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Post a reply << Go BackTopic: Say It Aint So, Flo
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Time management games are still my favorite genre. I am amazed at how many of the 'search it' games there are. I only play the ones with the crispy graphics (so you can see the items), and I enjoy the ones where you have to collect things for a bigger purpose (like the Mortimer Beckett series), but I have never taken the time to read the storyline of these games. I get so happy when I see a new time management game. I have purchased every dash game, and added everything (at $4.99 per restaurant) to the Hometown Hero Diner Dash game. The farm time management games were the hit and miss with the standout being Ranch Rush. One of my favorites was Burger Shop and would love a sequel.
But getting back to the Diner Dash series - I wish they'd make a second Parking Dash - and make it hard! That's the one thing that could elevate the game play for me. Have the regular levels and then add an 'expert levels' to the mix. I hit expert level on about 80% of the Dash games and would love a challenge. It would make me play the game more and feel a sense of accomplishment when I actually achieved that expert level - if it wasn't readily available!
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I hope that Playfirst continues to produce more dash games in the coming years whether they be sequels or innovative originals. I thought Parking Dash was a great game that was clearly original but people complained that the idea of parking cars was stupid. Doggie Dash and Pet Shop Hop were also original Dash games but they could have used more polish. IMO Gamelab has been by far the most innovative game company over the last couple of years, coming out with titles that nobody else has yet replicated. (Out of Your Mind, Lego Fever, Jojos Fashion Show, Arcadia Remix and Miss Management.) Miss Management, in particular, happens to be one of the most clever time management games I have seen and I hope to see a sequel. To date there haven't been any clones or spinoffs.
On a similar topic, the hidden object genre of games has been driving me crazy lately. I actually like HOGs as long as they are not traditional with the list of items without silhouettes, but the avalanche of these games is getting RIDICULOUS! I feel that some developers are becoming very lazy. HOGs sell extremely well and I can guarantee they are much easier to produce than time management games. Therefore, all of these developers are jumping on the hidden object bandwagon and this genre is certainly more saturated than time management games.
I am hoping that in the next year, developers will go back to the drawing board and come up with more refreshing ways to assure that the time management genre stays alive and well.
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I spend alot of time on the PlayFirst Forums, and I do alot of reading. I have found that many of the die-hard fans of Flo and the Diner Dash series are getting tired of the same old thing. Innovation is a main stay of the Casual Game Industry.
Actually, I got involved with the series late in the game. I started with Diner Dash Hometown Hero:Gourmet Edition. So the first 3 were very new to me. I love the add-ons that have come to be a staple of my personal games inventory, but I have enjoyed playing the first 3 and watching the characters evolve. Gamelab and PlayFirst opened a whole new avenue to people that didn't enjoy what is showing up in Console gaming. Many have tried to copy but just a few have had success.
Don't get me wrong, I cut my teeth on Atari 2600 and followed the rise and fall and rise again of Nintendo, The innovation of Sony with the Playstation 1, 2 and 3 and the PSP, not to mention DreamCast and XBox, My kids started playing before they were 5 and still play today. But I too became disappointed that all the games seemed to be geared to a younger, more violence oriented gamers. I prefer the tamer atmosphere of the Casual Game World.
Should PlayFirst and Gamelab get back together? I think that that would be a match made in heaven, technology has grown so much in the last few years that a collaberation at this time might be a step in the right direction, who knows what they might come up with as the next great step forward in the world of casual games. They did it once before, maybe now is the time to do it again!
SuzyQ
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Mr. Carella has nailed the nail on the head? Is that how the saying goes? lol
I was on bigfish and saw that yet another Dash game came out and I thought to myself, WHY! WHY! WHY!. They are not offering anything new. Maybe a different location. The only new dash that I kinda liked and was something new was the cooking dash but the other dashes are just duplicates.
I love Flo's character but give us a change of scenery. I like Karma but I can't even play the whole demo of Parking Dash.
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No, they didn't send her to Hawaii, they sent her back in time....sigh
Make it stop...please make it stop!
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I couldn't get at the end of demo for Flo Through time. I was simply bored. I do love time management still, and I come across very good ones except that it becomes increasingly rare. I find this natural course of business. Once people stop playing, the sequels will stop and another brighter one will have sequels.
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Diner Dash games were my favorite, but it does seem like the series is floudering. Cooking Dash was a great change, if a little too easy. Parking Dash was great. Fitness Dash looked OK from the demo, but I haven't played the whole thing & will reserve judgment (better than Fitness Frenzy, though). Fashion Dash was "meh." It's really been hit or miss.
I played the hour demo of Flo Through Time that just came out. It seems like a mess, and nothing new. I realize this and Cake Mania 3 were probably in development at the same time, but it's hard not to compare the themes. (CM3 did it MUCH better.) Again, I haven't played the whole of FTT, so I'll reserve judgment. But what I have played showed zero innovation, laziness in term of "new stuff" (keeping the dinosaur happy in the Caveman Cafe, for instance). It was more challenging to get "expert," but that seemed more due to poor planning of the game to me, than actually being harder. I don't know if that makes sense.
I wish they'd passed on FTT and made Cooking Dash the next level of the Diner Dash games, and expanded on that if they decided to keep the series going. (Maybe we could have played as Cookie on the TV series, or something.)
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mso-bidi-language:#0400;}What I don’t understand is why people still create the “regular”
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Dash games, don’t we have enough of them already? It is just as reality shows on TV, so many of
them and they are all bad, the problem is not how bad the creators/designers
are, but those who makes bad decision at concept meeting (where everyone
present new projects and forecast what will be the next “Big” thing), I know some
of the publisher (most of them) want to keep it safe and some of them just want
to grasp the money to do something else, but as our economy is not too good now,
we all watch how we spend, entertainment is one of the budget that get cut
first, therefore if we as consumer want to spend money on casual games, we want
to make sure the game is worthy to buy, not just some boring games. -
Vinny is actually mistaken. After Diner Dash Gamelab made several more games for Playfirst though none of them were successful like Diner Dash. I can't remember all of them but 2 of them were Plantasia and Egg vs Chicken
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Plantasia is a fantastic game. Good point, adrewlum. Gamelab does have some great "non-Dash" games.
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Say It Aint So, Flo
Report as InappropriatePosted on 11/13/08, 10:41am
Has the Diner Dash series jumped the shark? Gamezebo columnist Vincent Carrella thinks so.
In his latest column, he writes:
GameLab made the game but it took the savvy and vision of PlayFirst to market it and turn it into the hit that it became. It seemed that a perfect combination had formed. A winning team. Smart, capable developer meets smart, capable publisher. It looked like the beginning of a beautiful partnership. But for some reason GameLab and PlayFirst never made another game together again and all the ensuing Diner Dash sequels were all created by developers contracted by PlayFirst. I don't know what happened between PlayFirst and GameLab, but that's not the point. Business is business and all's fair in love and war. The two went their separate ways. PlayFirst took the franchise and ran with it, and over the years they made some pretty good sequels, some of them even great. Wedding Dash, Dairy Dash - I actually loved Sponge Bob Diner Dash. It was a hilarious and perfect marriage of licenses.
But what's happened since is that the goose has run out of golden eggs. The Dash franchise has, well, seen better days.
Click here to read the whole thing, and let us know what you think!
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