Review: Cake Mania a Tasty Recipe for Fun! by Darrin Matter

Darrin just sent me another fun and interesting review. This time he played Cake Mania.

It’s amazing how you can take something that would be stressful in real life, move it over to the video game arena, and it becomes fun. When you really get going on some of the later stages and your kitchen starts filling up with bake-able goods, you’ll either be in a zen-like state of baking concentration, or a frantic fit of quick left clicking as you shout out loud at your customers to wait their turns, but there is no denying the deep-rooted feeling of satisfaction when you’re able to turn what could have been a mess into a smooth-running operation. Thankfully, the game starts you out easy, and since you choose when to buy new additions to your kitchen, you can set your own pace to a degree. In the same way, it’s fun to watch your empty counters and shelves fill up with appliances, to the point that you later look back and say, “Oh man…I remember when I used to cook with only one oven. Boy, how did I ever make ends meet that way?”

Cake Mania can keep the attention of many ages of game players with its simple concept and increasing levels of challenge, and its well-designed presentation neither gets old nor disappoints as new game play options continue to increase as you get further into the game. Rumor even has it that publisher Majesco has scooped up the rights to Cake Mania and plans to bring it to the Nintendo DS. However, if you can’t wait, don’t forget that you can always get your baking thrills on the PC where it all started.

Buy or Try Cake Mania at Smart Box Design!

Review: Westward Brings the Frontier to Your Home

Our staff writer Darrin Matter reviews Westward for Windows PC.

Those of us who were raised on Legos know that building things can be very satisfying. Moreover, those of us raised on SimCity know that keeping our cities up and running can be just as fun. Like any good strategy game, Westward includes an excellent tutorial that gets you started and leads you through the details until you’re ready to stake a claim on your own.

By the time the tutorial cuts you loose to try pioneering on your own, you’ll have a whole wagon full of curiosity built up around what you could be building and who will come to your town.

Westward keeps you occupied with goals to strive towards and holds your attention with humor, colorful graphics, fluid animation, and superb sound.

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Review: Super Granny 3 - Classic Game Play Gets Better with Age!

Nowadays, I don’t know if people remember Lode Runner, but those of us who once owned an Apple IIC and used to hold a floppy disk (the 5” kind!) in our hand every now and then likely have fond memories of this platform. Super Granny 3 pays homage to this classic franchise and brings it to a new level with beautiful colors, humor, and a gentle challenge.

The time-tested game play remains, only now you’re collecting kitties instead of gold and trapping bulldogs with boxing gloves instead of stick figures. However, it’s the new additions that really keep the fun at a maximum.

If you purchase the full game, you can really get your money’s worth with nearly 100 levels. As the levels press on, players receive new obstacles and puzzles to overcome, and all of the while Granny provides verbal reactions to her dilemmas that will make you laugh out loud. For PC.

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Solitaire Central Reviews Word Monaco for Windows XP / 98

Solitaire Central is a niche web site that concentrates on solitaire games of all types. I noticed this review they recently posted. Please visit their site to see all the interesting solitaire games they have. However, my game, Word Monaco, is a must see. :) Here is their review.


Word Monaco is a unique blend of a word game and a card game, where the playing cards contain letters rather than numbers and royalty, and your goal is to spell words rather than to build according to suit or value.

At the beginning of each round, the cards are layed out as in Klondike solitaire. You must use as many cards as possible to spell as many words as possible within the tableau (there are no foundations). Each letter card is worth a certain number of points, based on how often it is used in common words (this is similar to the way that Scrabble and many other word games work). Words are spelled within individual tableau piles, and letters or words may be moved between piles to build new words, or to add on to or modify existing words. You can score bonus points by building long words, using all the letters, or using various power-ups that you earn during play.

It’s an interesting concept, and it works reasonably well. There’s no time limit, so the game is really more of a puzzle than an arcade game (which is not a bad thing). As in most word games, success does depend a good deal on your ability to spell, and to recognize combinations of letters that form the building blocks for words. With a word list of over 50,000+ words, the game does recognize a great many possible words.

The game uses only the one layout, as far as I can tell. With so many layouts available in solitaire, I don’t know why the developers limited themselves to just one. But that’s a minor complaint. The bottom line is this is a fun game. It’s certainly not your everyday solitaire game, but if you enjoy word games, I think you’ll find this to be a fun way to spend your time and exercise your mind.

Download Word Monaco (7.81MB)