Hey, have you already seen the brand new Avenue Flo game by PlayFirst? Unlike their other games in the Flo universe, this one is not a time management game. Its rather a quest with many minigames within.

There is a storyline which is explained to us by many little cutscenes. You also can walk around the town, talk to people and do their miniquests. Sometimes you need to use a quest item in the right place to complete a quest, but most of the time you have to play a minigame. There are lots of mini puzzles and most of them are unique.

So if you are a fan of time management games, you might not like this one because there’s no time management (at least as far as I played). But if you like hidden objects and quests, then you should give this game a try.

The original PlayFirst release of Avenue Flo is also available from our website:

http://www.emotionrays.com/avenue-flo-download.html

I just put my hands on the new game by Runic Games called Torchlight. Its a diablo-like game with a very attractive graphics and some features from the World of Warcraft like interface layout, talents, soceted items and so on. And – a good news for mages – mana IS restoring in this game, like in WoW (I missed this feature in the original diablo too much!) The visual style also reminded me the World of Warcraft but Torchlight has more advanced picture.

The gameplay is much like Diablo 1. You need to help citizens to fight back an old mine settled by evil creatures. There are 3 classes to play: a warrior, a ranger and an alchemist which is a mage and warlock at the same time because of strong damage spells and abilities to summon demons. You also get a pet, cat or dog on your choice, who will follow you and help to fight the enemies. You also can feed him to transform into another creature or teach special abilities. read more »

Do you like point and click adventures? They are like the hidden object games but you have to solve puzzles by using different items in certain places instead of looking for hidden objects.

This genre isn’t very popular between casual games developers yet but many modern hidden obects games are very close to the point and click adventures.

However some companies makes a lot of money by developing and selling adventure games. Like, for example, TellTale Games that is famous by giving a new life to old classic quests Sam & Max and The Monkey Island and who also developed an award winning set of episodes about Strong Bad that is called Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People.

There is also a small Czech company called Amanita Design that is not as popular as TellTale Games, but they create the most unusual adventures you can imagine. Their first game, Samorost, is available to play online for free. And a sequel (Samorost 2) costs as little as $5 and is also available from their website.

But recently they published another game. The game with the amazing hand-drawn graphics. The game that win numerous awards. The game about  a small robot in a strange world. And this game is called Machinarium.

read more »

Our website developer have shared some code and libraries on his blog:

http://my.opera.com/emotionrays/blog/

Who knows, maybe you’ll find something useful there. Anyway, feel free to use everything that you like.