Game du Jour is a "One Deal a Day" website for casual PC games. Every day of the week, GameDuJour.com sells one downloadable game at a steep discount.Every week Blogcritics Magazine will bring you a look of those games, so you know what to expect when the featured game gets its 24 hours in the spotlight.We aim to publish reviews at least one day before the game goes on sale at GameDuJour.com, so please check back regularly. But we will admit, as much as we love casual games here at Blogcritics, we won't be able to get to every title.This Week's Deals3/5/2007 The Alchemist — 50% discount3/6/2007 Around the World — 50% discount3/7/2007 Tropical Puzzle — 50% discount3/8/2007 QuesTrix — 60% discount3/9/2007 Tangle Bee — 50% discount3/10/2007 Feyruna — 50% discount3/11/2007 Wu Hing: The Five Elements — 50% discountThe AlchemistWriter: Jim Symcox
The Alchemist is a name that immediately conjures up images of spell-wielding wizards and hugely-muscled barbarians chasing after forgotten treasure in a richly painted landscape of dragons, knights and castles.However, after I'd downloaded The Alchemist I discovered it was more along the lines of a 3-D Tetris game. The user interface is well presented and the graphics are well thought out and are the star of the game. One minor quibble on my computer was that the writing on the control panel elements was a trifle indistinct. I'm sure this was intentionally created to give atmosphere to the game. However, I found it slightly off-putting.The game itself consists of you placing groups of different shaped pieces on a board that looked rather like a chessboard. As you place like pieces against like pieces they disappear from the board. The pieces look rather like fires or potion containers that you might fondly imagine alchemists using.The actual play was rather pedestrian and I lost interest in it completely after a very short time. In summary the game is well presented graphically, the controls work well and the rules appear quite clear. But I didn't want to keep going on to see if I could better my score.If you like Tetris you may want to try this out. If you find Tetris boring, this game will do nothing to change your mind.
Around the WorldWriter: Anna Creech
Around the World is a block-matching puzzle game with a few unique twists. Not only are the blocks in different colors, they also have symbols on them. This might be useful for colorblind gamers. The geographic element is just a way of designating levels of difficulty, but the graphics are pretty, so that's okay.Players are competing against the clock to match a certain number of blocks to earn enough points to advance to the next level. Each level has an added bonus and impediment, either through new special blocks or board configuration. I breezed through the first "city" (ten levels) in about twenty-five minutes, but after that it got trickier.The graphics are snazzy and easy to decipher. The game provides hints at the lower levels to help new users get familiarized with game play. I had no trouble jumping right in. Plus, it has a really cool Eurodance soundtrack.I recommend this game to fans of puzzle and matching games. And Eurodance soundtracks.
Tropical PuzzleWriter: Kaonashi
Tropical Puzzle is a fresh, simpler take on the classic Lines game. You have a blue-tiled grid sprinkled with a few colorful balls, and the objective is to eliminate the tiles by matching three or more balls. This may be done horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The balls can only be moved if there's a clear path to its intended destination. More balls appear if moving a ball doesn't result in a match. There are two game versions: In Adventure Mode you play through the 85 available levels, while in Endless Mode you play on one grid continuously matching balls. In higher levels on Adventure Mode, helpful items occasionally appear such as bombs, and diamonds that wipe out all balls of one color. Naturally, higher levels also introduce obstacles. Chained balls are freed by matching them with two of the same color. Black balls can only be removed with a bomb.Tropical Puzzle is a fun and relaxing game, especially since there's no time limit. Game play is relatively easy since you only need to match a minimum of three balls, unlike five in Lines. I'm only on Level 10 so far, but I assume that the number of balls on the grid increase at really high levels, which would make it harder to move them around. However, if you screw up you can always undo a move or restart the whole level without penalty. 
QuesTrix
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