Good afternoon world!
I published yesterday's blog entry mistakenly calling it Thursday. Goes to show how well I cope with upcoming exams, eh? xD Beyond that, there's some awesome stuff in this update, so keep reading!
First things first, Big Fish Games is currently having their Spring Fever sale! If you buy one game, get the second FREE! Now, how awesome is that? How it works in a nutshell: you add two or more games to your cart, and when you get to the checkout, make sure you find the little spot that says 'Have a coupon code?' In there, type in TULIP, and every second game will snow up as $0.00. Click 'Checkout', and you're set! Unfortunately, it doesn't include Collector's Editions, but it's still worth checking out. It's also a fantastic way to fill up a punch card.
Oh, speaking of, let me explain the BFG Punch Card system a bit while I'm here. Basically, over the course of a calendar month, you can fill up a Punch Card as many times as you want. There are six punches until you get a free game. Basic or 'Deluxe' games (I'll learn more about Deluxe games later so I can explain them for those interested,) are a single punch on the Punch Card. Collector's Edition games are twice the price of basic or standard games, but give you THREE punches per purchase.
What does that mean exactly? Well, you can fill up your punch card by buying six standard games, either at full price or through Catch of the Week/Daily Deal, OR you can purchase TWO Collector's Editions, which is the price of four standard games at regular price, and get your punch card filled up. This is assuming there are no sales or promos going on; if there's a sale or promo, punch cards can be filled quicker. One day I'll weigh in on the differences between Collector's Editions and standard games, and whether or not they're worth it.
In the meantime, Games!
(For the record, all images for game titles are clickable. Try it!)
So, today's Daily Deal is HappyVille: Quest for Utopia. It's a cute little village sim game, where you build a town, grow it, etc. If you play CityVille on facebook, you'll know EXACTLY what this is like. The gameplay is very casual, and the only discernible plot is that you're the mayor of this brand new town, having been recruited in a newspaper advert. Pretty cute. Graphics are simple and cartoon-y, and gameplay is simple. One thing I had trouble with was during any Build phases; if I clicked to drag the terrain like I do in most other sim games, I suddenly found my object I was building placed and being constructed. So just remember that if you want to build something but not on where you're seeing the map, bring your cursor to the edge of the visible area and the map will move for you.
It's definitely good for the casual gamer, I'm still not sure yet if I'll buy it, but I'm definitely taking advantage of the sale today, so chances are that I will. It's very easy to move away from, so if you find yourself with about 5 minutes of free time and you just want to build a bit of your town, this game's perfect. Not good for in-depth or long play gamers though, unless you're REALLY into sim games.
I'm thinking after this week I'll start using a star or some other scale system, to give a bit of a graphical perspective on the games I play.
Today's personal feature is Gemini Lost, an adorable strategy/sim game that I bought as a Daily Deal but was surprised to actually love when I played it.
The story unfolds when a group of people are walking down a path, and stumble upon some weird natural phenomenon. They move closer to it, thinking it's an eclipse or something, but suddenly find themselves on a portal that's acting up. They're transported to another world, and the transport portal they came through is missing its horoscope emblems. The objective then becomes to survive in this new world and get the portal running again so that they can go home.
The game is centred around horoscopes (in case anyone hadn't noticed), which does play an important role in the game, because your little group of people has to grow into a small society in order to survive and find all the horoscope emblems. Horoscopes determine who can get married, but I think that's where the dependence ends. There are four different career types: Worker, Builder, Farmer, Scientist. Of these, each person has a favourite, and that favourite lets them do that particular work faster. As time goes on, you can make potions to alter someone's favourite work, which is useful if you're short on a particular career. Children don't do any of the four career types, but I send them to the school once it's built to make them super efficient once they're grown up. People are born, grow up and pass away, as your little society unfolds while you're searching for the pieces of the portal.
The only thing that annoyed me about this game was every time someone died, because the end result was a little tombstone. After a number of hours, you're stuck with a whole lot of them and there's little space to actually make an organised cemetery to remember everyone. But, you can just stack them on top of one another, which is what I ended up doing.
After the initial cutscene at the beginning, there isn't much mention of story until the end. The gameplay is engaging enough that I found myself sitting and playing for a decent bit of time, so I'd probably put that in the moderate casual area. The graphics are adorable, with a decent focus on detail and the colours are nice and vibrant, which I enjoy.
Well, I think that's all for now, so I'll see you lot tomorrow!
~Dexie
(4 Elements). You click one piece and drag to complete chains of 3 or more and get the play field clear. There's really no difinitive plot, you just advance through the levels building up the various environments and create a Persian empire.
