sereneorchid's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:3.6
- Helpful Votes:6,145
- Reviews Submitted:156
- First Review:November 13, 2011
- Most Recent Review:March 4, 2021
- Featured reviews1
Status:
Collect elements, cast spells and defeat ferocious guardians to return life to a fairy-tale realm in this Match 3 adventure!
Overall rating
4
/
5
15 of 20 found this review helpful
Moves slow on my computer
PostedJune 9, 2012
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
I like Alawar games, and this one is fairly true to form, with colorful graphics and nice animations. However, it annoys me when females are drawn with a physique more suited for a comic book than a family-oriented game. You match island-themed icons, like fruits, flowers, and leaves, reaching the particular goals of the level, and then your bounty is used to purchase improvements to the island. Although it's not a particularly challenging game, it's a happy, soothing one. And I might have considered purchasing it, except that the matching part of the game ran slow on my Vista system. It looked like the matches, explosions, and dropping fruit were running in slow motion. It might be better on your machine.
Pin the killer in this page-turning murder mystery by novelist James Patterson, and find hidden objects within nine distinct investigations.
Overall rating
2
/
5
15 of 16 found this review helpful
Need a magnifying glass...
PostedJune 5, 2012
Fun Factor
1
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
2
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
and not just to play detective. The hidden objects are nearly microscopic, and because of the contemporary art style, don't necessarily look the way you would expect, making the HO's extra hard to find. The forensic lab activities ask you to find petri dishes and medicine droppers. I know what these look like, but it was just by luck that I found them because of the art style and their tiny size. I didn't even complete the second investigation, when I realized that my nose was nearly to the laptop screen, and I was going to end up with a migraine. The mystery is why anyone would have designed a game like this. And the solution is to delete it!
I don't recommend this game.
Pirates have invaded Fairy Island and trapped the Fairies inside magic crystals. Shatter the crystals to free the poor Fairies.
Overall rating
3
/
5
60 of 73 found this review helpful
A collapse-type of game
PostedJune 1, 2012
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
Gorgeous graphics, animations are okay. The game is breaking and collapsing groups of blocks to release fairies, who then giggle. That got annoying by level 2, since the sound never varied. The trapped fairies were a novel idea, but the collapsing blocks didn't hold my interest.
Learn when to hold `em and when to fold `em! Master the intricacies of the some of the world's most popular poker games!
Overall rating
2
/
5
20 of 25 found this review helpful
Need a magnifying glass
PostedJune 1, 2012
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
1
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Good tutorials on how to play, but graphics are a little fuzzy, and the cards are small and blurry, making play increasingly annoying. On medium speed, the game play was still too fast to study how other hands were bet. I'd read the tutorials, then go play poker in another game.
I don't recommend this game.
Travel to Atlantis for Match 3 fun and discover the Hidden Wonders of the Depths! Go on an Atlantis Adventure in this hit sequel!
Overall rating
4
/
5
9 of 12 found this review helpful
Lots to like, but...
PostedJune 1, 2012
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
Lots to like, with good graphics and animations, a mischievous crab that boogies and sticks its tongue out at you, and a skip option if you can’t solve a level. There are also HO puzzles and mini-games. But my problem with the game is the point of the game: to move the crab along a pathway to a treasure chest. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out which matches will move the crab along. Some matches don’t do anything, while other accidental ones cause the crab to sidle along. Maybe if I played the game longer it would all click for me. But right now, it has more frustration for me than I like in a game. Maybe your brain will process the challenge differently.
Sprill and Ritchie are back in an all-new Hidden Object game that will tickle your funny bone as much as it teases your brain!
Overall rating
5
/
5
32 of 33 found this review helpful
Had fun
PostedMay 31, 2012
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
My first impression of this was that it was a kids' game because of the furry characters. Not so, although the dialogue could have used voice overs for younger players. Animations were fun, like watching a cartoon. I liked that this was pretty much straight hidden object, without the endless searching from room to room. Yet the searches were not too easy, and sometimes you had small tasks to do with the found objects. Some searches were open-ended and required a few brain cells, such as "find the modern objects" in an historical setting. Others, like finding the parts of the time machine (and then putting it together), were tricky, because who knows what a time machine should look like? I thought there was a lot of creativity in the challenges, especially the mini-games. For me, this is entertaining and unique enough to purchase.
I recommend this game!
Overall rating
2
/
5
6 of 7 found this review helpful
A disaster!
PostedMay 25, 2012
Fun Factor
1
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
This game got 2 stars as a nod to the decent graphics and concept. But the rest is a disaster as far as I am concerned. There is NO written information, other than the name of the game, and the word "player." If I hadn't read the game description before downloading the game, I would have had NO idea what was going on. You are supposed to figure out how to play from symbols and mini-animations. The one that demonstrated how to place a directional arrow and rotate it confounded me. I tried over and over, but just couldn't get the arrow to turn direction. Here's the TIP: you click and hold the left mouse button over the arrow, and drag your mouse to the square NEXT TO the arrow, in the direction you wish the sheep to go.
I only went as far as level 6 before giving up in frustration because each level has a 1-minute timer. It can easily take that long just to figure out what you are supposed to do. When you're ready to quit, good luck finding out how. Fortunately, there are only a few buttons, and by clicking through them, you will come back to the title screen. With effort put into a written tutorial, this might have been a good game. As it is now, it's seconds away from the delete key.
I don't recommend this game.
Stop the evil sorcerer Rasmos and help Prince Argon claim the throne!
Overall rating
2
/
5
Low-budget graphics; cards hard to read
PostedMay 25, 2012
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
2
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
A decent version of solitaire, but I'm not partial to the coloring book style of art. It looks cheesy when compared to other solitaire games. The font style on the cards was hard to read, and I found myself straining to read the screen. The graphics on the cards were distracting more than helpful. This game plays a lot like a low-budget version of Faerie Solitaire, which has much better graphics and animations.
I don't recommend this game.
Join Patricia on her quest to find Sun! Immerse yourself in this beautiful and exciting Puzzle Adventure game!
Overall rating
3
/
5
11 of 13 found this review helpful
Really need a good eye for design
PostedMay 21, 2012
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
Perhaps this game works better if you purchase it and have unlimited time to play. There are no instructions, help, or hints that I could find, so you have to figure out what to do.
The puzzles involve swapping two tiles until you receive a check mark that indicates you've found the right spot for a particular tile. The problem is, the artwork is of a surreal world, and you don't know what the picture is supposed to look like. That makes it really challenging, and you have to be able to picture how a design from one tile would carry over to an adjacent one. Or do as I did periodically, which was to take a tile and place it in every available spot until I hit on the right one.
When you start a puzzle, run your mouse over the tiles until you see a check mark to indicate a correctly placed tile so you have a starting point. Also, you will see small triangular arrows appear on the corner tiles, indicating to which corner to move the tile. I liked this, (and would have given it another star if instructions had been provided), but I'd say this is definitely a try-before-you-buy kind of game, as it requires some ability at visualization ... or just random luck!
Brainville
Train your brain by helping the colorful townsfolk of Brainville in a variety of mind-building challenges. Watch the town flourish as you sharpen your mind!
Overall rating
3
/
5
0 of 1 found this review helpful
Easy; better for kids and seniors
PostedMay 20, 2012
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
The premise for the game is good, and I'm all for mental calisthenics. But the challenges are pretty easy. In the diner, you see picture bubbles of food, and then match them from memory. Easy. At the newsstand, you pick the three matching items out of a group, like kinds of nuts or types of hats. At the cleaners, you match a picture of a clothing item, with the clothing passing along an automatic clothesline. And at the market, you put items in the shopping cart that total a certain price. Definitely an attempt to be creative, but just too easy for me. I'd suggest it as an entertaining teaching aid for kids, or a memory game for people with dementia or Alzheimer's. It would be better, though, if the artwork was more realistic or entertaining instead of coloring-book style.