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Mumbo Jumbo are apparently “makers of casual games,” which works fine for me. I think everything here can be classified as “good but not great”, which is a perfectly good rating for a two-buck bundle.
7 Wonders: Ancient Alien Makeover - Classic match-3 Bejeweled knockoff with a sim framing setup--aliens need the gems but agreed to assist humanity in building 7 marvelous Wonders. So you play the games of Bejeweled to collect resources and power-ups for your town, and build your wonders to unlock better power-ups in the Bejeweled games. It’s a casual game with a decent framing and some cute additional minigames. Fun but forgettable.
Luxor 2 HD - A cross between Centipede and a Snood-style match-3 game. Rows of colored beads sail by, and you need to clear them by shooting additional beads up at them before they reach the bottom. Each stage is distinct with different movement patterns of the beads, and scoring combos and chains nets you power-ups and higher scores. (Though irritatingly, there are only 16 unique stage designs; they just start repeating after the fourth area. Also, while there are a few stages with tunnels or irritating turns, and a couple that have double-strands of beads, there really isn't that much variety to them.) This could have used a power-up store or a star rating or something similar to do with all of your points (there are achievements, but they don't carry out into Steam achievements and you won't hit most of them in "casual" play). But that's just icing, as it's a fun little casual puzzle game.
The bundle also included Luxor: 5th Passage, but I opted to jump straight to the sequel for whatever improvements they built into it.
Discovery! A Seek and Find Adventure - Hidden object puzzles with a game-show framing. I was underwhelmed; I think if I’m going to do hidden object puzzles, I’d rather have the story framing and additional brainteasers of one of the point-and-click adventure games to break them up. There’s just not enough to it, especially with the eyestrain it causes.
Pickers - Another hidden-object game, this one based around being an antique / rare-item dealer who picks "valuable" items from various stacks, haggles for them, then reprices them and sells them at your store. I can see where the appeal of such a game would come from, but I'm not super-wild about the way Mumbo Jumbo does hidden object puzzles, and this just didn't grab me as far as "economic competition" games go.
Little Farm - I couldn't get this to run at all under Windows 10. Which is a shame, it looked like it might be cute.
Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allen Poe Conspiracy - This is the first of a series of point-and-click adventure games, though 95% of it is hidden-object puzzles, or item-use puzzles embedded in them. The plot revolves around following ghosts to uncover the truth of Poe’s death. I could only get it to run once on my Windows 10 laptop; every other time it would just freeze.
The bundle included the second and third Midnight Mysteries games, but I opted to jump straight to:
Midnight Mysteries 4: Haunted Houdini - By this point in the series, it's a standard point-and-click adventure game and includes proper brainteasers and item-combination puzzles, though I think other companies are producing some better ones. You play a spirit detective who is trying to uncover the truth behind Harry Houdini's death by interacting with the ghosts of his friends and family. I found the story and areas even more "fragmented" than most games in this genre, though I appreciate that there was an actual mystery to be solved. It includes a bonus story, an "unlimited" hidden object mode, various bonus features, and a built-in strategy guide.
Overall: There’s nothing in here that I’d say “run out and buy.” I got a dozen hours of enjoyment out of my $2 investment, so there was definitely value for me, but I don’t think there was anything in this that isn’t done better somewhere else.
7 Wonders: Ancient Alien Makeover - Classic match-3 Bejeweled knockoff with a sim framing setup--aliens need the gems but agreed to assist humanity in building 7 marvelous Wonders. So you play the games of Bejeweled to collect resources and power-ups for your town, and build your wonders to unlock better power-ups in the Bejeweled games. It’s a casual game with a decent framing and some cute additional minigames. Fun but forgettable.
Luxor 2 HD - A cross between Centipede and a Snood-style match-3 game. Rows of colored beads sail by, and you need to clear them by shooting additional beads up at them before they reach the bottom. Each stage is distinct with different movement patterns of the beads, and scoring combos and chains nets you power-ups and higher scores. (Though irritatingly, there are only 16 unique stage designs; they just start repeating after the fourth area. Also, while there are a few stages with tunnels or irritating turns, and a couple that have double-strands of beads, there really isn't that much variety to them.) This could have used a power-up store or a star rating or something similar to do with all of your points (there are achievements, but they don't carry out into Steam achievements and you won't hit most of them in "casual" play). But that's just icing, as it's a fun little casual puzzle game.
The bundle also included Luxor: 5th Passage, but I opted to jump straight to the sequel for whatever improvements they built into it.
Discovery! A Seek and Find Adventure - Hidden object puzzles with a game-show framing. I was underwhelmed; I think if I’m going to do hidden object puzzles, I’d rather have the story framing and additional brainteasers of one of the point-and-click adventure games to break them up. There’s just not enough to it, especially with the eyestrain it causes.
Pickers - Another hidden-object game, this one based around being an antique / rare-item dealer who picks "valuable" items from various stacks, haggles for them, then reprices them and sells them at your store. I can see where the appeal of such a game would come from, but I'm not super-wild about the way Mumbo Jumbo does hidden object puzzles, and this just didn't grab me as far as "economic competition" games go.
Little Farm - I couldn't get this to run at all under Windows 10. Which is a shame, it looked like it might be cute.
Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allen Poe Conspiracy - This is the first of a series of point-and-click adventure games, though 95% of it is hidden-object puzzles, or item-use puzzles embedded in them. The plot revolves around following ghosts to uncover the truth of Poe’s death. I could only get it to run once on my Windows 10 laptop; every other time it would just freeze.
The bundle included the second and third Midnight Mysteries games, but I opted to jump straight to:
Midnight Mysteries 4: Haunted Houdini - By this point in the series, it's a standard point-and-click adventure game and includes proper brainteasers and item-combination puzzles, though I think other companies are producing some better ones. You play a spirit detective who is trying to uncover the truth behind Harry Houdini's death by interacting with the ghosts of his friends and family. I found the story and areas even more "fragmented" than most games in this genre, though I appreciate that there was an actual mystery to be solved. It includes a bonus story, an "unlimited" hidden object mode, various bonus features, and a built-in strategy guide.
Overall: There’s nothing in here that I’d say “run out and buy.” I got a dozen hours of enjoyment out of my $2 investment, so there was definitely value for me, but I don’t think there was anything in this that isn’t done better somewhere else.
