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Showing posts with label hints. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hints. Show all posts
Friday, January 30, 2009
Cassandra's Journey: The Legacy of Nostradamus
Cassandra's Journey: The Legacy of Nostradamus is a hidden object game, created by Joybits. You are the granddaughter of a famous fortune teller, and it seems you have inherited some of her talents.Gameplay: It's a standard hidden object game. There are hints (that don't always work correctly; see below) that highlight items if you can't find them. You can purchase additional hints after finding enough gems. When looking for differences in some of the pictures, consider things like color, shape, size, and location. On one, I could not spot the sandwich on the table. :)
Mini-puzzles:
1) Prophecies: Hangman. There is a random quatrain that you must decode in less than 10 errors.
2) Jigsaw: It's really a switch place, not as much a jigsaw. You click a piece, then select another piece where you want to place it, and the two tiles will switch places.
3) Rune Concentration: Memory match. Flip two cards; if they match, they will disappear.
4) Rune Match: Find an adjacent combination of 2 (or more runes). Once a combo of tiles are selected, the tiles will turn from red to green to complete the puzzle. You can shuffle the tiles 3 times.
5) Tarot: You must unscramble 4 Tarot cards from the moving ones in the frame. This is how I solved it: I placed the cursor in the middle of the large left frame until a card fragment appeared. I then moved my mouse slowly, and a card started to take shape, sort of like a jigsaw. It will look like a central part joined by 4 other pieces - then click and drag it out of the frame.
6) Lock: You direct fire balls at the locks, using the fleur de lis tiles. As an additional hint, the flower tiles teleport the fireball to another location.
What they did well: there is a nice mix to the type of hidden object games. The mini-games were relatively fun. The art was good.
What could have been better: The story. Frankly, the story was terrible. There were spelling errors and sometimes it made no sense. Clicking through the text was painful at times. I found several bugs: sometimes there would be something that would fit the item description, but only one was correct. The hint button did not always work correctly, especially when down to the last two objects. It consistently would not highlight the object, which was very frustrating. The "divinations", which unlock as you progress along the story, were disappointing.
Overall: It's a decent game, one that fans of astrology and hidden object games might like. If you like a good backstory, this would not be a game for you.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Cassandra's Journey: The Legacy of Nostradamus
Cassandra's Journey: The Legacy of Nostradamus brought to you via JoyBits, is a mostly hidden-object game.In addition to the levels, there are 3 "divination" games that are unlocked via progressing through the story. They are unlocked at levels 4, 13, and 20.
The story is that a woman comes to you, Cassandra, who has recently started her divination business. She wants to find her brother. You have inherited your grandmother Serena's sense of fortune-telling, but need additional help from Nostradamus' ring. You start to have a vision of him, which oddly starts out with him IMing you.
There are two gameplay options: timed or relaxed. Like most hidden object games, there are penalties for random clicking (30 seconds), and hints that can be collected throughout the levels. There are blue, red, and green gems, which are banked as points. You spend the points on one of 3 items to help locate: a wand that glows brightly when lit (2 points), a general area highlight (1 point), or an object locator (3 points). The points add up quickly so if you want to be a lazy player and not look hard, there are lots of opportunities to acquire and use the hints. However, you get a time bonus and bonus points for not using jewels and/or hints, so to maximize your score, you want to use as few as possible.
There are other puzzle types: click to place the tile; "fix" something in the hidden object screen (reassemble a pizza; a building roof), match 3 to get a key and jewels, a semi-crossword, etc.
What they did well: The intro music was nice. It does have multiple types of puzzles to solve. They use the gamut of hidden object lists: riddles, puzzle pieces, lists, outlines. For their find-a-difference puzzles, there were 3 pictures instead of two, which made it slightly more challenging. They also used crosswords and match-3.
What they could've done better: First, proof-read. The text has quite a few glaring spelling errors. Plus, the conversations made little sense and the characters were less than believable. I'd prefer you not give me characters and text to read unless it really means something. Level 11 was very annoying to me, because you really don't do anything. The circles around the find the difference scenes made it difficult to detect the last few differences because the circles were so large. The book to start each level has even and odd pages. The odd pages automatically updated the picture to the left, which you could click on to start. In order to access the even pages, you had to physically click on the page on the book, then the picture. I encountered a bug that made a ticking sound loop over and over. Closing and restarting the game fixed the problem, but it happened more than once. Each divination can only be accessed once a day. There were a few random, odd voice-overs. I was very disappointed in the "magic tricks" which were glorified logic puzzles, optical illusions, and puzzles that have been passed around in e-mails for a long time.
Overall, it was not a very solid game, but kids and fans of hidden object games who want to play all varieties might enjoy it.
Hints (spoilers):
On the first find a difference:
Crow, bunny, pizza, scarf, sandwich on table, chair placement, sunglasses on head, picture (red shirt), photographer's bag
Words in crossword:
page2: forune, that, grandmother, magic, guess
page 3: Ring, help, have, mission(6)
page 4: greatest, talisman, with, thing
Chapter 13 find-a-difference:
chair, chick, banana, gramophone, postman, leaf, basketball, cactus, crow tag, small picture on board
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Diner Dash: Seasonal Snack pack
Diner Dash: Seasonal Snack Pack is another in the very popular time management Diner Dash series brought to us by PlayFirst games. Try them all for free at Big Fish Games:Diner Dash
Diner Dash Flo on the Go
Diner Dash Flo on the Go
They even created a version for kids:
SpongeBob SquarePants Diner Dash
Diner Dash: Seasonal Snack Pack is not for the faint of heart, and not for people who are new to the Diner Dash series: it gets up and running very quickly!
The player joins Flo and her Grandma for fun and excitement waiting tables at 5 new restaurants: it starts out at Coral Cover Cafe Waterpark (summer). All of the customers from previous Diner Dash games make an appearance, with all of their little peculiarities. The businesswomen like to be served fast. They don't like noise. Bookworms are slow to order and eat, and have more patience, but they don't like noise. Cell phone guys don't mind noise, and they are also impatient. Families don't mind noise and are moderately patient. The girls don't like noise and are moderately patient. Tourists like to be served quickly once seated, and often want you to stop and take their picture. (I still hate that breaking my chains!) Fitness ladies don't mind noise and are moderately impatient. They rarely order dessert. Lovebirds are patient, don't mind noise, but their kissing annoys tourists, bookworms, cell phone guys, and the girls.
Points are gained for chaining together actions: taking orders, delivering food, picking up the checks, clearing the tables, delivering "extras" such as appetizers and desserts. The level of patience left is shown by the number of hearts under each table. Quick service earns hearts.
There are bonus items, which include drinks (serve to tables to improve their patience/hearts), a podium (talk to people while they are waiting to improve patience), flowerpots for a bonus when seating tables, and appetizers and desserts. Each person in the dining party has a specific color - that color can also earn a bonus, if you seat them in a matching same color seat. This is, as always, one of the best ways to earn points and gain expert level.
The story continues to four other restaurants (and 3 other seasons): the Crypt Cafe, Hometown Harvest, Winter Wonderland, and Romantic Rendezvous. (Don't you know Cookie would love it there.)
Unlike the other Diner Dash games, which gradually introduces characters, colors, and bonus items, the first two levels have the drink bonus, flowerpot bonus, and podium available. The customers and colors are varied. In level 3, the snack station is opened up. Level 4 gives desserts. By level 6, all of the customers are unlocked and so are the purple colored customers. It's quite a challenge!
As an FYI, when playing against a waiter/waitress to earn more points than they do, the biggest points are earned by seating groups (matching customer color to the seat, of course) and taking the check. Use these to your advantage. You also can get a bonus if you seat people at a table where you've placed a flowerpot...but be quick because the rival waiter/waitress will get the bonus if they seat people there!
What they did well:
The graphics are improved, and it combines all elements from the previous games. The story line is fun, and it is a challenge even for veteran Diner Dash players. The competition levels where you have to earn a certain number of points more than the other waiter/waitress are a lot of fun. It was fun to see all the different customer types come through the water park slide, and the other restaurants are all unique.
What could've been better:
The music. It's disappointing that there isn't more variation. Also, they expect that the player is familiar with the Diner Dash family, as they don't introduce the different customers and describe how to maximize points with them. I also wish they'd take the Crypt Cafe and had the customers dress up for the season.
Recommended for: fans of Diner Dash or time management games.
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