Zenses: Ocean Edition
From American Game Factory
Relax by playing puzzle games inspired by the movements of the tide, rippling water, riffs and corals, beach vegetation and sea life. Zenses Ocean is an indulgent, soothing experience with high quality visuals and ambient sounds inspired by the natural sounds of the sea. Subliminal addictive puzzles such as Hot Spot, Shell Twirl, Turtle Turn, Pearl Diver and Wave Breaker were created to give you an escape from the stress of every day life.
- Amazon Sales Rank: #3645 in Video Games
- Brand: American Game Factory
- Model: 855433001816
- Published on: 2008-11
- Released on: 2008-10-28
- ESRB Rating: Everyone
- Platform: Nintendo DS
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .75" h x 5.25" w x 5.00" l, .25 pounds
Hard to put down!!
I love puzzle games - Tetris, Planet Puzzle League, Meteos, you name it. I also LOVE tropical settings, so when I saw these Zenses games I was pretty excited! They're even more fun than I had hoped for. The backgrounds are beautiful: for this game, Ocean, you'll see lots of water, sand, and seashells. Music is pretty and unobtrusive. Usually I play games with the sound turned off while listening to TV shows, but this music is very ambient and relaxing. You even get happy little chimes when you lose, it softens the blow!
Zenses: Ocean includes 6 different games. Zen Stones is a matching game, very similar to one of the casino minigames in Super Mario DS. Pearl Diver requires you to draw lines from one matching pearl to another in order to get them to disappear. Turtle Turn asks you to change the shell colors to make them match the pattern on the top screen. Hot Spot asks you to assemble floating crustacean parts to make a fancy creature to match the one on the top screen. Shell Twirl has you match shells to a rotating pattern in the center. Wave Breaker is a little bit like Concentration - that might be the most relaxing one, I get so hypnotized watching waves wash over seashells that I kind of forget to pay attention.
My hands-down favorite is Shell Twirl, I literally could barely put it down long enough to write this review! Zen Stones and Pearl Diver are a close second/third; very tough to put down. All the games have varying levels of difficulty so nothing is "too easy" or boring. And, all these games are different from the games on Zenses: Rainforest so if you like this sort of thing, it's definitely worth it to get both!
Relaxing fun
I bought this with the Rainforest edition. The type of games and the theme is different between the two, so don't think you're buying the same game with a different name... This game met my expectations as far as being addictive and relaxing. You can set the level of intensity for each game, thus controlling the level of game difficulty.
Worth the money. As well as its counterpart.....
Awesome game
Whether you like this game or not depends upon what kinds of games you like and don't like and generally what kind of person you are.
First things first, if you're primarily a shoot-em-up kind of gamer or someone who likes fast-paced games, you're probably not going to be satisfied with this game. If, however, you like strategy or puzzle games, you'll probably like this game. I myself love puzzles and strategy games and I think this game as well as the rainforest version are fantastically fun. Both the rainforest and the ocean zenses are about the same caliber but with differing settings.
Second, different people have different thinking skills and preferences. If you prefer to think things through thoroughly, if you understand and are in sync with the zen mentality and if you like carefully-thought-through logic and strategy, you'll love these games. Some may seem a little perturbing at first but if you just keep playing, you will determine the correct strategy and you'll be addicted! For the first 1 or 2 plays of some of the mini-games, I was a little lost, but I kept trying and figured out the best strategy by the third play. If you give up and get discouraged quite easily, I can see how it might be frustrating. If you prefer finding answers quickly and often skim over details and subtleties, you might want to try another game.
I love this game. I think it's awesome. I especially love "Wave Breaker". It's very calming and peaceful but can become challenging at the same time.
