haunted House Quest

Alice Greenfingers introduces a concept many of us forget about when playing casual games: Taking your time to enjoy the game. Alice can’t die or lose anything. That same concept carries over to Alice Greenfingers 2 without seeing much improvements on the complaints regarding the original.

The game opens with a slow and inefficient tutorial. I don’t notice Uncle Berry, sitting in a rocking chair, is talking to Alice. The location of the uncle and the dialog appearing just doesn’t catch your eye when you’re busy with Alice. That’s probably a good thing as the uncle’s character doesn’t grow on me.

Having played the original, I go for the shovel and the game tells me not to do that. I accidentally pick up dandelions and discover that’s what I am supposed to do. Then Uncle Berry comes to life and gives me instructions to clean the dandelions.

When I finish, I see an apple fall from the tree and pick it up. Once again, the uncle gives me instructions after the fact. I get way ahead of him as I shovel four plant plots. Sounds like I need to boss the guy instead of the other way around.

In fact, I’d like to turn him off and send him inside the house where he won’t bug me instead of wait around for him to leave. Regardless how I feel about Uncle Berry (my real uncles are great folks, thank you), the tutorial needs help.

Usually, you can click the screen or dialog to get more dialog. In this case, an “X” appears in the dialog. My first instinct is that it will close the box and skip the tutorial. It turns out the “X” works like clicking the dialog box to get more dialog. Little things like this add stress to the game as players have to work harder than necessary in areas where they don’t want to do the work.

Alice Greenfingers 2 has no stress-inducing factors unlike the original. A round doesn’t end until you meet the goal whereas before, it ended when the day ended and you keep going until you meet the goal. You also don’t set the prices or worry about watering in the beginning.

The best new feature is the upgrades that appear between levels. These upgrades include more plants, more land, more market space, more popularity with customers and more supplies. Of course, we get new plants like sunflower seeds. Also available for the buying are bees, sheep, and other non-plant related items.

The dandelions and apples are new features to the game as they don’t involve digging and planting. The apples also add $2 in the bank for every picked one. No need to sell them in the market. Occasionally, you’ll do special assignments for Unc.

This game may be too stress-free – not counting the usability problems — is there even such a thing? This game may not qualify as a game, but rather as an electronic dollhouse where you can do whatever you want.

Who wants to garden aimlessly? Garden lovers have goals for their gardens. They don’t plant everything they find and then leave it. They also have to deal with upkeep. Perhaps, having two modes would work well here with a Free Farm mode and Goal mode.

The graphics in Alice Greenfingers didn’t stand out and this one shows no improvement. I know I’m not the only reviewer to complain about the graphics in the original. I do like the graphics on the game’s title page and between levels. Had the game itself had similar graphics, it coulda been sumthin’.

I believe players won’t want to own both games. You might consider playing the demo of both games to see which you prefer. People looking to simply have fun without an ounce of stress or speed will prefer Alice Greenfingers 2‘s slow and untimed pace.

Download Alice Greenfingers 2 from Big Fish Games.

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. November 24th: 60% off on Bipo: Mystery of the Red Panda

Tue. November 25th: 50% off on 3D Xango Tango

Wed. November 26th: 60% off on Project Aftermath

Thu. November 27th: 60% off on Mulver

Fri. November 28th: 50% off on Martians vs. Robots

Sat. November 29th: 50% off on Astro Miner

Sun. November 30th: 50% off on Somersault

7 Wonders II, the sequel, was the first I’ve played of the 7 Wonders series. While reviewing that one, I checked out 7 Wonders of the World, the original, to see how the sequel measures up. The sequel continues to reign even with the latest 7 Wonders: Treasures of Seven.

Beautiful graphics continue to be the hallmark of the match three series with the latest induction. Players travel to nine countries in 7 Wonders: Treasures of Seven to unlock three rings on an ancient compass. As soon as they unlock all the rings, players take one more journey in search of the Treasures of 7.

Players still work to create matches of three or more. The twist in this one comes in the ability to rotate the entire grid in either direction. First, you must clear the runes to reveal a path. As soon as you clear all the tiles, a “7″ key stone and a key hole show up on the path — one at the start and the other at the end.

The “7″ can’t leave the path as you work to move it toward its destination of the key hole. You can rotate the grid and make matches to guide the “7.” In later levels, a special block appears that can transport the “7.” Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes not. The good comes in that the transporter brings the “7″ closer to the key hole. The bad is that it can interfere with its progress, but that makes the game more challenging.

It feels like the game as a whole doesn’t challenge enough. The path does get more difficult by locking the key hole with a specific color. You must make a match over the lock with the same color to unlock it before the “7″ can do its job.

Don’t expect many bonuses as the rotating grid provides plenty of help. Shuffle shuffles tiles and you can’t use the feature again until the timer fills back up by making matches. It takes little time. Matches of four provides an ice ball and matches of five gives you a fire ball. Ice balls can destroy tiles across while fire balls can go both directions.

A window containing a match shows up from time to time. When making a match that looks like the one in the window, you get to freeze the timer for a little bit. Dice bonuses also return in this one and become available after receiving a handful of fire and ice ball bonuses. Move the dice to destroy random tiles, which usually work in your favor.

7 Wonders: Treasures of Seven has 50 levels, but it doesn’t take as long as you think it would to complete all of them. While the rotating grid certainly stands out from the previous two, the game doesn’t measure up to 7 Wonders II.

With the low pressure game style, 7 Wonders: Treasures of Seven should make a great game for families and kids.

Download 7 Wonders: Treasures of Seven from Big Fish Games.

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. November 17th: 50% off on All-Time MahJongg

Tue. November 18th: 50% off on Loco Mogul

Wed. November 19th: 50% off on Droid Assault

Thu. November 20th: 50% off on Iceblast

Fri. November 21st: 60% off on The Lost City of Malathedra

Sat. November 22nd: 50% off on Sequence: Sand Castle

Sun. November 23rd: 60% off on Tommy and the Magical Words

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. November 10th: 65% off on Mini Chess

Tue. November 11th: 50% off on Caveman Craig: Special Edition

Wed. November 12th: 60% off on The Ferryman

Thu. November 13th: 60% off on Morning’s Wrath

Fri. November 14th: 50% off on Overload

Sat. November 15th: 50% off on Word Twist

Sun. November 16th: 50% off on Sudoku Epic

Mushroom Age sounds like a quirky name for a game, doesn’t it? What images does it conjure for you? None of the thoughts I had about the game based on its title and logo accurately represent the hidden object game’s story. About the only thing you might figure out from the title it’s an eccentric story. Don’t judge the game by its name — in this case.

The first thing we see is Albert Einstein, but not quite. His name is Einbock and he hates it when folks confuse him with the genius behind the theory of relativity. Vera — us players — wants to find her fiancé Tom as she hasn’t heard from him.

Thanks to Einbock’s not cooperating, she snoops around to finds Tom’s cell phone and starts messing with it. Minutes later, she lands 1000 years into the future. Her travels won’t stop there as eventually she reaches Jurassic Period and Stone Age as well as meets Socrates and Nostradamus.

The cell phone has a feature that can’t be had on any of today’s cell phone: time travel. Vera’s lands in a graveyard in 3008 where she meets a funky robot with a laugh that cracks me up. The poor guy — though 1000 years into the future — malfunctions and Vera must reboot him on occasion by playing a “Wheel of Fortune” / Hangman game to figure out the password.

Vera has to do more than try to find Tom after discovering a dangerous plan. Dialogue shows up as both text and audio saying what the text shows. Though my hearing is far from perfect, I find the voices annoying. The voices sound like a parent talking to a young child. Clarity is important, but audio can sound clear without talking down as it does in Mushroom Age.

What amazes about Mushroom Age is that it lasts a long time (23 chapters) for a game of its kind, which blends hidden objects and doing things to make something happen. It resembles games like Azada and Dream Chronicles. The game not only expects you to find needed items (and all items have a purpose), but to use them together such as starting a fire or unlocking a gate.

Although you return to some scenes, it doesn’t mean doing the same thing as before or finding the same objects. Besides, every visit to a scene has a reason not just to save development time. The only thing that repeats are several mini-games, but they become more difficult with each play.

The end of a chapter shows how much of the game you’ve completed to that point. However, a couple of chapters make the number go down instead of up — obviously a bug.

The hint system lets you ask for a hint anytime as long as the hint meter is full. If you’ve found all the objects in one room and request a hint, it becomes a wasted hint because it tells you to go in another room and nothing else. This becomes a problem when playing some confusing mini-games.

Despite the sharp-looking graphics, the character movements aren’t as sharp. They resemble characters glued to Popsicle sicks — they’re frozen and their whole being moves as a stiff entity.

Seasoned hidden object and puzzle gamers will recognize many of the genre’s features in Mushroom Age. Yet, the game comes together as an original. The game’s title reflects a piece of the story that comes later, but it could’ve had a better name. Nonetheless, casual game players — no matter the experience or whether they have green thumbs — will likely to find Mushroom Age fascinating and funny.

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. November 3rd: 75% off on Akkadia

Tue. November 4th: 50% off on Crazy Minesweeper

Wed. November 5th: 50% off on Puzzle Hero

Thu. November 6th: 75% off on The Great International Word Search!

Fri. November 7th: 60% off on Inflater Ball

Sat. November 8th: 50% off on Dragon Jumper

Sun. November 9th: 50% off on Exotic Minesweeper

Daycare Nightmare: Mini-Monsters puts me in Halloween spirit in an instant — not the candy corn or my son’s carved pumpkin. This time management sequel to Daycare Nightmare surpasses its original, but doesn’t take the game to the next level.

Molly returns as the manager of the monstrous daycare where she cares for mini-monsters of every kind. Monster families know and trust her now after their experience with her in the original game. However, the monster families still don’t trust humans especially with the Bureau of Out of Ordinary Operation (B.O.O.O.) agents on their tails.

Monsters now have the ability to wear human disguises to help them blend better with the human occupied suburbs. Not only does Molly need to deal with the B.O.O.O., but also Tut and an informant known as Deep Change. These three enemies force her to move to several locales while Tut hampers Molly’s efforts to build the daycare center.

She takes care of four new monster babies including witches, werewolves, monkeys and mummies. She also takes on human agent babies whose parents obviously work B.O.O.O. agents.

Molly works as hard like any other daycare worker, but has to deal with a consequence few do. These monsters come with the ability to mess things up big time if she doesn’t keep them happy.

Agent babies drive down the happiness meter, witches move babies to new locations, werewolves scare babies that they change their current needs to confuse Molly, and monkeys turn her into a dizzy person as they shake the room. The mummies are the worst as they put a curse on her to make it impossible for her to pick up any babies.

This means players need to decide which monster to help first when the babies need something at the same time. Which is worse? The mummy’s curse or the witch’s transporting babies?

Molly can upgrade furniture from Melinda’s store, but it hardly feels worth it. It takes a lot of money to upgrade and I lost my upgrades a couple of times. Not sure why.

Daycare Nightmare: Mini-Monsters doesn’t add much as a sequel. In fact, it would’ve been better if this game came out as the original. It brings new babies and easier control of Molly, although it still has a few control quirks as I find myself holding the same baby or no baby at times when I think I switched them. At least, chaining works better than the original.

The difficulty level works great. It adapts to my play and slowly grows more difficult. By the last daycare center, I’m frenzied. Most time management games reach a frenzied pace too soon, but not Daycare Nightmare: Mini-Monsters — it’s its one perfect feature.

The game’s promotional materials indicate it comes with two modes, but I can’t find the endless mode known as One Hectic Day.

The game is too easy as I never lose a level, but it could make a great game for families with younger kids. If you didn’t play the original, try this one instead. If you have played the original, then don’t expect much — just more of the same. It may not be worth paying full price for another similar game with only new monsters. Daycare Nightmare: Mini-Monsters should’ve been a free upgrade for owners of the original.