Do you ever wonder what would happen if there was no Link Dump Friday? No puzzles waiting for you, no points to be clicked at? Do you think maybe Friday would never come? Maybe the universe would be held in an eternal stasis, just waiting for me to post this article, stuck forever in Thursday and waiting with breathless anticipation for a weekend that never comes. So, really, when you think about it... I'm kind of like a super hero! No, no, no need to say anything, old chum. Just doin' my duty. One woman against the void of the work week.
You're welcome.
La Regina di Ripicce Episode One - Regina and her gorgeous little blue room with its dainty soundtrack actually have me pretty conflicted. On the one hand, I want to have tea with its gorgeous presentation and giggle girlishly with my pinky extended while I play the game. On the other, there is so much crazy logic and frustrating pixel hunting in this short little point-and-clicker I feel almost personally slighted by it and want to challenge it to fisticuffs. Now, where did I put my white duellin' glove? I have a face to slap with it!
Sydney Shark - [Parental Warning: Not for children.] Remember Miami Shark? Awesome, now play it all over again, but Austrailia-er! More or less exactly the same as its predecessor, Sydney Shark features chompy, action-packed gameplay with a different background. Great news for fans of the original, but I can't help but figure they missed out when they didn't include a level where you have to dodge scathing critiques of your performance sneered at you by a British man in a hat. You call that an agonizing bloody death?
Magic Orbs - Imagine you've got some orbs. Pretty sweet, right? Now imagine they're magic. Oh man! That's so awesome I almost passed out! Apparently, when you're a wizard, you get to carry these things around and solve various light puzzles to open doors. I don't know how they stand the excitement! In all honesty, Magic Orbs has some lovely old-school SNES-style presentation, but the gameplay is a bit less "thundering stampede of excitement" and a bit more "solving jigsaw puzzles on Sunday afternoon with Grandma". A valid pastime, but you can't help but wish there was more to it.
Volt Connect - Typically as children we're discouraged to play with volatile objects holding painful electrical charges, but slap a bright paint job and some googly eyes on it and suddenly everyone's fine with the idea. (But somehow my Running With Scissors competition is still a bad idea? Hypocrites.) Use your Goo skills to place down the electrical critters in the proper places to get the charge where you want it to be. Cute and simple, but perhaps the best news is that unlike other Funflow games, there's a walkthrough available for it, so you don't have to give their Facebook account access to yours to proceed. That's right, your incriminating Spring Break photos are safe!... for now.
Dreamy Island - This point-and-click Grow-style game lacks an English translation (or, um, logic), but, really, I'm not sure the text would be capable of making the game make much sense. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, since it allows you to draw your own conclusions about the concoction sitting atop the bear's head. Or why that tree looks so shocked and horrified. I see what you did there.
Oops, I think we featured 'Dreamy Island' before, under the title, You Are Lucky...
https://jayisgames.com/archives/2007/12/you_are_lucky.php
'British Man in a Hat'
Was that a reference to Yahtzee?
Did anybody else
walk through the wall on the third level of magic orbs by walking up and right above the barrel
magic orbs needs a way to view the entire level at once. and you need to move faster. it takes artificially long to solve these because of this. I want to spend my game time figuring out the solution, not backtracking for 15 minutes because the color past the gate was the wrong one.
Actually magic orbs gets a bit more complicated/interesting if you progress far enough. There are doors that close when you carry particular colored orbs and there are numbered lever-controlled steel gates to add to the challenge.
If the game simply included a way to scroll the screen so you could view the entire level, it would be worthy of a full review.
I love ya, Dora, but I'm getting deja-vu with your opening paragraph.
Or ... wait ... was last week the last Link Dump Friday, thus sending time into a backwards spiral? Or is it because I haven't gotten to this week's Weekday Escape yet, thus sending time into a backwards spiral?
Must--go--save--the--time--flow!!!
Yeah, the gameplay of Magic Orbs seems to deliberately generate level after level of:
1.) Laboriously figure out the right sequence of doors/orbs to get to the far side
2.) Laboriously undo everything you just did in reverse order, twice, in order to get through the obstacle you can only now view.
That's... not really fun. I keep losing patience with it after every other level, feeling insulted when the sequence of open doors and possessed orbs you need to view the final door puts you in EXACTLY the worst possible position to open it, making it as difficult and time-consuming as absolutely possible.
Every level like that feels like you've been "set up". Not a nice or rewarding feeling that you want from a puzzle game, I guess.
Regina was immensely frustrating given its length.
Here's a hint-through for anyone who gets annoyed at it:
Let there be light!
Awfully dark in here, huh? Should we try to get some lights?
There's no light switch, and the candles do nothing. Let's try opening the curtains, shall we?
Hmm, Regina doesn't like it when we try to open the curtains on the left. Are there other curtains we can open?
There's no pull tassel for the curtains on the right. Do you see something that looks like a pull cord?
The plants in the vase in the center have a bell-shaped end, just like the pull tassel on the left curtains.
Click the plants several times and a tassel thing will fall out.
Now that we have a cord to pull, let's open the curtains. Uh-oh, we can't seem to attach the tassel to the curtains. Why not?
Maybe the bird is in the way?
Click the bird a couple of times to make him move forward.
Now we can open the curtains! Click and drag to attach the pull cord to the curtain, then click the tassel several times until the curtain is fully raised.
Locating the puzzle
Well, we're in a locked room. You know what we need to find, right?
Where could the key be hidden?
The bird looks awfully suspicious doesn't it?
Click the bird several times until it coughs up the key. Click and drag the key to the door.
Solving the puzzle
Regina doesn't like it when we click the cart. Maybe we need to find a clue first?
Behind the painting seems like a good place to find a hidden clue. Too bad neither painting is moveable. Or are they?
Take the feather from Regina's hat and drag it to the lower painting.
Grab the sheet of music and drag it to the tea cart.
Oh look! It looks like you can play music on the glasses.
If you click play, the notes on the score will play. Take note of which glasses are highlighted for each note, and then play the tune back by clicking on the glasses. The score and the order of the glasses changes each time you play.
Finale
Hmm, Regina looks awfully happy now. Maybe she won't be as disapproving as she was before.
Click the tassel on the left curtain.
Oh dear, someone is trying to get in. But he looks too short to reach the floor
Click the stool behind Regina and drag it under the window. Now click the dude.
I was able to solve Regina
without using the stool.
Actually, "Dreamy Island" is a stolen version of "You Are Lucky".
[Stolen? It's the same version we linked to back in 2007. Do you know what the official site is for it? -Jay]
I played Sydney Shark.
Despite the distinct lack of gameplay differences, getting to drag down a Chinese nuke and create an explosion visible from space is among the most epic win exploits known to man.
I actually loved Magic Orbs, to the point that when I came back here to find a link again, I was surprised it didn't get a full review.
Sure, it wasn't as good as the similar puzzle towards the end of System's Twilight (though it does have the advantage of being playable on modern computers), and a zoom-out feature would be nice, but the level design got pretty tight towards the end. The last level, in particular, is impressive in its restraint. Other designers would be tempted to make a sprawling palace at that point (especially with all the game elements that have been introduced), but that seems to have been avoided here.
Nooooo! Don't even pretend to talk about no Link Dump Friday. Yeek.
Sydney Shark was even more shark-tastic than Miami Shark! And I've already played it, thanks to Reddit's amazing powers of discovery.
...And now I feel like going to watch some more destruction the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. But first, more flash games!
Arr. On You Are Lucky, I was digging up the stuff for that ghost thing in the graveyard, and I only had one more to go. I clicked on the spot and nothing happened. I had to start over and it happened AGAIN. I had already started over like 5 other times for doing something wrong, and the pace is way too slow.
Argh, I played Sydney Shark and got most of the way through it... Then tried to pause it by pressing Escape, and it restarted the whole level!
Dreamy Island? Havn't you guys already featured that game under the title, "You are lucky!"? Running out of games, are we?
I was having fun, really enjoying Magic Orbs, until I got to a level where I needed to zoom out to see everything. Suddenly it wasn't fun any more, it was more like work. I tried drawing a map, but it got annoying and error-prone to keep track of where I had dropped orbs and which doors were available.
Magic Orbs had magic advertising. that and the other details were super cute.
I heart Dora so much I hesitate to ask this, but
Did she get "British" confused with "Australian"?
Dora, your musings about the games are phenomenal(and everyone else does a good job too)!! They are THE funniest on JIG! Then I play the great games you all find and bring together here. Awesome.
The fellow I may or may not have been referring to was, according to the tagline below certain video reviews, born in Britain, although he currently lives in Australia.
With the awesome bar.
That I cannot go to.
SULK INITIATED.
Ahh most of these games are good,but the Orbs game is very repetitive it annoyed me I quit at level 3....I then played Scorched Sky that is one that should get reviewed.
Update