Gotcha: Celebrity Secrets

PlayFirst, creators of the popular Diner Dash series of games, announced Gotcha: Celebrity Secrets, a modern take on the hidden object genre of games, set in the world of celebrity scandal. I’m guessing Tiger Woods probably won’t be interested in this game.. or his mistress.. or his wife.. or his other mistress.. Launching December 15, 2009 on Playfirst, and other retailers beginning January 15, 2010, Gotcha: Celebrity Secrets for Mac and PC will be available as a digital download, priced at $19.95.

Gotcha puts you in the shoes of Gaby, a newbie celebrity blogger on a mission to uncover the juiciest gossip and get his blog more hits. But instead of searching for objects, players are charged with searching for people at numerous hot spots throughout Hollywood in search of scoops.

She’ll have to sift through the crowds at events, look for special informants who may have news, visit parties and red carpet galas. Players need to scour over 40 crowded scenes throughout town and unique challenges as they hunt for gossip, such as maneuvering past security guards, moving limos and disposing of crowd-clogging confetti. And of course, players will need to contend with camera-shy personas who don’t want Gaby digging up their secrets. A collection of all-new mini-games challenge players piece together clues from informants, leading to tawdry stories about the mover and shakers in Hollywood.

By James Fudge

Crispy Gamer

Hotel Dash: Suite Success

Flo’s friend Quinn is back and getting the can-do waitress into more sticky situations. Quinn’s wedding planning venture has become a success, leading her into a profitable side business of organizing honeymoons and other vacation getaways for DinerTown residents. The only problem is that every place she tends to send clients… turns out to be a total dump! Now she needs Flo’s help to rebuild five classic hotels, each in only ten days. Because in ten days her clients arrive and she can’t afford for them to be disappointed.

Flo’s too busy to even take off her apron, but she agrees to help her red-headed friend. In Hotel Dash: Suite Success, from Playfirst, Flo acts as bellboy and maid in five different hotels, each with ten fast-paced levels. This hotel time management game plays very much like a typical Diner Dash game.

Guests arrive in the lobby, where Quinn checks them in. Your job is to drag them into a room. Large groups of guests require larger rooms, while groups of one or two people can be placed in smaller rooms. Each group is a different primary color, and each room is also a primary color (based on the last group to occupy it). If you can match guests to a room that corresponds to their color, you’ll get a small score bonus. As you progress through the level, restoring the hotel, new rooms and hotel features become available.

Guests immediately need their luggage taken to their room. When they check out, they leave a garbage bag of dirty laundry at the door to be washed. (And presumably sent to their home? I’m not sure how this works. The check-out process is a bit odd in Dinertown. Guests pay at their room door instead of going back down to Quinn at the front desk.) Flo must cart guests’ luggage up to their room, settle their bill when they’re ready to check out, and take care of all their needs in between: room service, towels for the pool, mopping up the water guests constantly spill into the hallway, feeding their noisy dogs, taking their snapshots, waking them when they sleepwalk, and more.

As in all time management games, everything is accomplished by clicking. You can chain together as many commands as you want. Click on the luggage in the hallway, the room it needs to go to, a bag of laundry in the door of another room, etc., and Flo will move to each place in turn. However if you goof up and tell her to go to the wrong place (for example, sending a suitcase to the wrong room), you’ll have to restart the chain. The more like actions you accomplish in a single chain, the more bonus points you receive.

There’s no day and night cycle; guests arrive and leave at their whim.

Groups of guests arrive with five hearts floating above their heads. These hearts represent their satisfaction with their hotel stay. Keep them waiting for too long and their hearts will decrease… if they decrease completely, the guest will become angry and leave! The happier the guest, the bigger the tip. Some guests are more impatient than others. Luckily Flo can bring ice to any room to improve the guests’ spirits. What do they do with the ice? Beats me, but they jump for joy when it arrives.

Each hotel has a special suite that Flo and Quinn must decorate before ten days are up and Quinn’s charges arrive. These suites are upgraded by spending Star Bills to purchase extravagances to make the suite look nicer. For example, a floor lamp costs 25 Star Bills. Yes, I know that’s expensive! When I was a kid a floor lamp would have to speak seven different languages if someone expected my parents to pay more than, say, twenty Star Bills for it! You earn Star Bills by upgrading the regular rooms in the hotel: every room you purchase a star upgrade for earns Star Bills when guests stay in it.

Hotel Dash: Suite Success game also offers a regular score, based on how many guests you put up, your color-matching bonuses, whether anyone left in anger, bonuses for fast service, and tips based on the customer’s experience. This score acts as your cash fund from which you purchase cosmetic upgrades for the hotel. You can make the elevators faster, get a cart for Flo so she can carry more things at once, put flowers and artwork in the hallways, buy better mops and ice machines, etc.

I’m afraid I wasn’t too impressed with the graphics… it’s been years but we’re still serving the same smirking teen girl customers as in previous games. That didn’t bother me too much, because there are many different customer types included, from ghosts to celebrities to loud-mouthed cell phone talkers to sports fanatics. However the jerky/stuttering way Flo and guests climb in and out of the hotel elevators did annoy me. There’s nothing smooth about it, and as everyone is constantly riding the elevators, it’s something Playfirst shouldn’t have cut corners on.

Review by Uesugi

CasualExplosion

Delicious: Emily’s Holiday Season

Can you believe that some malls in my area are already starting to play Christmas music? And I hear radio DJs announcing that their station is Ohio’s number one Christmas music station. I liked it better in Japan where I’d be walking through a department store and the speakers would be playing profanity-laced gangsta rap. (Because little old Japanese ladies doing their midday shopping can’t understand English.)

Gamehouse has also jumped headfirst into an early Christmas with Delicious: Emily’s Holiday Season, a time management game that takes place in a festive winter wonderland. Emily has arrived at the Snuggford Hotel, a mountaintop ski lodge and resort, in preparation for a family holiday celebration. The lodge is in a terrible state, and before Emily can even introduce herself she’s been hired by the new owner, Richard, and tasked with whipping the place into shape. Fellow employee Paul offers plenty of help, and of course Emily’s pal Francois is along for the ride and absolutely no help whatsoever… as usual.

It’s a holiday romance on the ski slopes!

I have to say, I didn’t start out as a big fan of the Delicious series, but somewhere along the way I’ve been converted. The attention to story detail in the last few titles, Emily’s Holiday Season game included, is extremely polished. I’ve yet to see more consistent and better-presented time management games then the last few Delicious releases. Good show, Gamehouse!

As usual, guests enter the lodge dining room and, after thinking for a few seconds, order a meal. Some sit at tables with their friends, and others head directly to the counter for a takeout meal. Either way, their orders appear as icons inside the word balloons floating over their heads. Your job is to tell Emily which foods to grab (preparing them if needed) for her tray, who to bring them to, when to go to the cash register to settle a customer’s bill, and which tables to bus, if necessary. It sounds easy, but as more and more guests begin arriving at once, as background tasks like cleaning, accepting mail deliveries, preparing for special events, or just plain stirring the cranberry sauce so it doesn’t bubble over the sides of its pot, etc. take up more of Emily’s time, and as more complex food begins to appear on the menu… let’s just say that things get quite hectic indeed!

It all comes down to how quickly – and how precisely – you can operate a mouse.

The longer guests are kept waiting, no matter what the reason, the unhappier they become. When they begin to become red in the face, you’re in trouble! Only happy customers tip well, and the sum total of the restaurant’s profits act as your score at the end of each day. In each of these levels you have a target score to reach. If you can’t match it, you’ll have to repeat the day. If you do exceedingly well during a day, you’ll receive an expert rating. As the game began, I was busting out expert scores left and right. But as things got more complex and Emily’s friends and family began filling up the dining room – and bickering like any crazy family at a holiday get together! – I rapidly realized I wasn’t quite the time management game champion I secretly always thought I was…

(Three levels of difficulty are available, so younger children or slowpokes like myself can play on the easiest setting, while adepts and the cognoscente can knock themselves out with the fiendishly demanding most difficult setting.)

There are always plenty of things to click on in the Delicious world, and the Snuggford Hotel is no exception. No two days offer the same fun distractions. Even “normal” days have extras going on: A cute Christmas mouse often pops up, and is worth an extra 100 points if you can locate him after hearing his announcing squeak. More Gamehouse items are up for grabs – basically, if something looks like it’s out of place in the lodge, click on it! There are trophies to be won (for example, you receive a trophy for getting three payment combos in a row) and of course Francois’ catalog of restaurant goodies to look through. Upgrading the lodge with Christmas furnishings is absolutely necessary to meet the mounting challenge of later levels!

With plenty of cute characters (basically everyone from the past Delicious games makes an appearance), a romantic storyline, and lots of time management challenges that will keep you replaying levels trying to get that elusive expert score… do you chance waiting just a few seconds longer to settle a customer’s bill in hopes of getting a payment combo with another customer who has almost finished his meal?… Delicious: Emily’s Holiday Season is one time management game and Christmas game I highly recommend.

Review by Uesugi

Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal

Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal is an upcoming hidden object game from PlayFirst and GameBrains set in the 1920s, where you play as Valerie Porter, a young aspiring reporter looking for her first big scoop.

Valerie finds her big break when she stumbles on a scandalous celebrity murder that has been pinned on an innocent man. She must search for hidden clues, locate missing objects, and uncover enough evidence to solve the crime so that the innocent man can go free.

The game will feature 21 locations to explore across 11 chapters, and 3 types of hidden object searches: traditional, by category, and by description; as well as 8 mini-games.

Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal game has been launched today.

Gemini Lost

Gemini Lost game is a casual village simulation that works to bridge the gap between titles like Virtual Villagers and Sprouts Adventure. During an eclipse, a group of people stumble onto an ancient relic with twelve zodiac symbols on its face. Upon touching one of the tiles, they were transported to a strange new world. Now, the twelve symbols are scattered throughout the land, and it’s your job to manage the small tribe so they can assemble the pieces and return home!

Just like any casual sim title, you’ll need to manage each villager and set him or her to work harvesting materials, building structures, researching scientific advancements, and so on. This not only maintains your tribe, it allows them to grow both in number and in intellect, opening up new paths for you to explore and allowing you to develop the tools needed to retrieve the zodiac tiles.

First on the list: food. Everybody’s gotta eat, right? Since there doesn’t seem to be a McDonald’s in sight (if you can call that food), you’ll need to work the garden. Drag and drop villagers onto locations and they’ll automatically start working. Each character has a favorite activity (building, farming, science, etc.), and they’ll be thrilled if you assign them a task they already enjoy. So thrilled, in fact, they’ll work faster, which is a huge bonus when your population is low and resources spread thin.

After your food supply is secure, it’s time to harvest wood and stone, both useful for building structures. The science hut and chapel, used for researching new technology and marrying couples (first comes love, then marriage, then a population-expanding baby carriage!) respectively, also need to be completed.

Once the basics are taken care of, Gemini Lost opens up its world for you to explore. Look around the map for anything that looks slightly out of place. Then, drop a villager there and see what you need to research in order to solve the mystery. Scientific advancements will eventually allow you to build more things, accomplish bigger tasks, research complex tools, and even mix potions that have a variety of game-altering effects.

Analysis: Gemini Lost is one part village sim, two parts exploration. It takes some of my favorite aspects from Virtual Villagers and Sprouts Adventure and creates a game that’s both relaxing and intriguing at the same time. Want to see what the deal with that rock island is? Try building a raft. Those bees looking interesting? Drop someone there, see what’s going on. Your only real limitation is time, as you often have to wait for certain technologies to become available before accessing a new area. Otherwise, the land is yours to roam.

Gemini Lost has a number of player-friendly features that take some of the work out of playing. For starters, the game takes place in real-time, meaning your villagers are hard at work even while you’re away. Each time you quit the game, a small menu pops up asking what speed you want things to continue while you’re gone. If you aren’t planning to play for a few days, set things to “slow” so you don’t come back to a village of skeletons.

Navigating through your villagers is a bit tedious, as the only method of quick selection involves scrolling through a list of people one by one. Fortunately, these people tend to take care of themselves and stay pretty busy, so you won’t have to do too much babysitting to make sure work gets done.

A pleasantly stunning entry into the casual simulation genre, Gemini Lost is the most player-friendly village management game around.

Review from CasualGameplay

Trapped: The Kidnapping

The thought of being kidnapped or trapped without escape is a viable fear for most people. In the latest title from Gogii Games, you’ll play the role of victim Helene as she tries to find a way of escape before her killer closes in on her. But making a casual horror game is notoriously tricky business. Does Trapped: The Kidnapping have the makings of a truly great and scary game?

The game begins without much elaboration on what’s going on. All you know is that the main character, Helene, has been kidnapped and taken to a strange warehouse-like location. Her kidnapper, a man cloaked in a dark hooded sweater with a deep and distorted voice, has set up cameras all around the location, asking Helene if she’d like to play a game: a game of survival. Helene must not only try to escape, but recover her memory, identity, and evidence along the way before time runs out.

Trapped is your run of the mill hidden object game. In each area you must find a list of objects before “replaying” the same area (after a message from the kidnapper), only actually finding useful items to progress to the next room.  Most all the objects you’ll be picking up have very little if any significance, with Helene often asking herself why she’s doing this and the kidnapper thanking her for picking up after him. The whole vibe of this makes the game very peculiar, and instead of worrying about the prospect of being killed or not escaping, you’ll more likely be wondering what the point is to begin with.

In the secondary puzzles, you can toggle the mouse over various objects to make a “?”appear over things you can interact with or find pieces to. A hint system is present to aid you in finding these areas and objects, but isn’t always as specific as you need it to be. Hints are unlimited but take a short while before they can be used again.

There is an inventory present in the game that allows you to stash items for later use. However, you won’t be using these inventory items regularly: instead you will only use a handful in a single room at the very end of the game.

The main appeal of Trapped game for most people will be the promise of scary gameplay, but unfortunately what could have been a very frightening gaming experience really isn’t. The premise is similar to the Saw movies, minus the gore. The kidnapper will come on the loudspeaker and taunt you very often, however I can’t tell you how many times the kidnapper will repeat himself. This is one of the very things that makes the gameplay drag on and makes it hard to take the kidnapper seriously. `In addition to that, some of his comments are so off the wall strange, such as being unable to resist taking Helene’s shoes, you’ll just sit there and wonder “…Huh?”

But surely if you discount that, the game is still scary, right? Well, no, not really. The soundtrack consists of one tune repeating over and over again, and the environments, while they are all different, still don’t boast much variation. There aren’t even rats, birds, or spiders that scurry or flutter around to give a quick and easy scare. The only thing you will encounter on less than a handful of occasions is a mannequin falling out of a closet or locker with a scream.

Many of the game’s puzzles and areas just seem absurd, like having to reassemble and dress up a mannequin (male in female attire) and adding lipstick to it, or wash the clothes of the kidnapper in a coin-slot laundry room. It feels like filler. Furthermore the areas seem repetitive, since for example, in every area the door knob is missing and you’ll have to find it. The fact that the killer repeats himself so often really makes him much more annoying than threatening, to the point where whenever he talks you really start to tune him out. The game also ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, so story-wise, it’s not satisfying.

Overall, Trapped: The Kidnapping really doesn’t offer the horrifying experience the title suggests. The hidden objects aren’t even that hard to find. With quirky items and tasks littering every scene and failed attempts at increasing the drama, you’d be better off investing in another title for your Halloween scares.

Review by Tawny Mueller

Sally’s Quick Clips

Enjoy the latest installment of the Sally’s Saloon games series Sally’s Quick Clips. Grab the keys to success today as you play as Sally, the famous esthetician. Walk through various saloons and fulfill the clients’ requests in this encyclopedia of perfect look Sally’s Quick Clips game!
Sally’s Quick Clips is a nice blend of puzzle and time management games. Match scissors, dyers, hair dye, and various accessories to make your customers happy. Visit local shops and buy useful upgrades to make Sally’s job easier and more efficient. Compete with Sally’s friends in amazing mini-games and win trophies.

While reflecting on her years of success, Sally’s mind drifts back to her humble beginnings when, fresh out of beauty school, she was on the hit TV Show “Styling America” with a chance to win $100,000! Arrange scissors, dryers, hair color and more into matching groups of three or more to gather resources for the special services you’ll provide to your choosy clients. Match your customers’ tastes and make them look sharp. With your help, Sally might win this dazzling TV competition!

Featuring polished graphics, pleasant music and addictive game play Quick Clips is a nice game for the whole family. It is time to begin. It is time for Sallys Quick Clips game!

Avenue Flo

Avenue Flo is a point and click adventure game that has you saving the day as Diner Dash’s Flo. Miss Big’s wedding is right around the corner, and Wedding Dash planner Quinn desperately needs Flo’s help. The cake is green, the flowers are dead, the dress isn’t ready, and the decorations are falling apart. To make things worse, a pair of $50,000 wedding rings are missing. Eager to help out her roomate, Flo dashes around town, finding the items needed to set things right again.

Flo is still really cool, even if she’s not waiting tables. I had my reservations, since a lot of cross-genre games fall flat. No fear, gamers – this is a great adventure, especially if you want a game that isn’t a dark mystery like so many others. Your first task involves finding a mop to clean up a coffee spill, and then rummaging through Flo’s purse to find her ringing cellphone. The environments are interactive, so you can open drawers, talk to people, and pick up things in the usual adventure game style.

The voice acting is a lot of fun, and there’s even a country-style theme song. The graphics in the original Diner Dash have been called some of the ugliest in gaming, but thankfully you’ll see huge improvements in the more recent Dash games. Avenue Flo manages to keep the same look and feel, while looking a lot more polished and certainly not ugly. Everything is hand drawn in cartoon style, with great animations. You also get plenty of cameos from previous customers and Dash stars, which is fun if you love these games and know them very well.

There are more than a few hidden object sections, which might have you finding all the beads in a specific room, or all the butterflies in each scene. As you play, you’ll also encounter other minigames which can’t be skipped. These are untimed, so there’s no pressure, and they aren’t too rough. For example, one game has you completing bead patterns, and another has you sorting clothes by color. If you need help, there’s a full walkthrough available on the Big Fish Games blog. Most tasks are intuitive, though, so you shouldn’t need much help.

If you like adventure games, or are just a fan of Flo, you will enjoy the light-hearted game play in Avenue Flo. It’s one of those relaxing games that’s a good way to pass a lazy afternoon.

Review by Neroli, Xomba

Tourist Trap: Build the Nation’s Greatest Vacations

Tourist Trap is the latest town building sim game on the market, and it has you building a small American town into a hot tourist spot. With business closing left and right, the city of Kitschville has found itself 1 million dollars in debt. As a last ditch effort, the City Council decides to try and market Kitschiville as the #1 tourist destination in the country…but how?

At the city council meeting, you can ask residents what they think. These are some eclectic characters, including a biker, a mechanic, a soccer mom, a scientist, a punk, and a real estate agent. Clicking on one will suggest a new business for you to try, which can really help to develop the town.

As you play, you need to build amenities like gas stations, hotels, and restaurants to increase the number of tourists your town can handle. You’ll also need lots of special attractions to build money and tourist traffic. Just like in real life, different attractions will draw a different crowd. There are families, students, seniors, professionals, and truckers, all of which like different things.

Of course, you need to ensure that there’s enough roads to connect everything, and that the property is attractive. Adding plants can increase the property value. You can also repair or mothball buildings, destroying and upgrading different structures as the town develops.

What I don’t like is that you aren’t given a lot of freedom to select the structures you have to build, at least not to start. You can only build what’s in your cue, limiting the strategy you can form. Still, I love the idea of asking residents for their advice, and it’s neat that you need to consider the different types of tourists you want to attract.

Tourist Trap does add a few new twists to the building genre, and the production values are good, but I would have likes more Sim City style flexibility straight from the beginning. It’s a tough call!

Review by Neroli

Party Planner

Pepper has the rare chance to combine two very pleasant opportunities by moving to Bashville. She is able to reconnect with her three childhood friends, and, with their support, finally launch her party-planning business. And this is exactly what Party Planner, the new release by developer GamesCafe who already brought you the Sally series (Sally’s Salon, Sally’s Spa), is about: hosting fantabulous parties.

Party Planner only features one mode, the main campaign which consists of 15 locations with 5 levels each, all in all providing 75 levels, which is certainly a lot considering the average length of other time management titles. Unfortunately, players won’t find either an endless mode or an untimed option for the campaign, which will probably limit the audience and discourage people who normally dislike fast-paced games.

People who are familiar with titles like Party Down or the Wedding Dash series will quickly feel comfortable with Party Planner, which is based on a similar concept with some interesting twists. At the beginning of each party the host will tell you his preferences concerning food, drinks, activities, music and presents. In a memory-like game you then have to choose the right items according to the host’s wishes.

During each level your only task is to fulfill requests by guests, for example orders for specific meals or drinks, which you then have to drag from the bar onto the guest, or dragging the guests themselves on the dance-floor, if they feel like dancing. Food and drinks have to be refilled, which can be done by hovering over the cook or the bartender, and clicking on the meal or drink you want to have prepared. What slightly complicates the game are the different spots on which the guests stand. On green and blue spots guests are able to eat and drink, while the connected green spots also enable two guests to chat with each other. On purple spots they can dance, but neither drink, nor eat. Even more problematic is that you cannot swap guests, like in Megaplex Madness, which uses comparable game mechanics.

In each level you earn both hearts and money by fulfilling the guest’s requests, with the ability to increase your income by chaining the same actions. The amount of money has no influence on whether you reach normal, expert, or epic goal, but it can be used to upgrade your staff or to purchase very helpful items (actually too helpful, but I will come back to that later on). Against this, hearts are in no way connected to buying upgrades, but are solely important for how your performance in any level is rated.

The variety of upgrades is not exactly great, but still interesting, and ranges from quicker cooks and bartenders to designer water that improves the mood of your guests, and Fireworks or Confetti, which help you to easily earn additional hearts. The fact that you will earn a lot of money early on, therefore being able to buy as many upgrades as you prefer, is the game’s major flaw. It is much too easy, even for newcomers to the genre. It is even possible to not lose any guest during the whole campaign, and easily breeze through reaching the epic goal in every level at first try.

As a result, you will have seen every upgrade and every feature of Party Planner game rather quickly. After the fifth party or so, no new challenges or surprises uphold the interest of the player. This results – especially considering how easy the game is – in a rather dull and repetitive gaming experience. This is really a shame, because in the beginning Party Planner is as engaging and interesting as a game in this genre can be. On top of that the different types of guests, who are drawn in a screamingly funny way, behave absolutely similar, which is not exactly lowering the repetitive feeling.

But the game still is definitely worth a try for everyone who has a preference for time management titles, simply because the positive aspects of Party Planner slightly outshine the negative ones. Even if is much weaker than comparable games like Wedding Dash or Party Down, it is still a nice distraction and not the hundredth version of any cooking- or fashion-game.

Review by David Becker