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Easter Bonus, from Grey Alien Games, is a rethemed version of their Holiday Bonus match-three game... dipped, colored, and dried in the chickyrabbiteggybasket pastels of Easter. Get ready to fall in love with Easter all over again as you match your way through 110 levels of cutesy springtime goodness.
Easter Bonus looks simple at first glance, but its gameplay is quite complicated. On the screen in each level you'll find a grid filled with Easter-related items: chicks, Easter baskets, candles (used during Easter to attract rabbits at night), eggs, some sort of butter pie thing which I couldn't quite identify, Easter lilies, and more. The cell behind each item has a blue background. Your job is to paint all the cell backgrounds gold, by matching up rows and/or columns of three or more like items. By clicking on any two neighboring items, you'll make them swap places. If the swap results in either item forming a match of three or more, those items will explode in a nifty shower of stars, you'll get points, and the background behind those items will be painted gold. All you have to do is make lots and lots of matches until you've painted the entire grid gold, and you've won that level. In fact, I lied when I said that the gameplay is complicated.
There is one complication. Some items are frozen in place. You know how sometimes the weather at Easter drops below freezing? Well, the same principle applies here. You won't be able to swap these frozen items around - you'll have to break the ice first. One way to accomplish that is to swap a frozen item's neighbors around and make a match containing it. That will break the ice.
You have a limited amount of time to complete each level. At the left of the screen, a giant candle - bigger than any candle you can possibly imagine - is burning down. When it has been completely consumed, your time is up. In fact, you'll lose a life. Which is odd, because you don't play as a character.
Every time you make a match, new items fall in from the top of the screen to replace items that have exploded. If any falling pieces form new matches, those pieces will explode, too. This can result in satisying chain reactions of explosions, and is by far the most appealing part of the game.
Sometimes, special power items will appear. Lit matches allow you to thaw a single frozen item. Balloons pop and destroy all the items in a 3x3 grid, and break ice. Stars allow you to destroy any single item on the screen (including ice). Paintbrushes allow you to paint any cell's background gold - they can really come in handy near the end of a level when you just have one more cell to paint in the corner and you're having trouble making a match with its item. Buckets of paint explode and paint all cells in a 3x3 grid gold. And dynamite destroys either a single row or single column of items.
Uesugi's Best Moist Chocolate Brownies Recipe!
1 cup instant oatmeal
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
powdered sugar
Heat the water to a rolling boil, then immediately remove from heat and stir in oatmeal. Set aside. In a large bowl, mix together the remaining dry ingredients: flour, sugar, cocoa, salt, and baking soda. Add the warm oatmeal, shortening, and vanilla. Mix semi-well. Add the eggs. Mix very well. Pour the mixture into a greased 9x13 pan, and bake at 350° for 35 minutes. Cut the brownies into squares and let them cool for 25 minutes. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Refrigerate in a sealed container for at least 3 hours before serving. Enjoy!
Some levels are a bit tricky because frozen items don't fall when there is space below them. Until you break the ice encasing those items, you'll have less chances to make matches due to gaps. Levels in Easter Bonus come in different shapes. Oddly shaped levels are more challenging, because cells without many neighbors are harder to match. But the game itself is not going to engage the heavy-lifting part of your brain (the frontal lobe of the cerebrum).
The graphics are extremely simple, and though cute, not very engaging. Pieces wiggle when you ask for a hint, and slide around the screen smoothly, but there aren't really any animations. Except for the bunny that appears after you've finished each level, some flying birds, and falling stars.
The Marioesque sound effects are nice, particularly the popping sound when chicks and egg baskets explode, or the explosion of the dynamite piece. The background music is hit and miss. The reggae theme that plays over some levels is groovy. It really gets you in the island mood to match three or more Easter baskets. I kind of wished the reggae theme would play at all times, because the other songs aren't nearly as fun. One in particular got on my nerves. It sounded like this: do do dee do do de, do do dee do do de, do do dee do do doo. Yikes!