Garden Dreams Review
Garden Dreams is an action-packed Mac game for kids and casual gamers. Be ready to swat and spray pests and grow produce to help Granny Gertrude pay her bills and keep her lovely garden intact.
Granny Gertrude once grew prized veggies, but as she grew older, it was more and more difficult for her to keep up the work to grow a garden. It is up to you to assist her buy equipment, plant seeds, water her plants, harvest the food and keep the pests away. This all must be done with only 3 lives for each level.
The play is easy to learn, and the game will take you through it slowly at first and then with more intensity later on. You click on the object to perform an action. You click on the water can to water the plant, and if you do not do it fast enough, you will lose a plant. A great upgrade to get is the sprinkler, but this item must be unlocked before you can use it. You will lose the plant making you work longer on fewer plants. I lost 2 plants because I didn’t water fast. Also you must click on the ripe produce when it falls to the ground, but if this is not done quickly it will rot and you will lose money. Also after harvesting the produce you must click on Granny to give her the money or she is grumpy.
In between working very hard in the garden, you must fight off the pests so you do not lose plants and in turn money. This is done by swatting quickly and repeatedly on the caterpillars to squish them. When you start to unlock awards you can use pesticides to get rid of them faster. You must master getting your pests under control because in the higher levels the enemies will increase and become harder to conquer.
Your only defense will be your friends. Stinky Skunk can stun the pests giving you time to swat or spray them. Tom Turtle will pick up the produce you missed on the ground. He walks back and forth on the bottom of the garden picking up your tomatoes.
This Mac game is like Alice Greenfingers, but with more movement and action. Alice Greenfinger seemed like it is more of a sims time management game and Garden Dreams is a little more like an action swat and squish game. I think this game is fun for a lot of people without the violence, except when you swat and squish pests, and you are helping Granny Gertrude pay her bills.
Features of Garden Dreams:
-Make Your Own Garden Dreams Come True
-80 Levels
-Many Plants and Enemies
-40 Locked Upgrades
Rating: 
Galcon Review
Galcon is a Mac game based loosely on Galactic Conquest, and is an exciting and challenging a play as any. Send your swarm of spaceships to other planets and conquer them. A risk game without countries but entire planets instead. How much fun is that to control many other orbs in the universe? The king of the galaxy!
The play is to send spaceships from your green (looks a lot like earth) planet to the other orbs (red, your enemies and gray, neutral planets) to conquer and take over outer space. To send your ships out left click on your planet and then right click on the planet you want to attack or drag and drop the cursor. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. You must also deal with the attacks from your enemy planets. They can take over your planets as well.
A possible help could be from changing the percentage of your fleet you are sending out to attack. This can be done by the number keys or the mouse wheel. The % can be viewed on the lower right side of the screen. The % and which planet you attack is very important strategy to acquire in order to win this game. Another good help to use is re-directing your swarm of ships when you need to have them go to another location. It may be going the wrong way for the most effective attack, and to re-route, you click on the fleet and then click where you want to change their course.
Another interesting move is the multi attacks. To activate an attack from multiple planets you drag a box around the orbs to select, then right click on the planet you want to send the fleet. Also you can reinforce your own planets by sending a fleet there. Since you cannot see how large a fleet your enemy (red) has, you need to try to take over the larger planets first, because they have a higher production level than the little planets.
The game allows for single player and multi player modes. The Classic play is you against the computer. The Beast is with you controlling only 2 planets, and in the Vacuum your goal is to get all the neutral planets before your time runs out. A different play is the 3-Way where it is a 3 player game, and one player will pick sides for a while, usually against the strongest planets. The difficulty comes in when this player attacks you when he gets a chance. The Stealth play is when you cannot see each other's ships until it is too late and you are captured. If all these plays are not exciting enough for you, try the Net which will bring a whole new level of action from the players online.
Galcon is such an exciting and action-packed, fast-paced play, not just from the actual game but also you get the same level of feeling with the great graphics (although simple orbs and triangular spaceships) deep, astro colors and the appropriate sound effects. What more can you ask for in a game? The smart play and intense strategy combined with your quick and nimble moves, that’s what! It’s easy to learn through the step-by-step tutorial and each game is so fast you automatically must play more so you can conquer the galaxy and rule the universe in this ultimate arcade, space strategy game.
Features of Galcon:
-Single or Multi Players
-Different Types of Play
-Action and Excitement
-Attack Online Players
Rating:
Jessica’s Cupcake Cafe Review
The Story: Jessica is home from LA and overhears her Aunt Margaret talking about hers and Uncle Fred’s woes about their failing bakery. Bright-eyed, ever ready Jessica suggests updating the bakery concept and start a cupcake café to bring in the customers and also make a profit. Aunt Margaret is thrilled with the idea since all the buzz is about 
cupcakes (even Martha Stewart devoted a week to cupcake making on her top-rated TV show, and everyone knows Martha can turn a profit). However, Auntie M is astute enough to know that a conversion of the shop will take a lot of work and assistance, so she asks Jessica to lend a hand to get things started.
There will always be a need for your typical neighborhood bakery making breads, birthday cakes and cookies or even the fancy French patisserie with their, oh so decadent, ganache frostings and croissants, but the latest craze in bakeries is the cupcake shops that are everywhere nowadays. My favorite cupcake shop is Magnolia in New York City, and I hear Vanilla in LA is quite good. I’ll have to check it out next time I’m in town. Jessica’s Cupcake Café is an updated sim play like Ice Cream Craze and Mystic Emporium.
The Play: Making cupcakes appears to be a straightforward, easy play or it it? The play is to click on the type of cake your customer wishes to buy (this is shown to you with the number of cupcakes in a bubble next to the client). The highly innovative machine will place the correct amount of batter into the baking sheet, you click on the pan, click on the oven to bake, wait, click on the baked cupcakes, click on the counter, click on the requested frosting, click on the completed tube of frosting, click on the tray of cakes to frost after completion click to pick up the pan, click on the customer and
finally on the cash register to collect the money. These are a lot of steps to maneuver, but once you get into the groove, everything will flow nicely. However, in these plays there are always things that may slow your play down such as a decoration candy piece to top the cupcake. It can be a bear, daisy, heart or sun. The customer may request a special order causing you to throw out a batch of cupcakes or frosting.
However the game will always give you great upgrades to help you increase your speed to beat the level. You may get additional stoves, more icing machines and candy makers. Another added plus is you can design your own cupcakes to sell to your clients. Don’t worry about the extra cupcakes since they will be sold at a bake sale in a side mini game. Your goal is to sell as many cupcakes as possible in a limited time.
Jessica’s Cupcake Café, although similar to many of the sim plays, is an entertaining Mac game for everyone. In addition you will unlock many great cupcake recipes to try out and enjoy. The graphics is good and the music will keep you in sync with quick speed to meet your goals.
Features of Jessica’s Cupcake Café:
-Run a Cupcake Café
-Design Your Own Cupcakes
-42 Levels in 9 Locations
-Cupcake Recipes
Rating:
Nanny Mania goes to Hollywood Review
Nanny is on vacation when she reads about Sofia Ashford, movie star, and terrible mother in the gossip rags. She decides to help her and goes to Hollywood to start her new employment. Nanny’s motto is whatever the problem, begin by caring.
This Mac sim game is played by clearing one room at a time. The object is to click on the red framed items for Nanny to clean and clear. The clothes spewed throughout the house must be picked up, taken to the washer to wash, then click on the dryer and finally click to pick up the basket of clothes, and click on the dresser to put away the items.
There are only 3 people who reside in this house: Sydney the baby, Lucas the 3rd husband, and Sofia the movie star. They are probably the messiest people in the world who need a lot of attention, especially the baby. When the baby cries above the crib will show you what it needs. If you see a diaper, you click on the crib for Nanny to change the baby, then click on the dirty bundle next to the bed and then click on a trash bin to throw it out. If you see a a bottle above the crib, the baby is hungry, and you click on the small refrigerator in the nursery, then click on the bottle warmer, then again on the bottle to pick up and click one more time on the crib to feed the baby.
It’s hectic just writing about it. See how frantic it gets in the first few levels, and remember, the levels are timed so you must hustle. In between the levels you can go to the store to buy anything that is unlocked, you have the money for it, and you need to make your work easier.
Nanny Mania is like Baby Sitting Mania with a few more perks like the shop, more people and a little story to get to know the messy slobs to make it a little more personal. Sim plays are not my thing, but this one has a few more activities than a lot of the games out there. Try it out for a little work out in this play.
Features of Nanny Mania Goes To Hollywood:
-Help Celebrity Family
-Sequel to Nanny Mania
-Time Outs, Pets and More
Rating:
Brunhilda and The Dark Crystal Review
A simple request from her aunt to pick up her purse in her apartment turns into a vast adventure in Mac hidden object game Brunhilda and the Dark Crystal. Brunhilda, not a particularly popular name in the United States, is of German origin and used more in Poland and areas 
near there. Brunhilda in this game is not like the stocky witch in the cartoon series. This Brunhilda is blonde, cute and brave. She calmly confronts the king of the rats and takes potions to shrink her size.
The story begins in a far away land where the dragons and men lived in harmony. This idyllic land is now in danger of inevitable doom. The magic they historically treasured will disappear forever if something is not done. The king ordered all magic to be stored in a dark crystal in hopes that some day a hero from another world will save them. This brings us back to Brunhilda a seemingly normal young woman doing 
her aunt a favor. She goes to the apartment and finds a demon that takes her to another realm. Gruber the demon will assist you in your adventure to find the broken shards of the dark crystal to restore the magic and fight off the evil.
The main play is to collect different objects usually at the request of someone you need to help you out. You can select from 2 modes. Casual has hints and skip buttons and they will recharge at normal speed. Objects of interest are highlighted. The Adventure mode the buttons take twice as long to recharge and rarely will objects be highlighted. The magical quest cards can be found at the bottom of the screen. It will give you the items you will need to find. To get into small spaces you must make a magic elixir to shrink Brunhilda to enter 
the rat door. Once small she encounters many rats who will do her a favor if she does one for them such as collecting all the fireworks in the village, get all the cheese, click on parts for a machine, get rid of all the rat traps and lots more. You may need to go back and forth from the rat village to the lobby of the building and back again. Luckily Brunhilda found a shortcut through the rat village to the king’s palace.
There are mini games you can play or skip such as catching drops of blue potion to make magic elixirs. Another is to pick out magical runes from a book. The mini puzzles do get progressively harder as the levels increase but you can skip them if you wish. However, skipping the puzzles will not unlock bonus mini games. The games involve telekinesis, alchemy, telepathy and wizardry. All the puzzles are related to the story and you are not aimlessly looking for a pizza cutter, battery or bowtie like some other HOGs.
There are 10 chapters to take you on an incredible adventure. You will meet many unusual things like dragons, part human part machine, rats that talk, birds, and much, much more. The story will unfold with Brunhilda talking to people or things that will help her in her quests. There are easter eggs to find so be sure to click on the fairies.
Brunhilda and the Dark Crystal is a different sort of HOG since you are finding things on quests, going back and forth through many rooms and areas and even shrinking down to mouse size. The story is intriguing even though it sounds like something you heard before but is presented in such a great way with the voice acting and gorgeous, detailed and creative artwork. The dialog between Brunhilda, Gruber and others are humorous and funny. The only thing I can say I thought was too much is the fact you have to go back and forth from one spot to another and back again. A small complaint considering the awesome job the developers did in this interesting and fun hidden object game with great details in their characters, words and story.
Features of Brunhilda and The Dark Crystals:
-Engaging Story
-Fantastic Artwork and Mysterious Music
-10 Chapters of Fun HOG Plays
Rating:
Pages
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