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Alice and the Magic Gardens! Another game sent to us from the good people at Alawar
Games. This time it’s a match 3 game! Not my usual but nice. It’s like bejeweled but
with fruit and fairies and gardens... and Alice, but no Wonderland... Anyway...
So Alice is a servant to a king until one day she’s visited by a fairy that tells
her an evil sorcerer has locked up their fruit and if she helps she’ll be given her own
garden. Quid pro quo.
At its core, this is a match 3 game, but with a few other features to keep it interesting.
You’ll have a few different maps, that progress in difficulty and every level will have a
different objectives, not just reach a certain amount of points or make X matches, those
are a couple of them, but you’ll also have match X target fruit, match on designated
squares, find the flowers, hunt the spiders and even boss battles.
So there’s a good bit of variety to the gameplay. Also you’ve probably noticed by
now that there’s actually two layers of matches you need to make. The tiles on top,
and then the fruit. This adds a little more strategy since not clearing tiles will make
matching fruit that much harder. Plus you have fruit bombs, fruit blasters, spiders,
worms, brooms, keys, bug spray... There’s quite a lot going on once you get into it.
Once you’ve finished a stage, you get your points, a medal based on time and some cash.
This is where your magic garden comes into play. As you progress you can add to Alice’s
garden and make it more beautiful.... Awww, it’s that sweet. So it’s kind of sim garden
builder. But this part is kind of lacking actually. You add to the garden and increase
your rating, but aside from some achievements and your own personal satisfaction, there’s
isn’t really any other reason to advance your garden. I mean, it’s the only thing
you can do with your money, so I guess why not. But that’s my one other complaint.
I always had extra money and nothing to do with it.
But aside from those couple of nitpicking things, this is a solid match 3 game and fans
of that genre will enjoy it, with a nice style, easy to pick up and play and the variety offered.
Oh one other thing I wanted to share. There is a bonus stage every now and then and it
reminds a lot of the coffee break, or gnat attack game in Mario Paint... They even kind
of make the same sound. Nostalgic!