Recent reviews by genkicoll

Hope's Farm is a match-3/SIM hybrid. 

The difficulty choices are nice, giving you the option to play timed and/or a limited of moves, or without any restrictions.

Fill orders (via match-3) to earn money to buy more crops/decorations for your farm.

Crops grow at an incredibly fast rate, meaning that you really don't have to put too much thought into the timing portion. The planning part comes from what you decide to harvest.  Your storage can only hold so much, and when it's full, you either have to sell it or "delete" it in 25-item increments.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3040455786

There is an order board with requests, and you can't fill the order (by playing the match-3 portion) until you have all of the listed items, so if you harvested too much of something, you'll have to delete some in order to grab the crops you need.  You'll usually have 5+ orders to choose from, so that helps.

In addition to the order board, you have a BOOK with quests in it.  Quests can be things like:

• Buy one chicken coop
  
• Sell 20 eggs
  
• Decorate your farm with a scarecrow
  
• Water 6 sunflowers

Upon completion of quests, you will earn money, gems (used to purchase power-ups in the M3 portion) and experience.  Going up levels unlocks more items you can buy and more quests.

NOTE RE: BOOK QUESTS - You have to go into the book CLAIM your rewards.  It doesn't happen automatically.

Match-3:

The M3 portion of the game is nicely-polished and fun to play.  The aforementioned power-ups that you can buy with your gems are represented by a trowel (remove one piece), a cyclone (shuffle) and lightning (removed all of one type of tile).  I didn't need to use these at all, since the bombs for making 4+ matches were sufficient help.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3040455988

Gems can also be used to extend the amount of time on the clock and/or add a number of moves, if you're playing in that mode.

Customers are on the left side of the screen, and when their orders are all filled, the level will end.  Some of these things are gained by simple matching, others will need to be brought to the bottom of the screen before they can be sold.

When you're low on water, you'll play a match-3 round to clear a path for the water to reach the well.  This works... err... Well!

SIM:

Click on a field once to bring up the pic of a scythe, which you can then drag around to harvest everything in sight (if you so choose).  Same for watering, only you'll see a water bucket.  Good in theory, and I liked the ease of harvesting/watering, except that it's really easy to accidentally click in the wrong place if you have things close together.

Decorating/purchasing really could have used some tweaking. Open the store, click on the item and DRAG it onto the screen where you want to place it.  It was counter-intuitive for me, and I kept accidentally either closing the store or placing things where I didn't want them.  You can move them, but it's kind of clicky to do so.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3040455576

Speaking of which, if you're placing multiple items, you have to do the entire process for each item.  Open store, drag and drop where you want it, then start over.  This is really tedious when you're trying to place a path!

You have a limited amount of items you can purchase (ie. 4 coconut trees, two duck ponds), so managing money isn't something you'll need to worry about.

Verdict:

This is a fun match-3/SIM hybrid with 100 levels (orders) and many quests to complete.  I really enjoyed the match-3 portion, and the SIM part is good, but could have been a little better-optimized.  I really like that once all of the orders have been completed, you can replay any of them, meaning that you can keep playing indefinitely.

There were some missed opportunities that could have made this game an absolute must-have, but in its current state, I'd say that it's pretty addictive and a nice way to pass the time.

Creaks

A fantastic puzzle adventure by Amaninta-Design, the makers of Samorost, Machinarium and Botanicula.

Options include separate sliders for Volume and Brightness, and choice of Language and Resolution.  Using a controller is recommended, but keyboard is also supported.

Story:

You're just minding your own business when the room starts shaking, things begin breaking and your wall opens up to reveal a mysterious passage to a world unknown.  Here you will find dangers and mysteries surrounding birdfolk, killer furniture and a very dangerous, very large antagonist.

Despite the fact that we can die -- and have a giant something trying to destroy everything -- I did not find this game to be creepy in the slightest... As a matter of fact, I found it to be absolutely delightful!  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3002647964

Throughout the game you will uncover the story of this place via well-placed animated sequences.  These scenes can be skipped, if desired, which is very helpful when you are replaying a scene.

Gameplay:

Although Creaks is often referred to as a puzzle-platformer, there is absolutely no precision-platforming involved.  You do have to time things just right, but that is just part of the puzzle process, rather than what I'd refer to as typical platforming.

Gameplay consists of figuring out the environment in order to progress to the next scene.  The puzzling comes into play as you learn how monsters react to the presence of light and how to maneuver them into positions that will help open up otherwise-inaccessible areas.

Along the way you will discover interactive paintings -- some hidden, some in plain sight.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3002648271

The "interactiveness" of these paintings ranges from pushing a button and watching a few things move around to full-blown mini-games.  Fair warning that at least one of these requires fast reflexes, and while completing the minis is not necessary to finish the game, it IS required if you want to get all of the achievements.

All told, there are 28 Steam achievements, most of which are from finding/completing paintings and discovering hidden areas.

Did I not mention the hidden areas?  Well I did now!  They're not hard to find as long as you're paying attention ;D

Sights and Sounds:

The graphics are very environmental, and although there is a lot of darkness in the color palette, they have their own beauty.

There are a grand total of 61 scenes in the game, and we have not only a very convenient scene select area on the main menu, but a Restart Scene option whenever you pause the game.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3002650116

As for the audio, I can't imagine SFX and/or music that could be any more appropriate.

Verdict:

Overall I found Creaks to be an engaging foray into another world, with interesting puzzles that were just the right difficulty.  The graphics and audio were perfectly matched, and the overall production value excellent.  Absolutely delightful and highly recommended!

It's hard to pigeonhole this game into a single genre, as it changes so much as you progress.  What starts out as a walking SIM-type exploration game becomes run-for-your-life, don't-eat-me-don't-eat-meeee; to stealth to oh-my-god-I'm-gonna-diiiie and  back to exploration.  

Story:

The day in the life of a cat turns to a story of discovery and survival when the environment betrays you and plunges you into the depths of a dysfunctional, heretofore forgotten city.  With the help of a new friend, you must find your way out if you ever want to be reunited with your family... And maybe save the city along the way.

Our protagonist is a cat.  A gloriously-nuanced feline in every way, from its curiosity to scratching up furniture to tripping the denizens of the city to its fuzzy little tail.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2841594570

Gameplay:

The controls felt a little wonky to me -- a bit hard to get used to -- but in the end, messing with the sensitivity and simply playing the game made things feel more natural, and didn't get in the way of the enjoyment of the game.

I was confused by the tags on Steam at first, as the first hour and a half is entirely getting used to the environment and eventually meeting the companion who will accompany you for the rest of the game.  Cyberpunk?  Horror?  Stealth?  I didn't really see any of these at first, but they do apply eventually.  You could argue that cyberpunk absolutely applies to the early gameplay, but it didn't really have that cyberpunk feeling that I had been expecting.

Movement is not limited to the ground, as our nimble friend must climb and jump his way through the environment.  We even have some fast-travel options to speed things up!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2841304913

There are a couple of very light puzzles, but nothing brain-bending.

Eventually we will discover the dangers of this city and will have to use our very best moves to evade certain death.  Stealth will not work with these particular enemies, so those with coordination issues may have troubles progressing past a certain point in the game.

There are COLLECTIBLES to find along the way: Memories that will reveal more about our mysterious little bot friend, how this city came to be and how the place ended up in this state.  These memories really add to the ambiance and the interest in the game, so I recommend seeking them out!

The 24 Steam achievements are made easier to obtain by the chapter select option.  This also shows how many of the memories you've obtained per chapter, making it easy to know where you might have missed some!

Sights and Sounds:

This is a beautifully-crafted environment, with gorgeous plants, interesting characters and some truly breathtaking sights along the way.  There is also a huge creep factor depending on where you are and what you're currently doing in the game.  Alas, Steam reviews will only allow 3 images to show up, so I can't share some of my favorite screens here.  Suffice to say, there's plenty in this game for those of us who love taking screenshots!

As for the sounds, they're nicely environmental, but I highly recommend making use of those sound and music sliders, as for me the music got annoying in parts.

There are a huge amount of mods for the game, from simple recolors to entirely new shapes, such as Gigi from Kiki's delivery service, various cartoons and even some dog/puppies!  By viewer request, I switched over to the Garfield mod about half way through the game.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2860447876

Just a few of the mods available for Stray <--CLICK ME!

Verdict:

The Bad:  The gameplay was too jarringly different in each area to have a natural flow and rhythm. It would have been much better if the types of play had been spread throughout the game, rather than concentrated into certain segments. 

The Good: Our protagonist is delightfully cat-like, with beautifully-realized mannerisms that any cat-lover will recognize.  This really offset the unease I felt from the lack of balance in the gameplay.  The story is really interesting, especially if you take the time to find the memories spread across the chapters, and one element of final sequence really took me by surprise -- something I definitely can appreciate!

Overall, I feel that Stray is a flawed title due to the issues I mentioned above, but one that is still fun to play and experience.  I'll give this one a thumbs up!

Shady Part of Me (Narrative Platformer)

NOTE: This game is a narrative experience, and the gameplay reflects that. There is NO precision platforming nor impossible-to-figure-out puzzles along the way.

Options include volume controls for Master, Music, SFX and Voices; Brightness, Resolution (for me the default was 1536 x 864), Controller or Keyboard (re-mappable), and choice of Language.

Story and Gameplay:

The store page expresses the gist of the game and story well, but in my own words, this is about a girl struggling to face life and pain, darkness and light, yin and yang.

We journey as two parts of the whole... Part of us depends on the light, traveling through the shadows upon flat surfaces, whilst the other part is afraid of the light, and moves about in 2.5D world... It's not quite 3D, but it still *feels* 3-dimensional.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2324716145
Each character is controlled separately, and you can switch back and forth at will. You will have to cooperate with your shadow in order to progress, the goal being to get you both to the marked checkpoint. These are pretty close together, and you may be blocked off from the last segment once you both hit the save point.

Why is this important? Because there are collectible origami birds, and finding them can add just the slightest bit more to the tale.

You can see how many you've collected in the top right corner of the screen, but more helpful is the 'Revisit' section of the Menu, which will show you how many you've collected (and missed) per chapter. You can, I assume, replay a chapter at any time and not lose your progress.

There are no HINTS available, but in general, you won't need them. The puzzles tend to be on the easy-to-figure-out side, as the driving force behind this game is learning the story. Gathering the birds can be a little trickier, but it's obvious that the devs WANT you to complete the game, and rage-quitting doesn't exactly make one want to keep playing non-stop. XD
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2323376405
Although not super-challenging, the mechanics do evolve and become more complex as you progress, making things even more interesting, and blending beautifully with where we are in the story.

A lot of things come to mind as I think about the game. Whimsy. Fear. Sorrow. Beauty. Strength. The devs managed to convey these feelings in a manner that is both fluid and poignant, enhancing their tale in a variety of ways. There are elements of the known: A sprinkle of the shadow-play from Contrast, visible word play and environmental unlocks like in Epistory - Typing Chronicles, 2.5D gameplay reminiscent of Max: The Curse of Brotherhood... and yet as a whole Shady Part of Me is nothing like other games I've played.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2321264322

Verdict:

Shady Part of Me is a little slow to start off, but quickly becomes hard to pull yourself away from. I found myself completely engaged, and absolutely recommend the game to anyone who enjoys a good narrative. Quick reflexes are not required!

Dark Dimensions 5: Homecoming (IHOG)

Options include Full-screen, Widescreen, Custom Cursor and separate sliders for Music, SFX and Voices. Choice of three preset difficulties, or you can go with Custom mode. Difficulty can be changed at any time.


When you were young, your parents disappeared whilst researching something called Dark Dimensions. You and your sister have been searching for them for years, coming across Dark Dimensions in your travels, learning about them and destroying them. Finally, you've found where it all began -- the place where your parents disappeared -- and now you'll learn the truth surrounding your family.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2314538469
Our phone serves as our Journal, and contains tabs for the Interactive Map, Notes (just clippings and such, nothing new to add to the story), Video Diary and Achievements.

NOTE: The map can be a little confusing, as it's sometimes hard to tell if you're clicking on the place you want to go or an area, which expands to show locations. Also, NOTHING gets blocked off -- You can access every location at any time, even if story-wise you're trapped elsewhere.


The backstory progresses through a series of interactive puzzle-like scenes, which really keeps you engaged and interested in what's happening.

Mini-games in general are interesting and not hard to complete, although there are some exceptions. There is one puzzle that requires not only quick responses, but memorization of where symbols are located, as there's no way to be quick enough without doing so.

Our Tasks and game progression are logical and intuitive... You know, except for handling live wires with our bare hands. :p

The Hidden Object Scenes are highly-interactive, often requiring you to find an object to unlock another object and/or completing zoom-in puzzles to progress.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2309446656
We have a cute Siberian Husky, Rocky, who accompanies us on our journey and helps out when needed. Along the way we collect COINS, which are used to decorate his room. If you click on the items in the room, Rocky will interact with them. A nice touch, and just a small indicator of the extra mile the devs went to for this game.

• Collectible Coins and Mansion parts
  
• In-game Achievements
  
• Integrated Strategy Guide
  
• Bonus Chapter
  
• Match-3 game (8 puzzle-type levels where you click on a group of tiles to remove them, and have limited moves)
  
• 6 Wallpapers
  
• 12 Concept Art
  
• Developer Diary (a very cute video + 18 pictures behind the scenes)
  
• 4 Music Tracks (which cannot be saved)

The game has a decent stopping point, but there's a bit more to the story, which is picked up in this extra chapter. The bonus is the same high quality as the rest of the game, although it seemed like the mini-games were more complex.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2314541063

A lot of care was put into this game, and it shows. The story was interesting, the graphics very nice and the gameplay excellent! The ending came unexpectedly for me, but that's likely because I'm very logic-minded and needed more information on a couple of points to be truly satisfied. Overall, this is a stellar game in an excellent series.

Options include separate sliders for Music, Environment, SFX and Voices; slider for Brightness; Full-screen or Wide-screen; Custom Cursor and three Difficulties, which can be changed at any time.

Story:

The statues in Martlet have come to life, and are waging a war against each other whilst the townspeople cower in fear. To top that off, local craftsmen have been disappearing and the Crown wants answers! Cue your dispatch -- the Royal Detective -- to solve this mystery and save the town.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2295954359
Our narrator speaks very slowly, but he has a bit of a Morgan Freeman vibe to his voice, which makes it less irritating. You CAN click through the dialogue to speed things up if you like.

There is NO Journal, but only one instance where you'll have to remember a sequence that you saw in another room in order to solve a puzzle. Luckily, the solution was only a room or two away.

Gameplay:

There is a nice balance of adventuring and Hidden Object Scenes, which are very lightly-interactive lists.

During the adventure portion of the game there is a LOT of backtracking. Thank goodness for the insta-transport MAP, which can show active areas (depending upon which difficulty you are currently using). HINTS will have your narrator tell you exactly where you need to go and what you need to do there (even if it's a location you haven't been to yet).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2295954181
As mentioned above, there are statues at odds with one another. Some of them are on your side, and are amazingly-helpful! I became very attached to one of them in particular. haha!

The Mini-games nicely-varied, and not just the same-old, same-old we long-time HOG players are used to. Some of them are quite complex, although they can be SKIPPED.

NOTE: There is ONE mini-game that is timing-based. You can pass it by memorizing the order in which you need to do the sequence, but you'll fail if you don't make that move in time, requiring you to start over >_<

Sights and Sounds:

The graphics aren't as stunning as some of the more recent titles, but I was really impressed by the amount of work they put into their animations. They showed a lot more than they technically needed to, which is something I really noticed and appreciated.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2295952518
CE Content:

• Integrated Strategy Guide
  
• In-game Achievements
  
• Bonus Chapter
  
• 11 Wallpapers
  
• 16 Concept Art
  
• 4 Music Tracks
  
• 13 Videos

Bonus Chapter:

The extra chapter gives us a little wrap-up, and has two of my favorite scenes from the game. It was, however, very short. It felt like it was about 30 minutes, and it was heavier on the hidden object scenes than the main game.

Verdict:

There are TWO different endings, depending upon the last decision you make in the game. They do not affect the bonus chapter, nor (I'm guessing) future games in the series. I got the bad ending by accident, and looked up the good ending on YouTube so that I didn't have to replay the whole game. ;)

Although I didn't find the story to be all that compelling, I found myself enjoying the game a lot more as I progressed. A very nice start to the series. :D

Gems of War (F2P Battle Match-3/RPG/Card Collector)

If Puzzle Quest and Runespell Overture -- both highly-addictive -- had a love child, I imagine that this game would be the outcome. TL;DR at the end under Verdict.

There are separate tabs for Options, and include separate sliders for Music and SFX, Speed (default 1.5x -- I keep mine at 4x), Hints and more. Under the Graphics tab you'll find a place where you can turn off the holiday themes (such as clown skulls for international clown day or pumpkin skulls for Halloween).

NOTE: If your game looks wonky and/or is flickering, make sure that there's nothing sitting on your controller.

Story: Let's face it, Gems of War is not about the story. Each kingdom that you explore has a storyline, and these range from amusing to exasperating (looking at you Princess Elspeth!) -- some are even interesting -- but the stories never were meant to be the driving focus of the experience. It's all about the...

Gameplay!

The basics of the are simple: Match gems to gather mana in order to cast spells, and match skulls to do a direct attack on your enemies. Gameplay is entirely turn-based. You take a turn, your opponent takes a turn. Nowhere in the game will you be required to have quick reflexes.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2270862557

The game starts off with a very good tutorial that will teach you what you need to know in the beginning. At this point it's very linear, but after you finish the story in the first kingdom, you'll have a bit more freedom. At this point you can choose which kingdom to unlock next, or you can do one of the following in your completed kingdom(s):

• Challenges: Collect needed resources such as souls, gold, glory etc.
  
• Explores: 5 battles to help you earn experience, traitstones, souls, gold and mythstones. When you collect 100 mythstones, you can do a mythic boss battle at the end of your explore, which will earn you tokens. 3 tokens = a badge, 3 badges = a medal. There are multiple kinds of badges/medals that you can equip from the main kingdom screen (at the top) that will give you various buffs, from extra armor to cleansing negative status effects to bonus magic strength

Online Gameplay Only:

You MUST be connected to the internet to play this game. There are multiple reasons for this, the primary of which is the fact that there are constant updates and new events almost every day.

New Content:

A new troop-of-the-week is released every Monday. This troop can be obtained via chests or from the shop in the Weekly Event tab (purchase with glory).

The first Friday of every month a new Mythic releases. Let me explain:

Troop rarity is indicated by the color of the border on each card in the following order: White, Green, Blue, Purple, Orange, Turquoise, with white being common and Turquoise being a mythic quality (and the hardest to get from chests). Don't worry, there are stars at the top of the cards that show you how rare they are. The more stars that are colored in, the rarer the card.

Every 5 weeks we get a new faction to play in, which you'll find in...

The Underworld:

As you get close to completing all of the kingdoms in Krystara (our main map), you'll be able to unlock the underworld. There you will find factions, each having its own mini-story. Once you complete the storyline, you'll be able to do a delve at the site.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2160982645

Delves:

Delving is a different kind of gameplay than what you've experienced thus far. You'll still be fighting battles, but this time in a series of 9 rooms -- each with its own rewards -- culminating in a chest of rewards when you either lose your whole team or complete the delve by finishing the boss room.

Your team persists from room-to-room! It cannot be changed, and if you lose a troop, it's gone for the rest of the delve. This is a love-it or hate-it type of gameplay, and while it make me really anxious at first, once I obtained some reliably-good troops, I really started to enjoy them!

JOIN A GUILD! If you don't want to talk to anyone and don't want to have requirements, there are guilds out there for you, and you can still get some of the basic rewards, just join one that is the highest level possible so that you can have better stat boosts.

If you really like this game and want to play it daily, join an active guild.

The benefits of joining a guild:

• World Events: Every week there is a new "World Event", which you can only participate with if you're in a guild. The whole team works together to beat stages and earn reward tiers. These rewards get progressively better, so being in an active guild guarantees you better rewards
  
• Stat Bonuses: There are Tasks that your guild can complete with gold every week, and finishing those tasks gives you not only a bonus to your stats (Magic, Armor, etc.), but also immediate rewards such as gems, glory, keys, etc.
  
• Guild Seals:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2271511005

Earning seals is easy -- Just play the game! An active guild will require you to collect your seals every day or two 'til you hit your minimum-required for the guild or the game limit of 2000. The reason for this is the number under Guild Weekly Seals. When you hit 40,000/40,000, your guild chests will raise to level 6, which will get you the highest possible quality out of those seals. You'll get some of the best troops in the game from those chests, which is why an active guild is recommended!

NOTE: Use guild seals in the Chests area

PvP:
Do you have to do PvP? Nope, but it's a great way to see some interesting troop combinations, and trust me, it's not as painful as you think ;) The AI handles the other team.

FREE?

Wait... All of this is free-to-play? Why yes it is! You can play this game every day of your life and never pay a penny. There are of course things that you can buy that will help you along the way and/or make your progression faster, but I don't feel like these things give an unfair advantage. Everything available for purchase is something that you can earn yourself eventually.

Verdict:

This is a highly-addictive battle match-3 game with card collecting (troops) and some RPG aspects (upgrading your classes, kingdoms, troops, etc). Beware, oh ye of OCD, for your playing of other games ends here! Gems of War has a surprising depth to it that keeps me coming back day after day, a great community, and above all else, FUN!

Full review located HERE[genkisgamegab.forumotion.com]

Amy's Greenmart (Dash-TM)
Steam copy provided for Curator review

Options include Custom Cursor, Full-screen, separate sliders for Music and SFX and choice of Relaxed or Normal Mode.

Story:

After receiving approval for a loan, Amy opens up her very own eco-friendly shop. She'll meet both competitors and friends during her journey, and aims to have the very best shops around.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2125719120
The story is very thin, basically serving as an excuse to open new shops and give us some nice artwork between locations.

Gameplay:

Amy's Greenmart has a much different feeling than the usual GameHouse dash games that I play. More focus on gameplay, and without story progression until you're between shops (no daily story-related goals to accomplish).

Being the owner you will manage every aspect of your stores, from ordering and stocking supplies to cleaning to making sure customers are happy and everything in between.

How it works:

Customers come in to browse and grab their choices, and you need to make sure that everything they want is available. Amy has a cart that she uses to stock the shelves (top for produce/flowers, bottom for stock). You can order more cases (shelving and boxes are color-coded) with a simple click, but it takes a while for it to arrive (those guys just don't get in a hurry!)

You can chain up to 8 actions at any given time, and if something comes up that you need to attend to in the meantime, you can cancel the chain to do whatever is needed.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2125716402
Speaking of chaining, there is no bonus for chaining actions such as stocking shelves or checking customers out. Your money is made by keeping your customers happy, and to this end, they have a patience meter. The happier they are when they check out, the more money you make.

Early on it's easy enough to do everything by yourself, but soon you're going to need some help. You can hire a gardener, cashier, security, a janitor and someone to gather the baskets, but you'll still need to tell them what to do. In addition to the general stock, you'll need to activate some machines (for salads, drinks, bouquets, etc). The items needed will be pictured on the machine(s), and you just need to make sure the ingredients are stocked (on the shelves) before you click on the machines.

PRO TIP: You don't have to wait for an indicator to pop up showing that an action needs to be done. You'll be more successful if you stay on top of things and stock (etc) before it's needed!

There are a ton of upgrades to purchase in addition to the hiring of staff, and the strategy of figuring out most efficient use of your upgrade money is one of the things I enjoyed most about the game.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2125720688
NOTE: The difference between Relaxed and Normal Mode seems to be how quickly customer happiness drops. This will of course affect how successful you are during the day, but it will also affect your in-game/Steam achievements. You see there's an achievement for checking out 500 full-happiness customers, and that's really hard to do in Normal Mode since your cashier tends to sleep on the job a couple of steps away from the cash register. This means that if you wait to click until the customer is there, they'll lose patience just waiting for him to step over to ring them up. Annoying. >_<

Verdict:

With eight 15-level shops, there are grand total of 120 levels to play. I really enjoyed the strategy involved in upgrading and planning out my steps to have the most productive days possible. Had a lot of fun with this one, and am hoping they'll make a sequel! Recommended!

Heart's Medicine 2: Time to Heal
Steam copy provided for Curator review

This is a medical drama with some serious subject matters. There will be feels.

Options include separate sliders for Music and SFX, Full-screen and Show Game Hints. There is no custom cursor, so I made a simple guide on how to increase your system's cursor size HERE .

Choice of Easy, Normal or Advanced Mode.

Story:

Allison returns to Little Creek Hospital to continue her internship... and the love triangle that started in Season One. Daniel, the charming Medical Director and Connor, the snarky-but-kind (and surprisingly NON-offensive) chief of Pediatrics both have a place in Allison's heart, but there are more serious issues at hand.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2115476654
Be aware that the story starts BEFORE Level 1. Be sure to click on the little cutscene icon on the map if you don't want to miss anything!

Gameplay:

If you're coming off of Season One, as I am, you'll quickly notice some differences. For instance, there's a wider variety of gameplay and the scoring is done differently (not to mention having the choice of difficulties).

Here's how it works:

Patients come in and you will direct them to the station that they've requested. Once there, you will have a variety of things you might need to do. Grab an item to help you (such as a thermometer), do a mini-action (swiping the cursor however you're directed to) and/or do a pop-up mini-game. The mini-games vary widely, depending on where you are in the hospital. Examples: Setting anesthesia rate, stitches, filling medicine vials, spinal manipulations (slide the bones back where they belong), removing pieces of glass, suctioning excess fluids and many more.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2115485027
Helping patients will increase their heart meter, and when it's full to the top, the hearts will turn everlasting gold (they can't lose happiness.)

Some of the pop-up mini-games require fast and accurate clicking. You'll also need to be able to analyze spot inconsistencies and react quickly. By level 38 I had to switch to Easy mode, and even then I struggled with a few of the challenges in the final area. I'm just too dexterity-challenged for these particular feats! The mini-actions were do-able for me, thankfully.

NOTE: It's not that I couldn't score enough points... It's that I'm a completionist, and I want ALL of the achievements, darn it, so I HAVE to pass those challenges!

Gold and Diamonds and Stars, oh my!

In case you've never played a Dash-TM before, here's what each of these things are for:

• Gold - Money is used to purchase upgrades, which in turn will make your life easier
  
• Diamonds - Each of the 90-total stages has a challenge to complete, and for each, you'll earn a diamond. Diamonds are used to purchase upgrades to the new wing of the hospital
  
• Stars - You can earn up to 3 stars on each stage, and each star will grant you more gold

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2115491959
Verdict:

Heart's Medicine is a drama filled with moments both serious and moving, and tempered with a dash of good old-fashioned humor. The characters were mostly-likeable -- even lovable -- including the guy who completely ticked me off in the last game. lol~ Gameplay is solid and fun, but can become frustrating late in the game if you want to earn all of the achievements. Really enjoyed this one!

Heart's Medicine: Season One Remastered (Dash-TM)

Options include separate sliders for Music and SFX, full-screen and Show Game Hints. There is no custom cursor, so I made a simple guide on how to increase your system's cursor size HERE.

The original Heart's Medicine: Season One released in 2010, and was a pioneer in the Dash-TM genre in several ways. It was the very first medical-themed dash game, it introduced the pop-up mini games/actions, and was the first game in the GameHouse Original Stories series to have the almighty golden hearts.

Story:

This is where it all began. See what prompted Allison Heart to go into the medical field, how she got to know the residents at Little Creek Hospital and how she grew in those early days as an intern.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2111209615
The main story is one of the few things that is unchanged in this remaster, another being the presence of Oliver the Hamster (although he doesn't literally run around the room anymore).

Story segments are much shorter than in the more-recent offerings, adding more emphasis to the gameplay.

WARNING: It is WAY too easy to accidentally click through dialogue.

What's Different:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2103708780
Besides the obvious modernizing of the graphics, there have been a lot of changes.

• No difficulty settings - No worries if you need an easier or difficulty... I'll have more on that below
  
• Cast - You can check out the cast and some background info on them from the main menu
  
• Better gameplay - The original did not have much to it other than sending people to their stations, then clicking on them. Now we need to grab supplies and take them with us, which adds interest
  
• Patients automatically head over to the checkout station
  
• Diamonds - Instead of decorating Allison's office by earning all of the achievements, we need to earn diamonds, which we use to purchase those items
  
• 30 Challenge stages - We now have non-story-related challenges that we can do to earn extra diamonds
  
• Bonus chapter - An all-new 10-stage bonus story to help set the stage for the next game. Very nicely done!
  
• No Easter Eggs - The special items you could collect that linked HM to other games (like the Delicious series) are no longer present

Making Points:

If you want to make points, the most important thing you need to do is serve patients QUICKLY. Your checkout combos are negligible, but those golden hearts add a LOT to your score. For those unfamiliar, once a patient's hearts turn gold, they WILL NOT lose any happiness, no matter how long they wait.

If someone has to wait a while, send them to the patience station... I don't know what to call them, I discovered them by accident. When patients are at the water cooler, magazine rack, etc. they will not lose any hearts.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2111214418
Chain actions back-to-back whenever possible, as that's your second-biggest point-maker.

Too easy for you? I gotcha covered there, too! Simply don't purchase any of the upgrades!

Minis:

The mini-game popups are pretty simple in this first game, ranging from finding sore spots (bee sting, glass, nail, etc), to checking blood pressure and using other instruments. The mini-actions are pop-ups that require you to move your cursor around in a certain way: Clicking, sliding back-and-forth, holding, rotating in a circle and such. These can be completed while Allison is doing other things, which is super-helpful, time-wise.

Glitches:
There were a couple of minor glitches, but nothing game-breaking. I had a glitch on level 30, where some of the text never showed up and I had to skip it, but upon replaying the level, it worked just fine. Just one of those weird things! The other is that patients sometimes get stuck at the register, meaning that you'll have one less point in your combo than you should have.

Verdict:

It was great to revisit the beginning of the series after all these years. So much that I had forgotten! I really like the changes that have been made, especially the all-new Epilogue. Absolutely worth playing if you like the idea of a Dash-type Medical Drama.