The CE today is the new MadCap one, Dark Realm: Queen of FLames.  It says the start of a new series.  The screenshots look pretty cool and one of them has what I believe is an HO scene but it says "Butterflies", ", "Bees", "Bats", "Lizards" without telling you how many!  I hope it's good, I think I have 2 CE coupons I get to use before the end of the year, I'd just as soon spend them on MadCap games as anything.  Anyway, they have a whole thread again about how the sales code from yesterday still works, I wish they wouldn't do that, I'm always afraid BFG will change how they do it.  Keep it on the downlow, like we do  No reviews yet, maybe that means people are too busy playing it.

I finally finished Love Chronicles Sword and Rose.  No color the entire game, everything shades of black, until you rescue the princess in the last scene.  Some of the HOs were hard, some of the puzzles were hard, I skipped a few.  Glad it's done with, never going to play it again.  I need a colorful game next.

It was meant to be a dark game, the black crystal had taken over or something like that.  When I rescued the princess at the end the whole game turned colorful, just like the Wizard of Oz in reverse.  It was a tough game, inventory wise, and stuff would be at the very edges of the screen, too, so easy to miss running your cursor around.

i STARted (dang that CAPS lock button) Rite of Passage Child of the Forest.  It has collectable acorns in the SE so that's a nice treat.  It's kinda darkish colored, though, I was hoping for something more cheerful.  I guess I'll work in some Awakening Skyward Castle, that's certainly bright enough

oscar66 wrote:

I have played both the Love Chronicles games and liked them both, so I'm sorry you didn't. The game you just played was most definitely in colour so I'd have to say it was your computer if it only showed up b&w.

Oscar, aren't there 3 Love Chronicles games?

The Spell
The Sword and the Rose
Salvation

I've actually just submitted the survey for the 4th in the series:

Love Chronicles: A Winter's Spell 

I really liked it and can't wait for it to be released.  I only got the first 3 as SEs as there were no collectibles or morphing objects, etc, and so didn't think the CEs were worth double the cost.  However, in this one, there are several different collectibles for different reasons.  Eg. you collect puzzle pieces to complete different jigsaws of affected people to cure them.  I only did the first one in the beta (7 pieces) but there were 8 pieces needed for the second person.  I don't know how many people you have to cure. 

You also collect runes - 3 lots of 5 runes, 5 per book.  I came across 2 runes during the beta and both went on the spine of the first book.  For each rune, first you have to do a HOS - both were the same but the second had a twist and they are NOT at all easy as the objects (well, shapes) are really well hidden - then you get part of the backstory.  I'm not sure what happens when you've finished a book.

There were also morphing objects but I didn't find one in every scene.  I only found the first one by accident and that's when the tutorial told me they were there.  You won't know they're there until you find your first one.  However, if I didn't find 1 in every scene because they were hard to find - yay!  If it was because there wasn't one in every scene, then yay as that makes it unpredictably fun!

The HOPs were all progressive silhouettes and were fun and thinky.  The minigames ranged from 1 easy through 2 medium to 2 HARD!  I loved all of them.

Most of the inventory items are Plus Items - either needing other inventory items to fix them or to interact with them. One was a bottle with a message inside and you have to shake the bottle up and down until you make the message fall out the bottom.  I really liked them all.

The story's "been there done that" but I still liked it.  I imagine it will be out before Christmas as the morphing objects are all Christmas objects.  You decorate a Christmas tree and there are some toys, etc.  The morphing object room is a lounge room decorated for Christmas with a huge tree.  On the wall there are a couple of paintings and when you click on one of them you see why you collect the Christmas morphing objects (they don't actually morph, I think, but appear and disappear).  For every 5 you find (of 35) you get a downloadable Christmas greeting card.  I got one and apparently it was downloaded to my documents folder but I haven't checked it out yet.  It's a blue card with Christmas greetings and a cute kitty on it (and 'Vendel Games' in huge letters.  LOL).

3 modes, no custom mode, music's okay, voiceovers are great - with lip syncing! - and it's almost perfect for a touchscreen - yay! - unlike a lot of others recently.  Fierce Tales doesn't work at all with a touchscreen!  There were no extras on the main game page, no bonus game shown, no achievements, no SG, so none of the usual CE extras, but, as the first 3 were all released as CEs and this one had collectibles and morphing objects, I imagine it will be released as a CE.  I can't wait for it to be released as I really liked the gameplay, which flowed really well, the minigames, the HOPs...  Then I'll play all 4 games.