Game Review: Cake Laboratory!

Note: This review was originally published on LadiesGamers.com. on 1/30/2019. Check out the original post here!

Title: Cake Laboratory
Developer: Square Heads Games
Publisher: GrimTalin
Price: $2.99|€2.69 |£2.42
Release Date: December 2018

*Review code kindly provided by GrimTalin!*

Hey everyone! For my first review on LadiesGamers, I was asked to play and review a little game called Cake Laboratory! I hadn’t heard of this game prior to playing it, so I was excited to check it out! I played through the entire game before writing my review- here are my thoughts and impressions. I figured I would break my review down into small sections and discuss each one!

Story

Haha… well, there isn’t much story to tell! Apparently your goal is to build the highest cake tower ever. To do this, you play through 50 levels of cake-dropping madness. If you beat all 50 levels, that sweet Golden Chapeu is yours!

Graphics and Sound

The graphics are cute and vibrant. The cakes look delicious enough to eat! There isn’t much variety to the backgrounds, though.

The soundtrack I could’ve done without, honestly. The same tune loops endlessly as you play- there is no variety at all. It starts to get annoying after awhile, but that’s what the mute button is for! You can easily toggle the music on and off in the main menu.

The sound effects are a bit of a different story, as I actually enjoyed them. The sounds the cakes make as they get squished on top of each other is entertaining, and the sound of stacking together cakes perfectly is quite satisfying.

Gameplay

It isn’t hard to just jump right in and start playing this game. To complete a level, you simply have to stack a certain number of cakes on top of each other. Arms move back and forth on the top of the screen, and you press A to drop your cake. That’s it!

As the levels continue, the arms move a little faster, and you have to stack cakes of varying sizes on top of each other. It never gets to the point where it becomes overly frustrating, even in the later levels.

Every so often, you will be prompted to make your own cake. You can choose from various bases, icing, and toppings. It’s fun the first couple of times you do it, but loses its charm after awhile.

Fun Factor and Replay Value

This game is fun, and I did enjoy playing it. However, gameplay remains the same throughout the entire game. There are no twists, no surprises, nothing like that- it’s pretty much the same for all 50 levels. The cakes vary in size, but that doesn’t affect the gameplay much. In fact, I thought it was a bit odd that the way you stack the cakes doesn’t even seem to matter. While playing similar games, the tower you are creating will lean and sway depending on how accurately you stack the blocks (or whatever it is you are using). In Cake Laboratory, even if I stacked one cake lopsided, as long as I centered the next cake, the tower wouldn’t fall. There was really no need to focus on balancing.

With all that being said, there unfortunately isn’t a whole lot of replay value once you complete all 50 levels. There are 3 stars to achieve on each level, which is not difficult to achieve. I think I had to replay only 4 or 5 levels to bump up my score from 2 to 3 stars.

Closing Remarks

This game is a fun little diversion and is perfectly suited for the on-the-go portability that the Switch provides. I played through the entire game in handheld mode, and full completion of the game took me about one hour. I don’t think I’ll play this game again anytime soon, because there just isn’t much else to do once you complete the game. Nevertheless, I’m going to give this game the rating of I Like It, because it was fun while it lasted!

Book Review: The Hansel and Gretel Curse by Margo Ryerkerk!

The Hansel and Gretel Curse is the third and final book in the Cursed Fairy Tale series by Margo Ryerkerk. It wrapped up loose ends from the first two books, and I thought it was a great book to tie everything together!

Here’s the blurb:

A vicious witch.

A dark curse.

A lost kingdom.

After a mysterious woman comes to Gretel’s village, her brother Hansel disappears without a trace. Gretel soon discovers that the traveling beauty wasn’t just any woman, but a wicked witch who steals willpowers, transforming humans into slaves.

Determined to rescue Hansel, Gretel ventures into the lair of the witch, the Black Forest, swearing she’ll either leave with her brother or die trying.

An evil force has befallen General Stefan’s kingdom. The evil witch of the Black Forest is poisoning the royal family and the whole country. She must be brought to justice.

Cloaked in spells, the witch’s forest has consumed countless soldiers and only permits one solider to enter at a time. Unable to bring his army, Stefan must fight this battle alone. Or so he thinks until he meets Gretel. The willful redhead is an unlikely partner and his only ally.

Together, Stefan and Gretel must overcome countless obstacles and trials as well as untangle their terrifying romantic feelings for each other.

Will Stefan and Gretel find a way to outsmart the witch or will they lose their lives and everything they care about?

Buy it now and find out!

Filled with adventure, love, magic, and a strong heroine, this clean YA Fairy Tale is a must-read!

If you liked Kiera Cass, Serena Valentino, and Liz Braswell, you’ll love this!

The Hansel and Gretel Curse is the third book in the Cursed Fairy Tale series. Each book can be read as a standalone. However, for greatest enjoyment, the novels should be read in order.

And the cover:

Here’s the review I wrote on Goodreads back in January:

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review 🙂

The final installment of the Cursed Fairy Tale series is based off of the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. I was slightly more familiar with this story than with the previous two tales, and I was pleasantly surprised by the way this story was re-imagined!

Hansel and Gretel are twins who are turning 17. While Hansel is excited to be an adult, Gretel is not excited because for a woman, that means she has more responsibilities. Gretel is a bit of a wallflower and prefers to be left alone working in the library, and I don’t blame her! Hansel is the more outgoing of the twins, and the ladies love him.

The twins have a birthday celebration, and Gretel decides not to attend her own party, because she would rather stay in the library and read! Apparently, Hansel took off with a beautiful blonde and never came home. At first, Gretel and the twins’ adoptive mother, Sabina, think he just partied too hard, but soon they suspect something more sinister is afoot.

Sure enough, Hansel was taken by Roswita, a witch that lives in the Black Forest. Poor Hansel was promised to the witch by his mother, so she claimed him the moment he turned 17. That sucks for him! Anyway, Roswita loves to manipulate and bend people to do her will, so she bakes irresistible sweets for people to eat. Once they do, she takes control.

Gretel decides to go to the queen, who also wants Roswita stopped for her own private reasons. The queen sends Gretel to the Black Forest, and she is soon accompanied by Stefan (of COURSE there is a love interest, haha!). Stefan is kind of shady but Gretel begins to trust him anyway. I won’t spoil the rest of the story, but we find out who the queen and Stefan really are, and that just adds a fun twist to the story that I didn’t see coming at first!

Gretel and Stefan put themselves in a lot of danger, but somehow they manage to blend in and not draw attention to themselves for awhile. Along the way, Gretel makes a couple dumb decisions… again, no spoilers but… the library scene made me roll my eyes!

One last thing… dragons! ❤ ❤ ❤

I really enjoyed this book! This was my favorite entry to the series. Now I’m kind of sad that the series is over, but I’m so excited for whatever Margo writes next!! 🙂

I gave The Hansel and Gretel Curse 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads!

Book Review: The Bluebeard Curse by Margo Ryerkerk!

The Bluebeard Curse is the second book in the Cursed Fairy Tale Series by Margo Ryerkerk. Here’s the blurb for it:

A devastating curse. 

A broken soul. 

A fearless girl. 

After finding his sister crouched over their dead parents’ bodies, Nolan turns her in. To cope with his crippling loss, he seeks to forget his sorrows in revelries. But trying to escape his life only creates more problems when two girls, last seen with him, drown.

Unable to bear the town’s accusations, Nolan flees his home.

Five years later, he’s forced to return to the city that calls him Bluebeard and accept his count title. His welcome is anything but warm, friends treat him with suspicion, and the worst is yet to come…

Jolie knows servants shouldn’t interact with nobility, but there’s something about Nolan Bluebeard that makes it impossible to stay away even if being close to him jeopardizes everything she has worked so hard for.

While Nolan desperately tries to rebuild his reputation with Jolie’s help, a devastating curse has women around him falling dead one by one.

Will Nolan and Jolie break the curse, or will they die trying?

The Bluebeard Curse is the second book in the Cursed Fairy Tales series. Each book can be read as a standalone. However, for greatest enjoyment, the novels should be read in order.

Filled with adventure, love, magic, and a strong heroine, this clean YA Fairy Tale is a must-read!If you liked The Siren and The Selection by Kiera Cass, K.M Shea and Melanie Cellier’s work, you’ll love this!

Buy it now and join Jolie and Nolan on their journey to break the Bluebeard curse!

And here’s the cover!

This is my review, which I published on Goodreads back in December.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! 🙂

First of all, I want to say that I am not at all familiar with the fairy tale this book is based off of! I’ve never even heard of it before, so I basically had nothing to compare it to.

Anyway, this book starts off with us meeting Jolie, a young woman who is a maid for a wealthy count. She likes working for him, but she is nervous when she finds out that his nephew, Nolan, is coming back from a 5 year absence to take back over his estate.

Nolan, unsurprisingly, has a bit of a shady past. His parents were killed and his sister was responsible for their deaths. Then two girls die after a night hanging out with him… so he decides to split for awhile. Oh, and he was nicknamed “Bluebeard” because he used to have a thick, black beard that had a blueish tint in certain lights.

Nolan’s sister, Delilah, was briefly featured in the Nutcracker Curse. Let me just say it right out- she is an awful character! There is not one tiny redeemable quality about her AT. ALL. She is self- absorbed and so full of hatred it’s almost unreal. Normally I can find a way to sympathize with most characters, but not her. She literally is willing to give up 15 years of her life to curse her brother because apparently he is the cause of her “suffering,” when SHE was the one who killed their parents.

Speaking of the curse, this is where the name “The Bluebeard Curse” comes in. It looks like any woman getting close to Nolan a.k.a. Bluebeard better watch themselves, because ladies have a habit of dropping dead around him.

Naturally, Nolan is attracted to Jolie even though she’s of a lower social status. Which… uggh. I find that intolerable. Even though this story was set centuries ago, it still makes me roll my eyes to know that some people care so much about that. Anyway. Jolie becomes a target because she falls in love with Nolan, and she decides that she needs to be the one to break the curse. No one likes to mind their own business I guess! I won’t spoil how the story ends, but ya know… they all live happily ever after and all that jazz.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Margo Ryerkerk’s books very much. I liked this book, but I didn’t love it. Her writing is excellent, but the story of The Bluebeard Curse is not one of my favorites. I did become a little more invested in the characters (except Delilah) by the end of the book, but I didn’t really connect with any of them like I usually do. Nevertheless, I cannot wait for the 3rd book in the series!!

I gave The Bluebeard Curse 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads!

Christmas Goodies!

Yeah, I’m posting about my gaming related Christmas goodies in May… but isn’t that my style? 😉

As you can see by the lovely picture above, I got several gaming related goodies for Christmas! I got 3 Nintendo 3DS games (Pokémon Ultra Sun, Pokémon Ultra Moon, and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon). I actually traded Dark Moon for the Luigi’s Mansion GameCube remake, since I already had Dark Moon 😉 I also got Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Switch, 2 amiibo, and a Boo coffee mug! Haha it’s so cute! How could you not love Boo?

I am super behind on Pokémon games, so I haven’t tried Ultra Sun or Ultra Moon yet, but I have been playing some Smash Bros. when I get a chance! It’s so much fun, but there was one thing I was looking forward to in this game more than anything:

Yes!! Finally K. Rool gets some attention. He has been my absolute favorite villain ever since I played the original Donkey Kong Country in 1994. I mean yeah, he’s completely ridiculous (why does a reptile need to steal bananas anyway?), but that’s part of the fun! You can bet I got his amiibo the day it came out too 😉

A couple days after Christmas, I also received this giant Yoshi from my awesome friend Callula!!

So there you have it! Some fun little Christmas goodies. See ya!

End Game Thoughts: Napoleon Dynamite!

Game Title: Napoleon Dynamite
Platform: PlayStation Portable (PSP)
Hours Played: around 1

About The Game

Napoleon Dynamite is a shitty game that came out for the PSP in 2007. It came out for some other platforms too, but don’t bother looking into it. This is one of the few games that I have ever purchased that I seriously considered smashing into pieces and setting on fire just so I wouldn’t have to look upon its shittiness ever again.

What’s the point of this game? It’s based off the movie, which I thought was funny. This game, however, is not funny. Do not purchase this piece of shit.

What I Liked

Let’s just skip on down to the next section, shall we? Nothing to say here!

What I Didn’t Like

Everything about this stupid game! God damn… first of all, it’s glitchy as shit. You’ll get screwed over more often than not because the game will freeze, the images on the screen will flicker, the music will stop… if something can glitch in this game, it will.

The game is basically a collection of mini games, which I don’t have a problem with. What I do have a problem with is the fact that these mini games suck so much ass and are so unenjoyable, I’d rather clean the toilet at a gas station than spend one more second with it.

Closing Thoughts

This is truly the first game I can say I wasted my money on. It was only a couple bucks but still, I could’ve bought a couple items off the dollar menu at McDonald’s and been happier for it! It’s an awful, glitchy mess, and I beat 5 of the mini games before I got too pissed off and called it quits. Fuck you, Napoleon Dynamite.