Gamezebo Archives - January 2009

Enkord's strategy / adventure game Totem Tribe has just launched. Download Totem Tribe now, write a review, or talk about it in our forum. Stay tuned for Gamezebo's review and strategy guide! Read more »

Mousechief's Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!, a role-playing board game set in the 1920s featuring "naughty" mini-games, literary satire and some pretty cutting social commentary, is truly the little indie game that could. It has garnered accolades from all over the place, and most recently was nominated for Best Writing in a Videogame by the prestigious Writer's Guild of America.

Not bad for the product of a one-person company plus a few part-time contractors.

Gamezebo sat down with Mousechief founder Keith Nemitz to learn more about his studio and the inspiration behind DHSGiT!

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4 Elements is a magical mix of match-3, hidden object and spot-the-difference. Your goal is to return peace and prosperity to the ancient kingdom where the magic of 4 Elements that kept it running for centuries has been corrupted by evil. You need to bring back the elements of earth, fire, air and water and save the kingdom by restoring four ancient books of magic. A special key to unlock each book will be revealed to you once you've completed the object hunt. To bring back the power of... Read more »

If you live near San Francisco, California, iWin would like to invite you to try out a new product they are working on.  They are looking for people to come in Weds, January 14, between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM. You will receive $100 and a stack of games to check out the product and give feedback.  I got a sneak peak of the game and it's cool.

iWin is located in San Francisco near the AT&T ballpark and one of my favorite Thai restaurants with the coolest name, Koi Samui and the Monkey.  But I digress.  Interested?  Send me an email, put in subject "I want to test iWin games," and I'll pass the information over to iWin. Read more »

Not all detective work involves homicides. Art Detective is a spot-the-difference game that has you examining classic and lesser known paintings for subtle changes. It has a few creative mini-games, but a lot gets lost in translation.  
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It's not hard for a game to be good when it borrows most of its ideas from one of hte most successful franchises in casual gaming. In spite of the clever innovations that building sim Be Rich does bring to the table, its considerable appeal is tempered by the fact that much of what makes it good was lifted directly from Hipsoft's Build-a-lot series.
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Indie game Dangerous Highschool Girls in Trouble! gets nominated for a Writer's Guild of America award; Cafe.com sells its games distribution platform Boonty to Nexway; and Gamasutra's Leigh Alexander talks about free-to-play trends in gaming. These headlines and more behind the cut. Read more »

Check out our tips and tricks for Chocolate Shop Frenzy. GENERAL TIPS There is considerable randomness on each level. Customers will ask for different things, the phone will ring at different times, thieves and express customers will show up or not. So if you don’t pass a level the first time, just try again. The only way to get Expert is to react very quickly to customer requests, make a lot of combos, and use the available power-ups to move quickly. While just about anyone can make the ... Read more »

Digital Chocolate's Chocolate Shop Frenzy is a highly simplified time management game well-suited to the iPhone perhaps, but light on features and details when compared to existing counter service titles like Cakemania or Turbo Subs.

Many time management games offer little more in the way of story than “Plucky young woman starts a business while menaced by giant corporation bad guy. Quality wins out.” Chocolate Shop Frenzy has the same plot, as Emma, a young chocolate maker, attempts to compete with the Giant Cheap Chocolate Company. The game follows her through a year of business, although there are only 3 levels per month.
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The idea behind Jenguu, a match-three puzzler from small, ironically-named Canadian developer Vast Studios, is solid: Players clear blocks that slowly stack up on posts by matching them according to their material and size. Alas, lazy design, poor production values, and an unfortunately low level of difficulty keep the game from reaching its full potential.
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Youda Farmer is out now in iWin! You'll start out with a tiny farm in this time management / strategy game, but can upgrade it with a chicken coop, stables for your pigs and sheep, fields to grow crops, and even a pond for your fish. Download Youda Farmer, talk about it in our forum, or write a review. Stay tuned for our own review and strategy guide. Read more »

How do you top it when you need to create sequel to one of the most popular farm management games of 2008?  Why, add pizza, of course!

That makes no sense, but it's so crazy, it just may work.  We'll tell you what we think when we post our review soon.  In the meantime, download Farm Frenzy - Pizza Party from Alawar Games, write a review, or talk about it in our forum. Stay tuned for Gamezebo's review.  Thank you Carfixer1957 for the tip.

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If your name is Digital Chocolate and you release a game called Chocolate Shop Frenzy, it better be good.

Our verdict?  You'll have to wait in see.  But you do not have to wait to play and review the game yourself.  Download Chocolate Shop Frenzy, write a review, or talk about it in our forum. Stay tuned for Gamezebo's review. Read more »

Check out our strategy guide for Little Shop - Memories. Little Shop Memories is a classic hidden object game with 60 regular levels, 16 mini-games, and a Blitz mode. Our Strategy Guide includes general tips and a screenshot for each scene showing the locations of all bonus items and power-ups, as well as solutions for all mini-games. Once you’ve unlocked Blitz mode, you can start it from the Main Menu. You can go back and forth between Blitz and Regular from the Main Menu whenever you lik... Read more »

The citizens of DinerTown apparently get up to other things besides running restaurants, parking cars, being contestants on cooking shows, planning weddings and designing clothes because the place is literally overflowing with babies - so many that poor daycare volunteer Wilson is swamped and needs your help in Diaper Dash, the soon-to-launch latest game in PlayFirst's popular Dash series.

Players can look forward to 50 levels, more than 20 upgrades to buy, and five inventions that will help you tend to the babies' needs (and, by the sound if it, every parent will be wishing they had them in their own house, too).

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Check out our strategy guide for Fabulous Finds. GENERAL TIPS   There is only one mode in the game, it is a timed mode. You will be given a certain amount of time in which to find all the objects in the scene. You are never given a list of items to find in this game, instead, you are given a general theme and you must figure out from that which items to look for. The items that you will be asked to search for in each room will vary. When you replay the game, you will be asked to ... Read more »

Not everything needs to change to stay satisfying. Like a mug of hot chocolate on a winter day, some pleasures are classics, time after time. GameHouse, the developer behind the Little Shop hidden object games, understands this very well. Little Shop - Memories, the fifth title in the series, simply gives us more of what we liked before: a quality hidden object game.
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Playing casual games at work actually seems to make office workers more productive according to an Oxford University study; Gamezebo interviews The Cartoon Network about its new MMO FusionFall; and Ubisoft announces a game based on Grey's Anatomy. These headlines and more behind the cut. Read more »

Be Rich by investing in real estate.  Let's hope it works out just a little better in this new real estate themed strategy game than it has in real life lately.

Download Be Rich from Big Fish Games, write a review, or talk about it in our forum. Stay tuned for Gamezebo's review. Read more »

iWin just launched Maddie's Daily Mysteries, about a single mom, Madison, who opens up a once grand hotel only to discover there are ghosts (I hate when that happens).  Here's the twist:  this game features online chat, game money to earn to customize your treasure room, and new hidden object game puzzles every day.

Download Maddie's Daily Mysteries from iWin, write a review, or talk about it in our forum. Stay tuned for Gamezebo's review. Read more »