For kids and parents: Wonder Rotunda is an adventure website that mimics the World’s Fairs of past and exposes children to the wonders of our world, including African wildlife, the human body, business, American government, nutrition, film making, classical music, and space exploration. It allows them to explore areas that interest them, earn badges and accomplishments, and encourages them to believe they can make a difference in the world, without parents having to worry about advertising or chat. Foster dreams and self esteem with a membership to Wonder Rotunda. Costs are $12 a month or $45 a year
Check it out here.

For Tweens and Teens: Earlier this year, Legacy introduced three games based on the iconic high school movies, Clueless, Mean Girls, and Pretty in Pink. Though these games are appropriate for adults as well, the subject matter and game play make them especially suitable for tweens and teens, giving them the opportunity to play their way through high school in the style of different generation’s sagas. Clueless offers fashion and style sense exploring the vastness of the teenage fashion looks of the ‘90s. Mean Girls offers mission based adventures with match three puzzles scattered throughout, allowing players to choose personality traits and act in the way of meanness or niceness. Pretty in Pink is a hidden object game in which players explore different relationships and play their story out to one of three possible endings. All three games are pretty true to the movies they represent and give a great entertainment value.
Available as a download from: Legacy Interactive for $10 each
Clueless Review
Mean Girls Review

For Everyone: In case this one somehow slipped through the cracks for your favorite gamer, it should be tops on the list! Quite possibly my favorite game of the year, PopCap‘s Plants vs. Zombies offers a chance for everyone, naughty or nice, to defend their brains against the onslaught of hungry zombies by harvesting the power of the sun and propagating the perfect plant platoon in the day, night, front lawn, the pool in the back, on the roof, and in the fog. Welcome the tower defense genre to the casual games space. This game is crazy hilarious fun no one should have to go without – it’s the holidays!
Appropriate for: Tweens through Adults. Parents use their own discretion with children.
Available From: PopCap Games
Plants vs. Zombies Review

For those who appreciate hidden object games, The second installment of Her Interactive’s Nancy Drew Dossier series, Resorting to Danger is a great choice. In this new Hidden Object Mystery game, players help the young, clever detective in her attempts to find the culprit behind bombings at the Redondo Resort. The additions made to this chapter in the Dossier saga improve upon the already positive original. Resorting to Danger offers a unique perspective on the hidden object genre and is riddled with mini puzzles that spice up the mystery.
Appropriate for: Tweens through Adults.
Download or Box Game Available From : Her Interactive

For the puzzle fans: the must have game is PopCap’s newest hit, Zuma’s Revenge. This sequel to the beloved Zuma truly takes the ball shooting color matching action to the next level in a crazy fun way. Zuma’s Revenge gives the puzzle gamer new ways to blast their way through level after level by firing colored balls to try to demolish the chain of colors, and opens their eyes to boss battling, tournament style play, and scoring challenges, all with a laid back, tropical backdrop. Give the gift of this lovable frog and all of his crazy (and comical) shenanigans.
Appropriate for: Tweens through Adults.
Download Available from: PopCap.com
Zuma’s Revenge Review

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For the Time Management Gamers: Try Sandlot Games’ newest Cake Mania game, Cake Mania: Main Street. This game continues on the journey through Sarah Evans’ life as she returns to her home town of Bakersfield with some of her friends to rejuvenate Main Street and bring things back to the way they once were, with happy people and fun attractions. This is a great time management game because it’s like getting four in one. There are four different types of shops to open and half of the profits go to sprucing up the town. Great characters and options make this one a fun time.
Appropriate for: Tweens through Adults – the images may be fun for kids, but the complexity can get to be a bit much for them.
Available from: Sandlot Games
Cake Mania: Main Street Review

For the Word Worms out there: PopCap’s Bookworm Adventures 2 is a great addition to anyone’s library. In Bookworm Adventures 2, Lex once again sets off on a word creating journey through the pages of some adventureful stories – this time with help! He gets to take companions that he has rescued with him that lend him their powers to strengthen him. weaken his enemies, or add more power ups to the words he (the player) creates. PopCap’s humerus adaptations of familiar characters from fairy tales and other types of stories pump up the entertainment value as well in this vocabulary building game – and there is even a dance-off!
Appropriate for: Spellers of all ages!
Available from: PopCap Games

For Online Gamers on your list, you might consider gifting a membership to Pogo.com’s premium service, Club Pogo. After 9 years of playing at Pogo.com, I was fortunate enough to be able to experience the greatness of Club Pogo. If the badge collection, double jackpots, and virtual pet aren’t enough, access to a multitude additional games and the absence of ads and intermissions is definitely worth the $5.99 a month. Club Pogo is a great way to give gamers opportunity to find some new favorites as well as play some of the best Pogo originals and downloadables from other top companies.
Appropriate for: Adults, mostly due to the censored and uncensored chat ability.
Available from: Pogo.com

Stocking Stuffers:

The first one is Sandlot Games’ Kuros. This is truly a beautiful game visually as it takes place in the world of Glyph among the metal, water, air, fire, and aether. At its core, it’s a hidden object adventure to restore elemental balance in the world of Kuros. Katya’s wit coupled with other captivating characters and variety of incorporated mini games provides the hidden object gamer with a plethora of new experiences. It’s a great way to escape into another realm for a little while and be entertained and challenged.
Appropriate for: Tweens through Adults of all ages.
Available from: Sandlot Games for just $6.99
Kuros Review

The second is Big Fish’s Drawn: The Painted Tower. This is another work of art, a beautiful piece of animation as reviewer lisalu put it. Drawn: The Painted Tower is an exciting adventure puzzle hidden object game in which players try to rescue the youngest daughter of a family with the curious power to draw things that would then come to life. The ease of play and flow of the story makes this one a great stocking stuffer that will give the casual gamer in your life something entertaining and lovely to look at this holiday season.

Cake Mania Main Street

Basic Idea as I See it:
This Cake Mania is a time management game to the fourth power. Jill and have moved back to her home town of Bakersfield to find it mostly shut down due to the opening of a mall close by. So she brings in her friends to open their own shops to help raise money to spruce up the town and attract more people. Of course, Jill opens Evans Bakery, her new husband, Jack, opens up a burger joint, Tiny opens up a sushi restaurant, and Risha opens up a flower shop. All of the shops have 25 of their own levels and a different dynamic of time management play. The goal is to make as much money as possible – half of which goes to the town to buy other tourist attractions and to upgrade the shops as a whole, while the money the shops keep go into upgrading the equipment inside.

Graphics:
Cake Mania Main Street pushes the super bright and colorful envelope. The storyboard part of the game is comic like, which is entertaining. I would suggest taking the time to watch these the first time through, because once skipped, they’re gone for good. The shops themselves, products, and characters are all very distinctive and pleasant. There are even people walking by outside the windows. I also like that there is a proactive environmental aspect to the town view… no cars, only bikes!

Sounds:
The background music in Cake Mania: Main Street feels a little outdated, but doesn’t get in the way. I can’t really imagine different music while playing and I believe that it changes to create the appropriate environment. The sounds that are part of the game, such as when customers enter the shops, use their talents to affect others, or when items finished cooking/baking/growing are distinctive in the best way. They alert without distracting and add to the overall experience and entertainment of playing.

Controls:
Mouse controlled. The game creates a custom cursor while playing, which is pretty cool. The control concepts, click to move, click to create, etc. are easy to grasp, and thoroughly explained in the tutorial. The one thing I have to say here is that it’s not always effective. Either the clicking has to be precise in location or timing. I found that sometimes, for instance, Jill wouldn’t put the cake down, and since players can click ahead, mistakes happen much easier when one click in the chain is missed, causing slight frustration, but not failure.

Flow:
Players start with Evans Bakery to attract people to the town with Jill’s famous cakes. After playing through a number of levels there, the option to open Jack’s Burger Barn is granted. Once through a few burger-flipping levels, flower arranging becomes an option. And once some bouquets are made, it’s Sumo Sushi time. I appreciate both the ability to jump around to the different shops without having to completely finish one before playing another as well as the ability to get used to one mechanism before taking on a new one. The monologues before each “day” in the shops could be a little disjointed that way, but the flow to the actual game play is pretty seamless no matter what players choose. Hint* if it gets a little too difficult, start the level over and try different equipment upgrades.

Fun Factor:
I had a good time trying out all the different shops, meeting all the different characters, even buying up more tourist attractions for the town. Cake Mania: Main Street offers challenge to keep it exciting, variety to keep it interesting, quirky characters to keep it amusing, and quality game mechanics to keep it fun.

Female Aspect:
This game seems to be pretty geared toward females with the colors and types of shops involved, without being too overtly girly. The cast of characters and customers seem pretty balanced in both gender and personality. I will say that I was looking forward to the “girly”est one – the flower shop – the most. I like that the main character, Jill, is a strong female in that she’s a successful small business owner who is proactive in her community and stands up for what she believes in while still living a full life with a husband and a new house and… other things.

Replay Value:
Although opening different shops bring a nice variety to the time management aspect of the game, one time through might have been good for me, personally. I don’t feel the pull to compete with previous scores since I played to the “Supserstar Goal” the first time through each level (which does make the first playthrough last). It is possible and easily accessible to replay any completed level, though it is tough to remember which level is which just looking at the picture/map of each shop. Maybe with clever titles instead of the day numbers, it would be easier. Replayability might be helped in Cake Mania: Main Street with the addition of new specific time/ score challenges with limitations on equipment or space, the ability to try previous levels with different equipment upgrades, or with completely separate mini games. I think that some of the other tourist attractions might have served well as mini games.

Final Thoughts:
I like this game. I will say that there is a bit of mushy lovey doveyness, but that is balanced out by the edginess of some of the other characters. I like the concept, the story, the ending, and the overall positivity that came from playing it. While I do wish that there were a little more to it – like what do I do with all this money the town has earned when I have bought/opened/upgraded everything? – it will please Jill Evans fans to continue her life’s journey. If time management is your bag, or even if you are new to the genre, this is a good bet because of the variety it affords. It’s a pretty good collection of different time management opportunities all on one sweet street!

Thanks for reading!
Dawn

You can download/purchase the game here!

(GamingAngels.com is a member of the Sandlot Affiliate Program)

Available exclusively from Sandlot Games, take a trip back to Jill Evans’ hometown of Bakersfield in Cake Mania Main Street, the highly anticipated fourth chapter in one of the most popular time management series of all-time!

Help Jill and her closest friends earn enough money to revitalize Main Street by opening, managing, and upgrading four unique downtown shops, including a bakery, of course, a flower shop, a sushi shop, and a burger joint, and building must-see tourist attractions.

With all-new shop mechanics, 50 shop equipment upgrades, 40 unique mouth-watering recipes, and hilarious new customers, Cake Mania Main Street offers players four truly addictive time management games in one!

Successfully revitalize Main Street and you’ll have Bakersfield packed with tourists in no time!

And don’t forget the possible surprise mentioned!

Download Cake Mania Main Street exclusively from Sandlot Games here!