PlumCricket's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:3.7
- Helpful Votes:240
- Reviews Submitted:9
- First Review:December 9, 2012
- Most Recent Review:June 21, 2022
- Featured reviews0
PlumCricket's Review History
Experience Edgar Allen Poe’s dark poem through classic solitaire gameplay!
Overall rating
2
/
5
15 of 20 found this review helpful
Dull AND Annoying
PostedJune 21, 2022
PlumCricket
fromAustin, TX
Fun Factor
1
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
2
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Storyline
1
/
5
It's frustrating, too. Even with one negative review already, I thought, "Oh, how bad can it be?"
Very, very bad.
1. You HAVE to stay on Newbie mode; you can't choose Hard mode.
2. The visuals - what there are of them - are lovely, but the music and background noises are incredibly irritating. I like playing with the sound on. Not this time.
3. Play is really dull... and limiting. You get your little pots of money when you get them, you're urged to play for gold cards rather than finish the game.
I just want to play solitaire. I never review things; that's how much I dislike this game. Give me "Far Kingdoms" any day. Seriously.
Very, very bad.
1. You HAVE to stay on Newbie mode; you can't choose Hard mode.
2. The visuals - what there are of them - are lovely, but the music and background noises are incredibly irritating. I like playing with the sound on. Not this time.
3. Play is really dull... and limiting. You get your little pots of money when you get them, you're urged to play for gold cards rather than finish the game.
I just want to play solitaire. I never review things; that's how much I dislike this game. Give me "Far Kingdoms" any day. Seriously.
Sort through the clutter and help the Walker family decorate their home for Halloween!
Overall rating
5
/
5
17 of 21 found this review helpful
Fun Game, but Definitely NOT for Kids!
PostedOctober 23, 2021
PlumCricket
fromAustin, TX
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Arcade & Action, Card & Board, Hidden Object, Mahjong, Marble Popper, Match 3, Puzzle
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
Like everybody else, I'm relieved that BFG has something other to offer than - well, what they've been offering lately. (I appreciate the hard work during COVID times, but wow.)
I like the Shopping Clutter games, though I normally find the Walkers annoying. This one, though, is hilarious. The first game is "Find everything in the category 'hands'", which features, yes, disembodied hands (apricot color).
The second game has a lot of terrifying mouths, and the kind of clowns your mother, the police, and Stephen King warned you about.
Starting in the third game, there's a brain with a) eyeballs attached and b) a fork sticking out of it.
So, if you've got a weird sense of humor, and love clutter games, I suggest this. But do NOT play it with kids, unless you want them to have nightmares.
The Fun Factor is high, Visual/Sound Quality is strong, and the levels get super-hard the further you play. I ignore the storyline as much as possible, so I can't tell you anything there.
Enjoy, and Spooooky Halloween!
I recommend this game!
Save the kingdom by casting down it’s evil dictator in this imaginative hidden object game set in a steampunk world.
Overall rating
5
/
5
88 of 93 found this review helpful
Love It!
PostedFebruary 7, 2018
PlumCricket
fromAustin, TX
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Arcade & Action, Brain Teaser, Card & Board, Hidden Object, Large File, Mahjong, Marble Popper, Match 3, Puzzle, Strategy
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
Did you like the Clutter games? Were you annoyed by the glitches, the 'wisdom' and life tips? What if it were just, you know... a fun game?
Well, this is it. It's got a fun steampunky style, and a great collection of games: matching pairs and trios (and sometimes both), sliders, puzzles, match-threes, and more.
I played the whole demo in one sitting, and bought it right after.
I recommend this game!
Join the penguin family on a journey to an ancient land and discover the mysteries of the penguin ancestors in the latest mosaic adventure!
Overall rating
5
/
5
17 of 30 found this review helpful
Fabulous Mosaic Fun
PostedMay 17, 2016
PlumCricket
fromAustin, TX
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure, Match 3, Large File, Marble Popper, Mahjong, Brain Teaser
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
In FM13, we were introduced to Wise Uncle Aaron, who came to visit the Penguin Family. In FM14, Uncle Aaron was on his own, but discovered the Fourth Color, increasing both the mosaic quality and the game difficulty.
In this game, the four-color adventure continues, as Uncle Aaron returns to collect the Penguin Family and take them on a voyage through ancient lands to see where their ancestors came from.
OK, as storylines go, it's not a thrill-a-minute; but for a mosaic game, it's perfectly fine (we're talking about magical space/time-traveling penguins, after all). The story's not so complex that you can't jump in anywhere. More important is the gameplay: all new mosaic puzzles of increasing difficulty. There is the usual garden (you add a piece after every finishing every level, each of which is five puzzles long), with its charmingly if oddly named 'items' - "Dinosaur of Lost Species," for instance.
I love the Fantasy Mosaic series. I usually play paranormal Hidden/Fractured Object Games, but sometimes it's nice just to sit back and relax with a calming mosaic - and for my money, Fantasy Mosaics is the best in the genre. I buy them without even doing the one-hour preview anymore, and I have yet to be disappointed.
The background music is simple and lovely, and adds to the pleasant, calming experience.
In this game, the four-color adventure continues, as Uncle Aaron returns to collect the Penguin Family and take them on a voyage through ancient lands to see where their ancestors came from.
OK, as storylines go, it's not a thrill-a-minute; but for a mosaic game, it's perfectly fine (we're talking about magical space/time-traveling penguins, after all). The story's not so complex that you can't jump in anywhere. More important is the gameplay: all new mosaic puzzles of increasing difficulty. There is the usual garden (you add a piece after every finishing every level, each of which is five puzzles long), with its charmingly if oddly named 'items' - "Dinosaur of Lost Species," for instance.
I love the Fantasy Mosaic series. I usually play paranormal Hidden/Fractured Object Games, but sometimes it's nice just to sit back and relax with a calming mosaic - and for my money, Fantasy Mosaics is the best in the genre. I buy them without even doing the one-hour preview anymore, and I have yet to be disappointed.
The background music is simple and lovely, and adds to the pleasant, calming experience.
I recommend this game!
The dark influence of an old curse still taunts the city of Amsterdam! Explore this beautiful city on this mysterious guided tour.
Overall rating
5
/
5
7 of 8 found this review helpful
An Oldie But a Goodie
PostedJune 7, 2015
PlumCricket
fromPearland, Texas
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure, Match 3, Large File, Marble Popper, Mahjong
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
I haven't played this since I originally bought it about six years ago; I'm pretty sure i didn't finish the game then. There's a hint system - which you are going to need for the HOG part - but there is no work-around for the mini-games, no skip option. It's incredibly difficult, but you get an immense sense of satisfaction from conquering the games. I somehow managed it without the strategy guide (I didn't realize there was one). I'm amazed how much I've learned as a gamer/puzzler in the intervening years. If you're looking for a real challenge of a game - but one that won't make you despair - give this a dust-off. It's well worth it.
I recommend this game!
Join Margaret to complete mahjong puzzles, help her get rid of the family curse and find her stolen love!
Overall rating
1
/
5
33 of 49 found this review helpful
They've Figured Out how to make Mahjong Pointless and Boring
PostedMay 12, 2015
PlumCricket
fromPearland, Texas
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure, Match 3, Large File, Marble Popper, Arcade & Action, Word, Mahjong, Brain Teaser
Fun Factor
1
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
2
/
5
Level of Challenge
1
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
I know that game designers feel a need to innovate; the pressure on them must be huge. I tend to feel sympathetic toward them most of the time, and even give them a break on bad cut scene graphics and stilted language.
The designers of "Mahjong Detective: The Stolen Love" started out with a great idea - combine Mahjong with a detective story. They then saddled it with the most pointless innovation I can imagine: in order to score maximum points, your pairs have to increase by a value of one. If you break the chain, you have to start over - with a pair of tiles each with a value of one, and build from there - or with each succeeding pair, you score goes down. Heaven forfend you should try to play the board in terms of what's available; no what matters is whether the next pair goes up by a value of one. It's frustrating, pointless, makes the board impossible to clear, and angies up the blood, which is not why I play mahjong. I want to relax and enjoy the puzzle. Whether I win a round should be based on my skill, not arbitrary rules which are, incidentally, impossible to follow because the board is still scrambled. The level of challenge on this was actually huge, but I didn't want to inflate the ranking of a badly-designed game.
I don't recommend this game.
The old historic mansion in Istanbul is being renovated into a hotel and when the owner summons you to fix the grand clock you discover that there are dark secrets contained within.
Overall rating
2
/
5
43 of 47 found this review helpful
Like Velvet Keys, Minus Most of the Fun
PostedDecember 17, 2014
PlumCricket
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Word, Brain Teaser, Adventure, Hidden Object, Marble Popper, Match 3, Card & Board, Puzzle, Mahjong
Current Favorite:
Manor Memoirs Collector's Edition
(96)Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
First, a confession: I managed to get through only 17 minutes of the demo.
On to business. If someone had told me this game was actually from 2009 - or earlier - I would have believed them, except that airplanes replace hot dogs as the ubiquitous object. They are in virtually every puzzle. There's no ability to select a difficulty level, but that's probably because active areas indicating puzzles - or sometimes just places to pick up an item - sparkle so blatantly that you'd have to be unconscious to miss them, which is good, because the rooms themselves are massive. Without the sparkles, you'd never find the puzzles. Oddly, sparkles go inactive once they've located a puzzle even if you're not able to solve it yet.
As with old games, there's a 'helper' character who stays resolutely in one place and refuses to move; he's supposedly supervising workers. Since there are no workers in any of the scenes, I've chosen to believe that the helper character is suffering from hallucinations.
The graphics are actually quite pretty, but they're highly repetitive. The novelty of searching for objects on a tapestry wears thin pretty quickly, especially since you can pretty much guess what the 'hidden' objects are without referencing the list. In scenes where you're searching a room instead of a tapestry, the game has a frustrating tendency to not indicate when there might be objects that move (such as cabinet doors), and does not distinguish objects that must be discovered in drawers, etc.
The opening storyline narration was clearly written by someone who doesn't speak English as a first, or possibly even second, language, though I was delighted to hear that a background character was "executed to death." (I'm not pro-death penalty, by the way.) The narration also tells us that the missing seal is magical, and guarantees that any wish made with it is granted "sooner or later." The same may be said of my favorite plush penguin; leaving out the time scale greatly enhances a given object's perceived magical abilities.
There is one innovation: you can dispense with the mouse for moving from scene to scene if you have a webcam; you can control scrolling and movement with your eyes. I don't have a webcam, so I can't report on how well this feature works. There is no map indicated open or closed locations or active hotspots (although the game does scold you if you try to go into a closed area), so you'll be doing a lot of side-to-side scrolling.
If this were 2009, or even 2011, my rating would be much higher. If you long for the confusing storylines and stilted graphics of the Cate West mysteries, enjoy extremely repetitive gameplay, and have a fondness for inexplicable side plots, this is the game for you. Otherwise, you'll probably be disappointed.
On to business. If someone had told me this game was actually from 2009 - or earlier - I would have believed them, except that airplanes replace hot dogs as the ubiquitous object. They are in virtually every puzzle. There's no ability to select a difficulty level, but that's probably because active areas indicating puzzles - or sometimes just places to pick up an item - sparkle so blatantly that you'd have to be unconscious to miss them, which is good, because the rooms themselves are massive. Without the sparkles, you'd never find the puzzles. Oddly, sparkles go inactive once they've located a puzzle even if you're not able to solve it yet.
As with old games, there's a 'helper' character who stays resolutely in one place and refuses to move; he's supposedly supervising workers. Since there are no workers in any of the scenes, I've chosen to believe that the helper character is suffering from hallucinations.
The graphics are actually quite pretty, but they're highly repetitive. The novelty of searching for objects on a tapestry wears thin pretty quickly, especially since you can pretty much guess what the 'hidden' objects are without referencing the list. In scenes where you're searching a room instead of a tapestry, the game has a frustrating tendency to not indicate when there might be objects that move (such as cabinet doors), and does not distinguish objects that must be discovered in drawers, etc.
The opening storyline narration was clearly written by someone who doesn't speak English as a first, or possibly even second, language, though I was delighted to hear that a background character was "executed to death." (I'm not pro-death penalty, by the way.) The narration also tells us that the missing seal is magical, and guarantees that any wish made with it is granted "sooner or later." The same may be said of my favorite plush penguin; leaving out the time scale greatly enhances a given object's perceived magical abilities.
There is one innovation: you can dispense with the mouse for moving from scene to scene if you have a webcam; you can control scrolling and movement with your eyes. I don't have a webcam, so I can't report on how well this feature works. There is no map indicated open or closed locations or active hotspots (although the game does scold you if you try to go into a closed area), so you'll be doing a lot of side-to-side scrolling.
If this were 2009, or even 2011, my rating would be much higher. If you long for the confusing storylines and stilted graphics of the Cate West mysteries, enjoy extremely repetitive gameplay, and have a fondness for inexplicable side plots, this is the game for you. Otherwise, you'll probably be disappointed.
I don't recommend this game.
You were just about to relax with a good book when a stranger leaves a baby on your doorstep.
Overall rating
5
/
5
5 of 7 found this review helpful
WOW!
PostedOctober 24, 2013
PlumCricket
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
This is easily the most fun game I've played in a long time (and I either play at least one one new game or replay one each week). It is clever, inventive, and makes you *think* about each step you take. It is, quite simply, brilliant - amazing gameplay, inventive storyline, and the bonus section is stuffed with things I actually want (like extra chapters, plural!).
More, please.
More, please.
I recommend this game!
Charles Dexter Ward summons you to the island of Pawtuxet to stop a revenant from murdering the townspeople.
Overall rating
3
/
5
15 of 16 found this review helpful
PLEASE stop using Lovecraft
PostedDecember 9, 2012
PlumCricket
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Large File, Strategy, Puzzle
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
1
/
5
The temptation, especially for new designers, to use Lovecraft must be incredible: he's still wildly popular, and a lot of his work is in the public domain. I'll admit that Lovecraft translates slightly better to games than to film, but it's not enough. This line, for instance, left me sobbing on my floor with laughter, and I lost about 20 minutes of the trial time as a result: "They said my uncle knew about immortality, so I resurrected him from the dead..."
WHAT? You have the ability to resurrect people from the dead, so you focus on the one guy who has already, without question, failed the immortality test? He's DEAD. His thoughts on how to achieve immortality are not worth having. Also, I'm supposed to sympathize with Charles, but he released a soul-sucking zombie on his hometown. I feel sorry for everyone else. Charles, on the other hand, deserves a mob of pitchfork-wielding townsfolk.
The interface was fine (when I wasn't laughing) and the graphics were very high quality. The music and sound were good. The HOG scenes were, if not especially clever, at least up to the standard of better developers.
I find it difficult to believe that a group of people talented enough to produce this game couldn't come up with a better story on their own. I'm willing to bet they could have come up with something at least as terrifying as "Redrum," which changed single-player gaming. Give me a game with this game's technical qualities and some inventiveness in the storyline, and you'll have me hooked. But for now, this little sea anemone is fleeing the net.
I don't recommend this game.