Anawiki Blog

Gamezebo has reviewed Runes of Avalon 2. The game earned 4 out of 5 stars, which is pretty cool and not so easy to get these days. Scott really enjoyed the game. Here’s a quick excerpt:

Suffice it to say that fans of the title’s predecessor as well as newcomers alike will appreciate the sudden ability to sling witchcraft as needed to clear a path when stuck, not to mention marvel at the sight of slick special effects like explosions and color-draining swirls activating in dazzling strings of mystical mayhem.

Not only does the title look and sound good (oddly, we even dig the Celtic-flavored musical score), it also plays surprisingly well. Thank polished stage design work that really forces you to take advantage of each new spell presented, as well as solid game balancing that’ll keep you plugging away, try after try, at scenarios you’ll often just barely fail to finish. (Level skip options are further provided to prevent you from hurling the keyboard out of the window.)

Read full review at Gamezebo.

Before I’ll write about Gemsweeper I want to tell you that I was recently playing with ideas for my blog. Pic here, link there. Some brainstorming, some reading here and there. As a result of this you can notice my photo in the blog header (probably 3 years old, but the best one I found on my hard drive). Hope you like it. I’ll be adding other little twists to my blog later to make it even better that it is at the moment.

But let’s get back to the topic… Gemsweeper is very nice game with numbers and gems. It may not look very impresive on screenshots. It may not have impressive download size. But who cares? All I care about is that is really enjoyable game where you have to solve a board described by a series of number. In some ways it is very similar to sudoku, but it is so much better. Puzzles are fun, not too hard, not too easy, with the right difficulty progression. This is one of those games: “just one more level”. Just play it and tell me what do you think about this game.

Download GEMSWEEPER now.

That three games are sooo hooking that it’s really hard to stop playing them. I like to call them adventure games, but they indeed have a lot in common with hidden objects and puzzle games. And I don’t know why, but I am starting to worry about my uncle… almost all these games have something to do with “…your uncle…”.

#3 Dream Chronicles

Imagine waking to find your husband missing and your daughter and the entire town under a sleeping spell. Your surroundings seem strangely surreal and otherworldly and there are puzzles and clues scattered throughout town like breadcrumbs. Find all the clues and you’ll discover what happened to your family and friends, and you’ll learn about your husband’s mysterious past. But, if you are unsuccessful, this strange new world may remain as it is. Then again, what if it is all just a dream?

(OK, I know I said that there’s an uncle in the story, but I am sure there’s one sleeping in the town)

Download Dream Chronicles now

#2 Azada

Trapped in a haunted room by his great-uncle, the adventurous Titus has asked you to help release him from the magical spell. To do this, you must solve the most mysterious puzzles of Azada. Crack the series of puzzles and fill in the missing pages of the enchanted book to free Titus from his prison. With more than 40 unique puzzles, and 5 master level puzzles, you will need to use strategy, think logically and have a keen eye to succeed. Uncover the secret of Azada today!

(When I promise an unlce there must be at least one)

Download Azada now

#1 Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of Spooky Manor

Search a spine-tingling setting for scattered secrets, broken objects, and the key component of a mysterious machine in this innovative and immersive investigation! Hunt the halls of Spooky Manor for broken objects, return the items to their rightful places, and solve a series of puzzles to get to the bottom of this eerie mystery. What is this strange machine and who scattered its pieces? Only those with a keen eye for detail will discover the answers hidden inside Spooky Manor!

(It doesn’t say it, but whose do you think this Spooky Manor is? Of course Mortimer’s uncle!)

Download Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of Spooky Manor now

Great news for all Linux users. Ravi from All about Linux posted great review of Runes of Avalon.

It might be said that there are numerous games of these sort with similar game play. To some extent it is true but if you ask me, what makes a game a success and a joy to play is a combination of factors - them being ease of control, superior graphical effects and an entertaining game play. I found “Runes of Avalon” game to sport all these qualities.

Thanks Ravi!

Chocolate Castle is a small cute game. When I saw the screenshots I thought that it is just yet another retro style game, but I was wrong. Since it’s not even 1MB download I downloaded it and gave it a chance. So let me just say it’s very fun.

Download Chocolate Castle now! It’s available for Windows and Mac OSX.

The object of Chocolate Castle is to eat all of the chocolate in each room. There are four types of chocolate and four types of animals to eat them with. To eat some chocolate, click and drag an animal into it and both of them will disappear.

You can also click and drag chocolate to move it into an empty space. If you put two pieces of the same colour next to each other, they will stick together. You can eat more chocolate with one animal by doing this, but be careful because once they are connected, they can not be separated!

If you make a mistake, you can rewind to any previous move my pressing the UNDO button. Replay moves by clicking REDO, or by pressing Enter.

Here are some other opinions from the web:

• Game of the month [May Edition] - Game Tunnel
• “Deceptively cute. This game doesn’t look like much at first glance, but those fluffy animals and deliciously shiny chocolate morsels conceal a mighty cerebral puzzle experience.”
  - John Bardinelli, Game Tunnel

• “All the elements are in and perfect. There are a small set of different puzzle elements, but each one greatly expands the possibilities, all of which are explored over the course of 120 levels.”
  - Mike Hommel

• “It’s such a delightfully simple concept that can lead to some extremely fiendish puzzle play and if you’re a puzzle game fan I suspect this should be in your “must-have” collection. Apart from the huge number of puzzles it appears to come with there is also a level editor which should extend its play life too.”
  - Caspian Prince, Game Tunnel

• “Seriously, don’t let the small install size trick you into thinking this game isn’t big on gameplay, because it is.”
  - William Usher, Game Tunnel

The name suggest it all. Jig Art Quest is a jig saw puzzle game. And to be honest with you I am not a huge fun of jig saw games… with exception to this one.

Why? The answer is not so simple.

Jig Art Quest is build around art. Art plays major role in this game and you can see that from the very beginning. Your quest is divided into 6 different themes such as Forest, Water, Snow, Art, Science. Each theme contains 3 unique images. That gives you a total of 18 images (+2 final images). You can play on 3 difficulty settings: easy, normal and hard. You can also enable piece rotation so it makes each setting even tougher. I prefer to play at normal difficulty without piece rotation. I can’t imagine anyone solving the puzzles on highest diffulty setting (700+ pieces).

To help you start you can uncover 8 pieces and one row. This is very nice option. It helps if you don’t place all pieces on the board and try to place them one by one (it’s easier to match).

As I mentioned, I found Jig Art Quest very entertaining. Very nice art and well set difficulty is what I like.

I’ve got only two complains. First of all - quest. There’s no quest, but name suggests that there is one. Then there are only 20 pictures (though each one is of great quality)… if that’s not enough for you, feel free to make your own custom puzzles.

Download Jig Art Quest now!

Runes of Avalon received two more reviews. At Casual Explosion it earned ultra recommended rank with highest score of 9.4 out of 10 (for explosion) and average score of 8.5.

Killer Betties awarded us with 4 stars out of 5. Thanks Jason. I’ll quote just one sentence from his review: Runes of Avalon has taken the “match three” concept and spun it in a way that makes it seem both unique and fresh.

Along with review at Casual Review it looks like we’re having very good average

If you have a blog and would like to review Runes of Avalon make sure to contact me. Spread the news. This game deserves it!

Sponsored Post:

I was asked to review Gammon Empire. They state that they offer the internet most exciting backgammon game on the internet. To be honest with you - I have never played backgammon before - so I was excited to try this one.

If you’ve never played back gammon before you should checkout article section at Gammon Empire. They cover the basics of gammon pretty well.

You can play backgammon for real money and for fun with thousands of players from all around the world. Gammon Empire was launched on Dec 2004 and so far has more than 1.7M sign ups. Gammon Empire allows you to play backgammon on the internet with players of all skills and improve your backgammon skills. They offer monthly tournaments with up to $100,000 in prizes, as well as hourly and daily backgammon tournament for money.

You can play backgammon in two ways - by downloading standalone application (available for PC, Mac and Linux) and in the browser. To play it in the browser you need Java Virtual Machine installed. Because I dislike installing any software on my PC I decided to play it in the browser.

While I don’t like to play for real money I was very glad to see that you can play just for fun. Playing for fun is most probably your best choice until you become expert in backgammon.

Before you start playing you need to create an account. Gammon Empire cares about your security and does not allow you to choose too simple password or login. It can be irritating if all you want is just a quick play, but when it comes to money it’s definitely a plus for them.

My first approach to creating an account was a failure. I was not able to create an account due system maintenance. While players from US probably wouldn’t notice it, European players most probably would (night maintenance is common in most countries but time zones make it hard in global world).

Second approach (next day) wasn’t successful either. I entered login and password and clicked sign-up and waited for 2 minutes without a sign from the site that there is something going on.

That’s it folks. I had just 48h to write this review so I could not test it comprehensively. Due to issues with creating account I was not able to play, so I can’t say how well the site is doing at this. As soon as I’ll be able to create one I’ll update my review.

Recently we received two similar games (gameplay): Luxor 2 and Atlantis Sky Patrol (pc download). Both hitted top10 charts on many sites. Both are great games. Luxor has better roots, you can say it’s a classic game. Sequel is very?polished, has great art, but… somehow it’s not as fun as Atlantis is to me (of course ASP is very polished too). It’s hard to define, but Atlantis seems to be more consistent in presented theme. I am really irritated by the bug that pushes balls in Luxor. It doesn’t suit that game.

Power-ups are so hard to catch in Luxor (and are hardly visible). It often irritates me when I get them (and miss another time). That doesn’t happen in Atlantis - all power-ups are well designed and visible. And their not that hard to catch. This is very important - you want to blast that balls, not to be irritated by missed bonuses.

Luxor 2 has a nice feature, very unique in casual games, resolution selection/ You can choose resolution you want to play with, so you’re not forced to play in 800×600 mode. That’s very important for all LCD monitor users. Still, some graphics are strechted, but game overall looks much better.

To sum it up: try both games, their great, but my vote goes to Atlantis.

Please read Atlantis Sky Patrol review here.

Atlantis Sky Patrol: PC Download
Luxor 2: download not available yet
Luxor: PC Download
Luxor - Amun Rising: PC Download