Until recently the term casual gaming did not belong in my vocabulary. The occasional game of Brick Breaker on my Blackberry while riding a commuter train or some desktop solitaire was all the gaming yours truly was ever exposed to. Oh, don’t let me forget Tetris - I could have made the olympic team on that one when it first came on the scene in the 80’s - way before I owned a computer.
All that said, I have just come across a plentiful number of casual games all courtesy of my job at www.KidConfidence.com. The list includes titles from Big Fish Studios, Big Splash Games, PlayFirst and more, and I have had the guilty pleasure of trying them out for educational purposes. My Tetris addiction was rekindled and I found myself dreaming of colorful exploding globes, meandering through mystic Egyptian landscapes of Luxor 2 (I have yet to master the last third of this game, alas, I get pummeled by the scarabs and get sent back to the beginning).
To my delight the first puzzle game I tried was Azada. The more seasoned casual gamers out there might agree that I started with one of the best, since none of the titles that followed offered the same variety of game play. I moved on to a number of “hidden object”-types of games among which were Ghost Hunters, Mystery Case Files, Hidden Expedition: Everest, as well as various Travelogue: 360 games. The closest I came to revisiting my Azada experience came in the form of a dreamscape, a jewel from PlayFirst and KatGames called Dream Chronicles. Now that my inner gamer has been awakened I’ll be on the lookout for the sequels and hopefully more original, engaging titles.

Share This