What's New in Gamezebo

When I first sat down to play Gogii Games' Escape the Museum 2 I was expecting to have to, well, escape a museum. Again. And I wasn't terribly thrilled about it. I mean, how many games can you make about escaping an earthquake-ravaged museum before the premise starts to feel contrived and repetitive? I think the answer is probably "one."

 

Imagine my delight upon discovering that the follow-up to Escape the Museum isn't about getting out of a museum at all, but rather about a father heroically making his way through disaster-torn streets in the aftermath of the quake towards the museum to save his trapped family - in other words, a totally different spin on the same theme!

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Check out our walkthrough for Escape the Museum 2. Read more»

Check out our strategy guide for Murder, She Wrote. Read more»

Hello Gamezebo-ers,

 

This is Ryan Modjeski again, designer and producer of Legacy Interactive's upcoming hidden object adventure, The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 2. Since my last developer diary, things have gotten really hectic around here. Murder, She Wrote just launched (at the time of writing it is #1 on Big Fish Games and Legacy Games) and the energy surrounding that project amplified our stresses as we are quickly approaching our own release date in December.

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It's a shame that the Wild West isn't a more popular setting in video games. If Hollywood and Louis L'Amor are to be believed, this was the era when cowboys had the same sense of honor as Knights of the Round Table, gunfights were used to settle disputes, and gorgeous steam trains were the way to get around. It was a period of romance and adventure, when the nation was still young and the possibilities seemed endless. Thankfully, the Westward series of games have done the setting proud, and the newly-released Westward IV: All Aboard continues the tradition. Read more»

Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst is on sale for $2.99 at Big Fish Games until Nov. 22. (use coupon code RTR299 at checkout.) Westward is still free over at Sandlot Games too, so grab this great strategy game while you have the chance! The Settlers strategy games are 50% off on GOG.com until Nov. 23. Read more»

The approach of Free Realms - a casual massively-multiplayer online (MMO) game from Sony Online Entertainment, is a simple and familiar one: pack as much free content into as friendly-looking a package as possible and sell upgrades, unlocks and items for real money off the back of that initial experience. The obvious hope is that you'll become enamoured enough with the free portions of the game to pony up for advantages and privileges against other players, and Free Realms has plenty of content put aside for those who are prepared to pay.  Read more»

One man's trash is another man's treasure, or so the saying goes. I come from a family of dumpster diggers and garage sale junkies (hey, you never know when you're going to find a real gem!). So, I felt right at home playing Yard Sale Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville from Slapdash Games. Read more»

Big Fish Games announces release dates for Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove; Zynga raises $15.2 milion in new funding; and class action lawsuits could be brewing against social networks over the scam offers scandal. These headlines and more behind the cut. Read more»

As they say, you can never keep a good site (or is that man/woman?) down.

The site gremlins were running amuck, but now we are back up.  Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll make sure the reason we went down never happens again.

Back to writing and posting about great new games to play (and there are many this and next week!

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Beta test casual games before they come out and provide developers with your insight.  Game developers are looking for your feedback to make their games better and they really do listen and change their games based on your advice.  We'll be sending out an email with new games to beta test soon.

If you are interested in being a member of our prestigious beta test program, sign up here.  If you are already a member, no worries;  you don't have to sign up again.

 

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Alawar has just launched the third game in the Natalie Brooks hidden object adventure series. Download Natalie Brooks - Mystery at Hillcrest High, write a review, or chat about it in our forum. Read more»

Cook and waitress Emily is back for another culinary adventure in Delicious: Emily's Holiday Season. After deciding to stay in the peaceful and cozy town of Snuggford, Emily and her long-time friend Francois find themselves having to care for five different restaurants. This latest installment of the popular Delicious series again proves to be one of the most creative and unique time management game available. Read more»

Luxor Adventures has launched, a game that takes the Luxor puzzle game franchise in a new hidden object direction. Download the game, write a review, and chat about it in our forum. Read more»

Escape the Museum 2 has launched! Download the game, write a review, or chat about it in our forum. Read more»

Check out our strategy guide for Little Folk of Faery. Read more»

Little Folk of Faery isn't the first game to simulate caring for a tribe of villagers (see Wild Tribe, Escape from Paradise, and of course the granddaddy of them all: Virtual Villagers), but it's certainly the one of the most stylish. Set in a beautiful fantasy realm populated with leprauchans, pixies, dryads and other fairytale creatures, the game is a visual delight even as the gameplay itself is nothing groundbreaking. Read more»

Reflexive Entertainment has announced its next game, Simplz: Zoo, a time management game that will put players in charge of their own zoo and give them a chance to control nearly every aspect of it, from which animals they exhibit to where to put the drinking fountains. Read more»

When it comes to classic puzzle games, GameHouse's Collapse! series is right up there with the best of them -- which is why we were excited to learn that the franchise is returning with a brand new block-busting, color-matching title called simply COLLAPSE! Read more»

World's Hardest Game is an iPhone app that actually lives up to its title.  The idea is simple, the mechanics are easy, but trying to accomplish anything is mind-numbingly difficult.  That's not to say the game is bad - in fact it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. World's Hardest Game offers up an easy-to-learn game that will make your blood boil in its first five minutes. Read more»

Monkwerks is a game about spelling, about taxing your vocabulary. That its title is (presumably deliberately) misspelled should tell you all you need to know before you even load it in your browser. This is an excellent example of how to take a simple, appealing concept and run it completely into the ground through fundamentally bad and lazy implementation.

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The Return of Monte Cristo brings back Alexander Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo's Edmond Dante for another hidden object adventure in which he searches for his fiancée's killer. The detectives closed the case without ever finding a suspect, so Dante travels from Spain to Paris in this game with beautiful art work and effects in this clichéd, but eye-pleasing game. Read more»

PlayFirst sent us a trailer for the upcoming time management game Hotel Dash: Suite Success, which is launching very soon! The video gives you a glimpse of how elevators will be used in the game to allow Flo to go between floors to reach demanding guests in different rooms of the hotel. Watch the Hotel Dash: Suite Success trailer here, and chat about the game in our forum.

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We can finally share with you the release dates for Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove, the hotly anticipated sixth game in the Mystery Case Files hidden object/adventure series from Big Fish Games Studios. For the first time in the series' history, Big Fish Games will be releasing two different versions of the game: the Collector's Edition will launch on Nov. 25 for $19.99, followed by the standard version in early December which will sell for the usual $6.99. Read more»

Browser-based bicycle rides are few and far between nowadays.  Maybe that's the reason Fig. 8 makes us smile so much.  Its playful title serves as something of a double entendre, referring to the manoeuvring of the bicycle as easily as it does to the landscape on which you'll be cycling.  Rather than riding through picturesque scenery and charming country roads, Fig. 8 will have you cycling through technical schematics on an endless sheet of paper. Read more»