kandinsky's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:4
- Helpful Votes:3,130
- Reviews Submitted:100
- First Review:November 26, 2014
- Most Recent Review:September 9, 2024
- Featured reviews0
Status:
Unravel the secrets of Cliffmont Castle in this enchanted match-3 journey! Explore vast levels, collect precious treasures and build majestic castles.
Overall rating
1
/
5
15 of 16 found this review helpful
DOUBLE DIPPING
PostedJune 7, 2019
Fun Factor
1
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
1
/
5
Level of Challenge
1
/
5
Storyline
1
/
5
As other reviewers have said this is basically the same game as Matchventures1 which was an enjoyable and sort of original match 3 game. I suspect that it may well go beyond "basically" to include using the same layouts ---order rearranged? In any case I remember the same sort of problems to work through and the same level of difficulty. and what is really lazy on the developer's part the same symbols used and the same dungeon pictures and ,what surely could have been dispensed with, the same leprechaun as a sort of running comic relief that got old immediately in the first game. IT IS THE SAME GAME. I am not letting it off the hook at all and giving it the zero grade deserved for this sort of double dipping. I know another match three developer who repeated the patterns but at least made a change in the symbols and in the power-ups. This degree of treating us like fools is not acceptable or anyway not to this reviewer.
I don't recommend this game.
The Abomination threatens to erase all worlds from existence!
Overall rating
5
/
5
24 of 36 found this review helpful
FISHERMAN
PostedMarch 2, 2019
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Match 3, Puzzle
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
A writer's sense of inspiration can flag and so can a game developer's and so can a player's. The new Nevertales which I just played starts from the failure of a writer's sense of being in touch with his muse,his inspiration. Is it the work also of a developer, MadHead which also is repeating itself a little? or is the game's inspiration fresh? and what about the player?
Late in the game the ,to me, most interesting character appears who is the fisherman. He says several things. Who is he? does it all hold together? well not simple questions I think. but first meet him maybe and he said
"It's the journey that counts."
and again
"it's the journey that makes the person."
If that interests you (as HOPA games go it seems pretty deep to me. look up and compare C.P.Cavafy poem "Ithaca".
Anyway if that interests you then make this journey!
Late in the game the ,to me, most interesting character appears who is the fisherman. He says several things. Who is he? does it all hold together? well not simple questions I think. but first meet him maybe and he said
"It's the journey that counts."
and again
"it's the journey that makes the person."
If that interests you (as HOPA games go it seems pretty deep to me. look up and compare C.P.Cavafy poem "Ithaca".
Anyway if that interests you then make this journey!
I recommend this game!
Mother Goose has gone missing, and Christmas is in danger!
Overall rating
5
/
5
13 of 19 found this review helpful
A FANTASY THAT MAKES CHRISTMAS REAL
PostedDecember 19, 2018
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Match 3, Puzzle
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
After a little play I asked myself why am I spending my time with this? If I write a review I will be "that guy" because this just seems another projection of some crude tyranny into a faerie world and do I need that? I am a little burned out on the games in general I suppose but...
As I played on I felt two things first that the bright reality of the faerie characters, Humpty Dumpty ,three blind mice, Old McGregor and so on was something special and the villainy of King Cole somehow softened to a temporary clumsiness in the dance of his life, and the whole to me progressively charming and irresistible.
Secondly the problem of Christmas games is, well, Christmas isn't it? that Christmas has a sacred core to which people relate in diverse ways. The Mother Goose world has its own relation to Christmas being a world of secondary creations of Mother Goose who at the end sends the player back to our world for our own Christmas. It seems a perfect way of balancing the full reality of Christmas with the carefulness of not imposing the sacred.
Play the game, maybe even if tired of the games, and likely you will treasure it by the end.
As I played on I felt two things first that the bright reality of the faerie characters, Humpty Dumpty ,three blind mice, Old McGregor and so on was something special and the villainy of King Cole somehow softened to a temporary clumsiness in the dance of his life, and the whole to me progressively charming and irresistible.
Secondly the problem of Christmas games is, well, Christmas isn't it? that Christmas has a sacred core to which people relate in diverse ways. The Mother Goose world has its own relation to Christmas being a world of secondary creations of Mother Goose who at the end sends the player back to our world for our own Christmas. It seems a perfect way of balancing the full reality of Christmas with the carefulness of not imposing the sacred.
Play the game, maybe even if tired of the games, and likely you will treasure it by the end.
I recommend this game!
Can you stop a crazed kidnapper in time?
Overall rating
1
/
5
21 of 36 found this review helpful
Is it good to be "sensitive"?
PostedOctober 6, 2018
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Match 3, Puzzle
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
1
/
5
I dont play as many games as I did for a while. Or feel an urge to review ones I do play. Multiple reasons probably but anyway I played this one through including bonus. It has features of interest and of quality in production. Of course in detail the plot etc would be possible only in HOPA world but one suspends disbelief.
as so often reading the reviews I can see sense in all of them and they can all reflect players' experience.
At the beginning it suggests the game may be too troubling for the very young or for the "sensitive"?
The number of deaths and the grisly mode of deaths is on scale of the old Paris Grand Guignol or of a row of Stephen King novels compressed into one. The suggested suffering is appalling... but perhaps to feel that is a degree of "sensitivity" of the sort not making for an ideal player of this game.
Know yourself as the philosophers say. and decide. for me the answer is that I cannot recommend this game as being good experience and material to add to memory and imagination. an emphatic thumbs down here.
as so often reading the reviews I can see sense in all of them and they can all reflect players' experience.
At the beginning it suggests the game may be too troubling for the very young or for the "sensitive"?
The number of deaths and the grisly mode of deaths is on scale of the old Paris Grand Guignol or of a row of Stephen King novels compressed into one. The suggested suffering is appalling... but perhaps to feel that is a degree of "sensitivity" of the sort not making for an ideal player of this game.
Know yourself as the philosophers say. and decide. for me the answer is that I cannot recommend this game as being good experience and material to add to memory and imagination. an emphatic thumbs down here.
I don't recommend this game.
Help Clara and her adoptive father find the Mask of Seasons in this innovative match 3 adventure.
Overall rating
5
/
5
25 of 26 found this review helpful
A GIFT IN A DRY SEASON OF GAMES
PostedJuly 18, 2018
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Match 3, Puzzle
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
This game, a long quest by match three, through a vivid land, has been a real gift to me at a time when I have not found the new hidden object puzzle adventure games enjoyable and other than tiresome and pale shadows of ones I used to enjoy. For me Heart of Moon Mask of Seasons is great fun. Try it !
I recommend this game!
Solve the disappearance of a rising theatre star and discover the secrets behind the curtains of the Parisian theatre.
Overall rating
5
/
5
57 of 63 found this review helpful
BEAUTIFUL, WARM-HEARTED, MAGICAL
PostedJune 5, 2018
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Match 3, Puzzle
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
As often I find myself reading the reviews and nodding to almost every point and thinking yes this or that game can indeed be accorded almost any number of stars and the more so if the mood of the player is allowed to enter in.
But I think it is time for this one to have a five star notice.
I would rest the case for these full marks for one thing on the exceptional beauty of the graphics,perhaps a high point being the journey through the Paris sewers become such a fairyland (compare that darker world of Javert and Valjean in Les Miserables) that, while the journey is rather satisfyingly long one almost wishes it went on through an entire game. Secondly while the romantic story is not new it has a deeply warm-hearted quality allowed to play out in an ending far more unhurried and resolved than that of most games, Beauty and warmth add up to a kind of magic more real than that of any grimoire or illusionist or of by far the most of these games.
There are the tedious tasks as usual lacking much logic and there is the ludicrous tendency of one character to fall into any available hole in the floor and so on but...
for me this is a five star wonderful game and thanks to Big Fish for bringing it to us! Try it and see if it is for you!
But I think it is time for this one to have a five star notice.
I would rest the case for these full marks for one thing on the exceptional beauty of the graphics,perhaps a high point being the journey through the Paris sewers become such a fairyland (compare that darker world of Javert and Valjean in Les Miserables) that, while the journey is rather satisfyingly long one almost wishes it went on through an entire game. Secondly while the romantic story is not new it has a deeply warm-hearted quality allowed to play out in an ending far more unhurried and resolved than that of most games, Beauty and warmth add up to a kind of magic more real than that of any grimoire or illusionist or of by far the most of these games.
There are the tedious tasks as usual lacking much logic and there is the ludicrous tendency of one character to fall into any available hole in the floor and so on but...
for me this is a five star wonderful game and thanks to Big Fish for bringing it to us! Try it and see if it is for you!
I recommend this game!
Explore kingdom ruins and meet the exiled Salt Princess.
Overall rating
5
/
5
71 of 86 found this review helpful
Wonderful ... *IF WHAT YOU WANT IS BLUE TEA!* Bravo! Encore!
PostedMarch 18, 2018
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Match 3, Puzzle
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
This is an absolutely wonderful game if you are one of those for whom the magnificent, sort of roccoco art style, scenes of the old Blue Tea games, before a period of captivity (as it were) to another developer, is something you have sighed and longed for and which no other HOPA casual game could provide. You know if you are or, if you are new to the games and try this game you will soon find out.
Is it as beautiful and rich in elaboration and in the sense of wonder as the first seven of the Blue Tea games? Does the developer of the time of captivity ,who in this one acts as producer ,still have a baleful influence on the game in some way or ways? Is it important to us that the trick aspect of the morphing objects, that their transformations begin only when triggered by the players action *after* passing on to a later setting? Is the story-line somehow corrupted by the influence of other games being made today ? These are questions lovers of Blue Tea could discuss( "blue tea" is an expression perhaps from the games home in Hong Kong for the rare in exquisite) .
My answers would be that I don't know care much about the morphing trick, I dont know how much the producer influenced the development of the game... as to the game's story? Personally I liked some of the other stories a little better BUT think of this as a sort of operetta where after the curtain all of the characters appear as alive and well and all full of radiance and light whatever role they played and who could withhold applause and a cries of BRAVO! BRAVA! and yes ENCORE!
Is it as beautiful and rich in elaboration and in the sense of wonder as the first seven of the Blue Tea games? Does the developer of the time of captivity ,who in this one acts as producer ,still have a baleful influence on the game in some way or ways? Is it important to us that the trick aspect of the morphing objects, that their transformations begin only when triggered by the players action *after* passing on to a later setting? Is the story-line somehow corrupted by the influence of other games being made today ? These are questions lovers of Blue Tea could discuss( "blue tea" is an expression perhaps from the games home in Hong Kong for the rare in exquisite) .
My answers would be that I don't know care much about the morphing trick, I dont know how much the producer influenced the development of the game... as to the game's story? Personally I liked some of the other stories a little better BUT think of this as a sort of operetta where after the curtain all of the characters appear as alive and well and all full of radiance and light whatever role they played and who could withhold applause and a cries of BRAVO! BRAVA! and yes ENCORE!
I recommend this game!
It’s the find of a century, but will you live to tell about it?
Overall rating
5
/
5
44 of 51 found this review helpful
A LANDMARK GAME
PostedMarch 2, 2018
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Match 3, Puzzle
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
On a stormy day here in the lower Hudson this game has been a gift!
Mad Head games has again done something I think absolutely new. In Adam Wolfe they opened a new path entirely between hardcore gaming and casual gaming. In the first Cadenza games they made a place and a music more real than one have thought developers far from New Orleans could have done. Here in the first Wanderlust games they do rather many things pretty well, creation of a colorful world of the inner earth with graphics combining strangeness and allure at times...but also something I have not seen the equal or hardly the like of...the creation of a set of five characters none of whom has deeply dishonorable motivation of any kind or the tiresome stupidity of wanting to (rule/destroy/transform etc) the world. Of course it is not Dostoevsky or Proust or something and of course the plot dances along the edge of the incredible but... THE CHARACTERS ARE ALL INTERESTING. Yes there is evil out there but it is not a personal evil...
The plot is in this deep sense new.
Now I dont know what will follow under the name of "Wanderelust" or using these characters, I have despaired of Cadenza and there has been no followup on Adam Wolfe. but nonetheless it is a landmark game. Play it. Cherish it!
Mad Head games has again done something I think absolutely new. In Adam Wolfe they opened a new path entirely between hardcore gaming and casual gaming. In the first Cadenza games they made a place and a music more real than one have thought developers far from New Orleans could have done. Here in the first Wanderlust games they do rather many things pretty well, creation of a colorful world of the inner earth with graphics combining strangeness and allure at times...but also something I have not seen the equal or hardly the like of...the creation of a set of five characters none of whom has deeply dishonorable motivation of any kind or the tiresome stupidity of wanting to (rule/destroy/transform etc) the world. Of course it is not Dostoevsky or Proust or something and of course the plot dances along the edge of the incredible but... THE CHARACTERS ARE ALL INTERESTING. Yes there is evil out there but it is not a personal evil...
The plot is in this deep sense new.
Now I dont know what will follow under the name of "Wanderelust" or using these characters, I have despaired of Cadenza and there has been no followup on Adam Wolfe. but nonetheless it is a landmark game. Play it. Cherish it!
Beyond the Invisible: Darkness Came is a stunning hidden object adventure game that will challenge even the most seasoned detectives.
Overall rating
5
/
5
55 of 61 found this review helpful
A VERY INTERESTING GAME THAT GATHERS MOMENTUM AS IT GOES ALONG
PostedJanuary 17, 2018
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Match 3, Puzzle
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
The first thing to know is that the demo part is not enough to get a sense of this game.
Secondly, that the English translation is quirky seems to put off some people and if anything amuse and charm others. I belong to the second group. There are a smile or two along the way from this and no confusion of meaning really. And perhaps the quirkiness adds to the sense of originality in the game.
Thirdly it seems there is a platinum edition of the game. I wonder if it has a strategy guide and options on the timer for hint or skip functions and if so I do wish Big Fish would offer that version.
And a fourth thing that remains with me after playing the game through is that I liked the characters and felt an interest in them in a way which I have hardly liked any characters in recent games. The plot may be in some ways original, but more than that the journey through the plot plays and feels original and that I am going to dare say is because the game has a heart , it has the possibility of being cared about and in fact liked.
I like this game! hey! give it a chance and I bet you will too!
I like this game! hey! give it a chance and I bet you will too!
I recommend this game!
The contract must be fulfilled, but your girlfriend will pay the price!
Overall rating
2
/
5
31 of 38 found this review helpful
WHAT IS THE "ETERNAL DANCE"?
PostedJanuary 12, 2018
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Match 3, Puzzle
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Storyline
1
/
5
I will start my little response to the game by asking just what is the "Eternal Dance"? To me the concept is of wonder of the universe, the dance of centers, each point a center of all in the, if you will , Created cosmos. It does not take much play to find that in fact this dance is something else...in effect diabolical (perhaps drawing on the legend of Paganini selling his soul to the devil to gain his skill with the violin) though at the end we visit the place of the eternal dance and it seems there is no dance floor that would accomodate more than ,say, a dozen dancers and the plot closes it self down very abruptly indeed. The imagination of the authors of this senseless story has failed and beaten a hasty retreat at the end.
The first Cadenza games remain among my favorite.
and Adam Wolfe from this developer is my all time favorite game.
*sigh*
The first Cadenza games remain among my favorite.
and Adam Wolfe from this developer is my all time favorite game.
*sigh*
I think if you have not played other games form Madhead in the last couple of years you will find the game refreshing in style if a head-scratcher in its storyline. If you have played their games you will enjoy moments but feel a sadness at a failure to so far consolidate let alone go forward from the territory opened. what is
I don't recommend this game.