Ventures

So I’ve been playing lots of casual games over the last year or so. Casual games mean many things to many people, but for me, I define it as a relatively inexpensive game that I usually download online, and I can play a level or 3 in a short time period, any time I want. It doesn’t require a huge time or brain commitment - these are break and lunch time games, or filler “fluff” games in between WoW-ing or a FPS, RTS game. So here are my absolute favorites - the ones I’ve spent hours upon hours playing, and still do. Heck, coming up with this list has made me want to not post and just go play them!

Disclaimer: Although I do not work for BigFishGames, I use their site almost exclusively to purchase and download my games through their game club system. I love the fact that it’s easy to use, pretty seamless, and offers a great selection of games. Therefore, the games I talk about will have links to trial downloads on their site.

Peggle: What more needs to be said? I play this on all my pcs, I play it on my ipod. When it comes out for XBox Live Arcade, I shall purchase and play it there. American Pachinko at its best. There’s something strangely addicting about hitting as many pegs as you can, trying to rack up the best score you can. As a bonus, Lauryn loves sitting on my lap and watching me play, and she cheers and laughs during the final scoring stage.

Mystery Case Files: This is a series of ‘Find the hidden object’ games. There’s (in order), Huntsville, Prime Suspects, Ravenhearst, and Madame Fate. Much like the page in Highlights, this gives you a series of static images in which you have to find a list of objects. Tying this all together is a storyline in which you need to find these various objects to help you in your case. The story is thin, but it is nice to have it rather than just a giant list of objects to find over various images. The games have improved with each iteration in graphics, sound and various animations. I’ve given this game to my parents, and they’re both pretty into it - they compete and compare high scores with each other daily.

Fast Crawl: This is a random dungeon crawler. You pick how long and hard (that’s what she said!) you’d like the game to be, and the rest is randomly generated - from the dungeon layout, the items, the mobs, even your party members. You then go with what you’re given and off to save the world and kill the Foozle! Sometimes you get a balanced party. Othertimes it’s 3 Rogues and a Mage. I think that is what makes this one fun and challenging.

Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile: This is another hidden object game, set among the backstory of the novel. This one has you interviewing the main characters to slowly piece together the murder mystery and finally find the killer. Very nicely done thematically, and my favorite of these types of games second behind the MCF series.

Secrets of Great Art: Another hidden object game, but with a bit of a twist - it offers some “spot the differences” and some other mechanics as well. I enjoy this one because it uses actual “great art” to put new life into this genre. For me, it’s even more engrossing knowing that I’ve seen said artwork in the Orsay, Louvre, Getty or other museums.

Bookworm Adventures: Continuing the adventures of Lex from Bookworm, this tacks on more of a storyline than the original game. Using a Boggle-like board, you have to spell various words to defeat the various mythological creatures in the way of Lex. The only downside is that sometimes you come up with words that the game does not recognize as valid. And no, I’m not trying to get “lawz” or “leet” or “pwnd” as real words.

Oasis: I’m not really sure how to describe this game, other than it’s a challenging puzzler. I obviously like it though, else it wouldn’t be on this list. Playfirst makes a bunch of other games like Cake Mania and Diner Dash - both good games that I’ve played, but I’m not a huge fan of the time/mouse management games. Mainly because I suck at them.

Tradewind Legends: An older game, but still fun. I prefer this one over Tradewinds and Tradewinds 2, just because of the storylines for each character. You pick a persona, and scrape a living of running errands for local bigwigs as well as buying low and selling high in markets. And there’s ship to ship combat as well!

Fairway Solitaire: It’s golf AND solitaire combined! How can it be bad? Answer: It can’t! One of the best takes on the solitaire genre I’ve played in a long long time. Sure it’s frustrating when you’re given a hand and setup that you just can’t win, but isn’t that solitaire in a nutshell? This takes solitaire, marries it with some golf conventions and tosses in some light RP in tems of outfitting your golfer as well.

So those are some of my favorites, the ones I’ve spent the most time on, and keep coming back to, again and again. Love to hear your favorites!