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
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Heroes of Kalevala Review
A great drought is forcing you and your tribe to leave your beloved homeland. The Elders consult the Shaman and is told the bones have
the answer. It is to leave this land and start over somewhere else. Your tribe must travel across the ocean to the land of Kalevala. Heroes of Kalevala is a match 3 and build a village simulation game. The Kalevala is a Finnish national epic work from ancient oral poetry, this mac game is based on this important piece of literature.
The match 3 part of the game is to swap items to make matches of 3 or more of the same objects to clear. Making matches over the yellow tiles will change them to blue. When all the yellow tiles are gone, then the level is complete. However, you must do so before the evil crow
sent by the wicked witch Louhi flying the perimeter of the puzzle burns the entire board forcing you to start again. The puzzles are easy for a few levels and will begin to increase in difficulty and blocks like the icy tiles or double locked chains as you go higher. When you make matches of 4 or more, you will get bonuses like bombs to clear your tiles. You have the powerful Finnish gods to help you fight off the malicious blocks to your game. Il Marinen will throw fiery hammers that incinerate tiles and the god of sea, Ahti, will raise the water to flood and take away tiles. More helps will be unlocked as you advance in the play. At
the beginning of each level you choose which god you would like to help you, but be sure to make the right choice for an ultimate experience.
The match 3 games will earn you cash to help build a town. The faster you complete the puzzles, the more money you will get. Once you get some structures up, it will attract people to your village. The people themselves will let you know what they want and what will make
them happy. You use the shop to buy houses, trees and other things for survival and happiness. After building your first village, you move on to build more towns. There are medals you win for accomplishing different things.
Heroes of Kalevala has a lot to do from its match 3 with loads of bonuses to the sim play and additionally the interesting tale about Louhi, her crows and the ancient gods. The artwork is great especially the beginning of the story and the beautiful backdrops, and the music are interesting. There’s hours of playability and fun for all ages. Just keep in mind that the levels are challenging after about a dozen puzzles. Give this game a try and have an entertaining time.
Features of Heroes of Kalevala:
-Over 140 Levels
-Match 3 and Sim Plays
-Based on Oral Finnish Poetry
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Fishdom-Spooky Splash Review
I didn’t get this review out in time for Halloween but it’s still a fun Mac match 3 and simulation game to play any time of the year. It’s very similar to their Fishdom – Frosty Splash without the Santa theme and with lively ghostly items instead.
Like in the Frosty game you shop for your fish tank with a Halloween theme. In addition you must keep your fish happy by buying comfort or beauty items or other fish. Click on the Shop button and then choose from Fish, Beauty and Comfort. The Fish tab will display a
variety of different sea creatures to choose from, Beauty will have plants and Comfort has different water cleaning devices. Of course, all these items cost a lot of money and in order to purchase these great things, you must make cash. This is where the match 3 games come in.
The match 3 levels have sea and Halloween related items to match. You swap 2 items to line up either horizontally or vertically 3 of the same objects. When this is done, it will clear and more items will fall into place from above. You must make matches over the gold tiles to destroy and when you get rid of all the gold tiles, you win the level. If you make your matches quickly, you will win more money. There are blocks to impede your movements like chained items (single or double) where you must make matches with them to clear. The double chains you must make 2 matches to destroy. Even with the many block different blocks, there are as many helps to aid you in your quest
to finish the level. Making matches of 5 items or more will get you bombs, firecrackers, lightning and more. Also look for the shape of the match boards because they are in forms of spiders or other things.
Fishdom – Spooky Splash has all the fun elements of the other Fishdom match plays with a Halloween theme. If the relaxed mode is too easy for you, try it timed to challenge your match 3 skills. Either way the game is great fun and should be enjoyed by children and casual gamers. I give it a 3.5 out of 5 for an entertaining play. Try it if you dare. Boo!
Features of Fishdom – Spooky Splash:
-Halloween Theme
-Lots of Match 3 Levels
-Fish Tank to Decorate
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Gemini Lost Review
A group of friends come across an ancient zodiac wheel on their way home and were transported through some teleporter to a strange land in Mac sim game Gemini Lost. Unfortunately for these 6 people the wheel exploded and spewed the zodiac signs across this mysterious region.
In order to return home, they must find all the keys to repair the wheel. However, life goes on and the 6 must start a village of sorts in order to survive. They must gather and grow foods, find wood and stones for building shelter, increase their knowledge to be able to perform many tasks, they must marry to increase and sustain their population and find all the zodiac keys to transport them back.
In addition to all that, there are puzzles and tasks to complete in order to teleport back home. In order to get across a river, someone needs to have the skills to build a bridge spanning the distance from your end to where the key is located. Labs will increase your
knowledge level, working on the garden will increase your farming skills and the chapel will marry your couples so you can increase your village. Also after a time the older people will die off so raising the children is important. The kids however do not work until they are grown, but can pick up items for potions. The game is very good about giving you vital information and stats on each person. If someone is sick, they will be moving around slowly and will need to be healed. Potions can be made and the recipes are available in the log.
The game will allow you to choose how you want your villagers to proceed when you leave the game. If you want to be involved at all times you are on, you can do so or you can have the people go about their tasks even when you are not on the computer. This part of the game is different from other games of this nature.
The tutorial is easy to follow and will get you started on your village without any trouble. I did find it curious when I left the game with 2 skilled people building a bridge, and when I got back, no progress was made and the 2, nowhere to be found. I suggest you keep track of your people’s names because when they grow up while you are gone, they are like strange new person you’ve forgotten. It gets a little confusing.
For the most part I liked this sim develop your own village type game. This one seemed easier to train people, and they didn’t mind working very hard each day. When they get tired, they will rest in the hut, and when they get hungry they will feed themselves so you just need to watch the upper part of the screen to see how much supplies you have and will need. The computer will announce any changes such as a baby being born or someone who passes away. This game is appropriate for children because they take care of birth and dying in a discreet manner.
So create your own village full of people to your specifications and search for all the zodiac keys for your ticket back to civilization.
Features of Gemini Lost:
-Puzzles and Mini Games
-Zodiac Signs
-Your Own World
Similar games: My Tribe, Wild Tribe, Virtual Villagers 1 and 2
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Top Chef Review
Do you like to cook? Do you like to play video games? Do you watch TV? Then Top Chef is the game for you! Take one part hit TV show and combine it with one part Sim and one part cartoon and voile, you have Top Chef. Forget what you learned in culinary school because all that is going to be put to the test in a grueling competition that challenges both the mind and the stomach. This intro may be a little cheesy, but in Top Chef that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The game is very straightforward: compete on the show to become the best chef you can possibly be. You have a kitchen at your disposal and whatever you decide to make is up to you. At the beginning of each challenge you have a sidebar that gives you a list of what types of ingredients you need (spicy, sweet, salty, savory, etc.). You then have the
ingredients on a shelf in the back. Depending on which one you choose, you can get different bonuses. For example, combining apples and bacon gives you a "classic combo" bonus. After you choose the corresponding ingredient, you bring it to the work station where you begin the preparation. You can only prep one thing at a time, but ingredients sitting on the work station slowly become finished as time goes on. Naturally the station that you are working at goes faster, so timing is very important.
After you complete your "masterpiece," you are off to be judged. Each dish is computer generated to show exactly the ingredients that you put into it. This was actually pretty funny, as the first time I played I put some weird combination of
food together, and they showed up in the judging (like mango and anchovies). Due to the fact that there is a gigantic number of possible foods to make, this game can have a great replay value. Although it is based on a show that I have never personally seen, I truly enjoyed the game because it was fun to see the food I had put together. The only complaint I had was that each ingredient did not look as it should when being prepared. However, that would have taken a long time to actually
program, and they did get the final plating correct. Overall I would give Top Chef four out of five stars.
Features of Top Chef:
-45 Challenges
-Pick the Ingredients
-Multi-Task in the Kitchen
-Become the Next Top Chef
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