Game du Jour: Week of 2008-06-02

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ web site dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. June 9th: 60% off on Swarm Rampage

Tue. June 10th: 60% off on BrainsBreaker

Wed. June 11th: 65% off on Bellatorus

Thu. June 12th: 40% off on The Game of LIFE - Path to Success

Fri. June 13th: 50% off on Penguins Arena

Sat. June 14th: 65% off on Lunar Domination

Sun. June 15th: 50% off on Funny Creatures

PC Game Review Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City

My people have returned! My people have returned! I don’t play any Sims-style games except Virtual Villagers (VV). I do like Sims games, but they require time I don’t have. But when it comes to the tribal crew, I’m there.

A human year has passed since we helped the villagers through their trials and tribulations in The Lost Children.

Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City takes our people to a new spot on Isola. They moved on from the other part of Isola to seek more land for their growing tribe. In landing on the northern side of Isola, they find an previous lived-in place.

Unlike past VV games, the tribe doesn’t start from scratch considering this was an abandoned city. All doesn’t come easy as they have to repair run down buildings and figure out how to get more food than the occasional mushroom. The tribe can’t go fishing in the shark-infested ocean, so they must brush up on alchemy and research to find other solutions.

Like the previous two games, the villagers can gain skills in five areas: farming, building, researching, healing, and parenting. Healing has been a difficult area to master, but that has changed with this one as the game offers more opportunities to build up a villager’s medical knowledge. Parenting is probably the most difficult to master — as it should — and repeatedly pregnant and pairing up of the villagers doesn’t quite help them master parenting.

Building up tech points takes a long time, so we must have patience. I hate limiting myself to checking on my people to twice a day. However, checking them too often resembles watching a pot boil. In the early years of the game, you’ll need to check in more often because food is a challenge. You will come to a point when it won’t be, but not for a long time.

The biggest new feature is the factions. Players need to choose between Nature and Magic factions. Nature helps with food while Magic increases longevity. This feature will compel players to create at least two tribes — one from each faction.

Other new features include having a tribal chief with special powers, a medical area, a special plant that only appears based on the chosen faction, weather, collections (turtle shells, coral, tablets, and feathers), and areas of technology (restoration, alchemy, and leadership). Science and Medicine appeared in the previous edition and return in Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City.

Villagers again come with likes and dislikes that can make some tasks harder or easier for them. Sometimes, you have to give up on the idea of helping one become an elder (mastering three skills) because a villager refuses to try something no matter how many times you push. The kids also take on traits from their parents. This time, they have an opportunity to become a master before they’re 18 because the tribal leader can give lectures once a day, which makes the kids smarter.

Also new to Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City is the trophies-type screen with 10 awards you can achieve. However, when you earn an award, it’s a non-event. The only way you know your tribe receives an award is by going to the awards screen.

You have four speed options. Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City continues to be a persistent game. This means that when you exit the game, they tribe lives on. I use the fastest speed and it’s still not fast enough. Really, you should savor the game and be patient. However, some of us don’t have that luxury.

Maybe it would work to have a sliding scale that outlines the human time and tribal time. For instance, a mother won’t do anything except take care of her baby for two years — 120 minutes (time depends on the chosen game speed) in human time. Or perhaps, add options to stop the game when food gets to zero. What do I know? I’m not a game developer.

The hardest part of the game — for me anyway — is leaving my villagers alone. I try to cut down to checking them two or three times a day (keep the fire burning, at least), but I jump in more than that. After completing 10 of the 16 puzzles, I need level 3 for the remaining puzzles and that takes hundreds of thousand tech points as I need to upgrade all five areas of technology plus my faction’s level. Ay yi yi.

Adventure / strategy games don’t run long because of the involved programming considering they have little repetition (like hidden object and arcade games). Yet, Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City lasts a long time and gives players their money’s worth. I dare you to try it for an hour, if you’ve never played. Whether you’ve played the previous two has no bearing on this one. You can start with this and play the others later or start with Virtual Villagers.

No matter — you can’t help but love them like children. They have their moments and give you plenty of laughs with an occasional, “Aw, man!”

PC Game Review James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club: Death in Scarlet

I’ve been a fan of James Patterson’s work since first reading Along Came a Spider. It was the first time I enjoyed something with a “spider” in it though it was figurative. Since then, I loved reading Alex Cross stories. Maybe I appreciated it more because the stories took place in Washington, DC — the only place I’ve lived outside of Texas.

I don’t read fiction much these days with my focus on reviewing and abstracting non-fiction books. But that didn’t stop me from checking out James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club TV series. I liked it, but its network canceled the show. Gosh durnit.

Nice seeing Dallas resident, Angie Harmon on the show along with her cool buds including the one that looks like Oprah Winfrey. The platinum blond lawyer was a little much, but you adapt to her. Besides, they didn’t match the book’s characters, but the game does. From what I understand as I haven’t read these books, but they’re on my long list of fiction books to read if I ever make it to the list.

The show didn’t win raves, so I wasn’t optimistic about the computer game. Good thing my “judging the book by the cover” didn’t stop me as Women’s Murder Club: Death in Scarlet proved creativity is still possible in hidden object games. With hidden object games coming out daily — sometimes more than once a day — casual gamers wonder if any originality remains. “YES!” The evidence is in this game. I’ve seen all the TV episodes and the game doesn’t copy any of them or the books.

Of course, the story starts with the discovery of a young woman’s body. After a little analysis, we learn someone poisoned her and branded her chest with Chinese letters. Detective Lindsay Boxer and her friends set off to search for the woman’s identity and her murderer. Forensic examiner Claire Washburn, newspaper reporter Cindy Thomas, and ADA Jill Bernhardt help Lindsay with her investigation. We not only do Lindsay’s job, but we also do Cindy’s and Claire’s job. Jill doesn’t appear much, but she’s around.

The game tells the story through short dialog — something that should be a standard in games. It can be hard to read a lot of dialog in one sitting especially on a screen. I think we absorb the story better in pieces. Occasionally, the game updates us on the story through well done comic strip style cartoons between scenes.

The “Skip” and continue buttons appear at the bottom of these scenes. However, these sometimes show on top of the dialog and you can’t read some of it. I moved the mouse all over the place trying to hide the controls to no avail. This problem occurs off and on throughout the game.

While finding hidden objects, some items go into your inventory for later use making a true connection between the found objects and the game’s storyline — something few hidden object games pull off. Sometimes you pick up a cotton swab for collecting evidence and parts of an object that you need to put together.

As a kid, I loved doing logic puzzles where you had to figure out the order based on the information given. A mini-game takes place in Claire’s lab where you first pick up all the supplies you need (bottles, Petri dish, eye dropper) and then sort the bottles based on their instructions.

After putting the chemicals in order, you use the dropper to describe the substance such as red foam, blue fizz, and purple none. Kind of boring after the first couple of times. But it involves you in the investigation making you feel a part of the action. The computer processes and reports the results of the evidence. I don’t know a better way of doing that. At least, it’s better than playing Memory!

Another mini-game involves sorting microfiche covers so you can look up articles in the newspaper archives. Sort the covers by color and a common theme. Once you finish, you’ll pull out one of the microfiches, do a search using keywords (which you must figure out — another cool feature), and read the article for more inside information on the story.

Though you return to some scenes a few times, it never feels like you’re looking for the same stuff again (except in the lab, but it’s justified). The objects — even the small ones — almost always pick up without a problem (some hidden objects make it hard to pick up the right items). Some hidden object games don’t do a good job of describing or naming more obscure items — not an issue here.

Women’s Murder Club: Death in Scarlet does a beautiful job of integrating hidden objects, sound, art, mystery, and detective work. I believe it deserves recognition as one of the best hidden object games.

It won’t surprise me to see another one come out considering all the Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes games that keep popping out. Women’s Murder Club: Death in Scarlet surpasses those in all-around production values. An almost perfect game.