Sprill and Ritchie: Adventures in Time

Rosemary says:

Sprill and Ritchie is an excellent hidden object game with lots of interesting minigames and problems to solve.

Unlike many other hidden object games, in Sprill and Ritchie: Adventures in Time you are not told exactly what you are looking for, just the general category (e.g. "15 baked goods"). This can be quite challenging.

In the story for this game, Ritchie invents a time machine which malfunctions, causing objects to travel through time and end up in the wrong period. Then you must find objects from the wrong time hidden in scenes from history. Unfortunately, the makers of the game don't always have an accurate idea of what is appropriate for the time. For example, the ancient Egypt scene includes wheels (not invented yet in that culture) but clicking on them results in an error.

Still, overall, this is one of the best new games I've seen in quite a while.

Nicky (age 11) says

I thought the minigames were very interesting, although some of them were quite challenging. The hidden object part ... well, I've never liked hidden object games very much, but this still was very good.

Sprill and Ritchie: Adventures in Time
Genre	Hidden object
Developer	Alawar Games
Date	2009
Version reviewed	Free demo from Big Fish Games
Graphics	****½/5
Sound	****½/5
Ease of learning	*****/5
Overall	****½/5

Profitville

Rosemary says:

Here's an enjoyable little puzzle game from Myth People. The town of Profitville needs our help to revitalize their business district after being decimated by the invasion of a "Mega Mart".

Not surprisingly, the way to help Profitville is by playing a computer game. (If only real life were this simple!) Load merchandise into the appropriate packing crates to earn money to fix up the town; earn bonuses for filling a crate with one click, etc.; but if you make more than 3 mistakes in loading the crates, you're out!

The graphics are simple and pleasant to look at; the sound track is relaxing, the only reason I docked stars from the sound score below is because for some reason the sound kept becoming muted--this seemed to be connected to the advertisements that are included in the free demo, but I'm not sure.

It was a fairly easy game for me, and Nicky seemed to find it quite manageable too.

There are two levels of difficulty, normal and expert, and two modes, story and survival. However the so-called story level doesn't include a text story after the opening level.

Profitville
Genre	puzzle
Developer	Myth People
Date	2007
Version reviewed	Free download from Real Arcade
Graphics	****/5
Sound	***/5
Ease of learning	*****/5
Overall	***½/5

Snowy: Fish Frenzy

Rosemary says:

Snowy, the polar bear who starred in Snowy the Bear's Adventure, returns in this unpleasant game, which revolves around hitting cats to stop them from stealing the dead fish Snowy wants to eat.

The graphics are excellent and the sound very good, but I found the gameplay repetitive and boring, not to mention too violent for my tastes.

To be fair, the graphics are excellent and the sound very good. Although I hate the concept of the game, it is well executed.

Nicky says

Too violent? Come on, the other one (Snowy the Bear's Adventure) had throwing snowballs at monsters, turning them into giant snowballs, then kicking them so that they'd wham into other monsters! Still, I hated Snowy Fish Frenzy too. The only part I actually liked a tiny bit was this one power-up that made huge pink elephants trample all the cats. It really helped.

Snowy: Fish Frenzy
Genre	Action/arcade
Developer	Aliasworlds Entertainment
Date	2005
Version reviewed	Free demo from Aliasworlds Entertainment
Graphics	*****/5
Sound	****/5
Ease of learning	***/5
Overall	0/5