This afternoon, I was feeling pretty frustrated. You see, I'm not much of a gamer. Yes, yes, I know that I work for a gaming site, and I know I'm theoretically supposed to love to play games, but if you really want to know, I am picky. When it comes to consoles, I have fun on the PS2, occasionally fire up the GameCube, and am pretty in love with the Nintendo DS and GBA, but if you ask me at any given time what I'm playing, I just won't have an answer for you. Casual games, however, are a whole other story. To begin with, I can play at my computer. Since I'm addicted to the internet anyway, I can simultaneously play, chat, pretend to work (oops, maybe I shouldn't admit that here where my boss can read it), and read my favorite sites. In addition, unlike most console games, learning to play a casual game doesn't take too much time. I like small learning curves. But anyway, I digress. My reasons for loving casual games are many, and I could go on and on and on, but that is not the point I was originally making.

The reason I was frustrated was because I was surfing through the multitude of casual gaming sites looking for my next quick boredom fix, and I noticed two serious problems. First and foremost, I use a Mac. This is probably not the wisest choice for gaming (as any hardcore PC enthusiast will tell you), but it's all I have. My Mac is absolutely wonderful for everything I need it to do, but finding a game that works on a Mac is sometimes a bit tricky. So it was with a great deal of excitement that I found Big Fish Games, a casual gaming site where the vast majority of their games are available for both PC and Mac users. Once I found this site, my frustration about being a Mac user in a PC gaming world was effectively erased. However, a quick run through of the available games brought a pressing question to light: Is it just me, or are the majority of casual games the exact same thing? It seems to me like a lot of games rely on the same formula. Line up shapes in a grid so that three or more of the same color are together. Once like colors are lined up, they will disappear, and eventually the board will be cleared. It is the same formula that has made games like Chuzzle a success, and I've seen it replicated countless times over.

This issue really frustrated me, in large part because as a writer, there is only so much I can say about the same thing over and over. How many times can I recount the same plot? Do I resort to talking about the (usually static) backgrounds and (usually simplistic) music? Do casual gamers really care about that stuff? If someone has already downloaded and paid for Clone #1, can I really write a review and tell them that they also should download Clone #4, even when the only difference is the background image? Hence, my frustration, which lasted all of five minutes into the game I finally decided to try, until I realized that Flip Flop Home Edition might actually be the magic bullet I was looking for all along.
Flip Flop Home Edition is the same old story at first, and at the beginning of my play session, I felt incredibly bored. The game's plot is pretty flimsy. Apparently, Granny had this big, beautiful house, but forgot to pay her taxes for years on end, and the bank foreclosed. Left out in the cold, Granny needed help, and I, her loyal real estate mogul granddaughter, stepped in to help her out. I was nice enough to buy Granny another house, but whoops. The house I chose for her was way too expensive, and when I sold it, I didn't make a profit. In order to recoup my losses, I was forced to play the real estate market, and thus begins Flip Flop Home Edition. (Believe me, I get that the story doesn't quite make sense, but trust me, once you start playing, you kind of forget that you even have a Granny).

Not to brag or anything, but I purchased, renovated, and sold (in the biz we call this "flipping" a house) well over twenty houses in under an hour. In fact, my renovations were so beautiful that I cleaned up an entire trailer park. Take that, Donald Trump! Also, you know how on TV, they make renovating a home look like such hard work? I scoff at that hard work, because in Flip Flop Home Edition, all I had to do was- you guessed it- line up pictures in various colors, and clear them from the screen. When I did this in the proper amount of time, my renovations were complete, and I had sold the house at a profit! So okay, I may have had one or two "flops", where I failed to complete the house on time and accidentally lost money, but at the end of my free trial, I was still in the black by over $80K.

The best part of Flip Flop Home Edition is the fact that when you do well and flip a house at a large profit, the game gets harder. Instead of only a few pictures to line up and clear, you are given more and more small ones, with less time to clear the board. I can not even begin to tell you what a challenge this is, and the harder levels definitely made me flop a few times. However, once you flop, the game resets itself to an easier level, so you have a chance to redeem yourself and work your way back up to the more difficult level.

The graphics here are pretty nifty, and all of the game's aspects are related to home renovation. The pictures you line up during the game are of things like floor tiles, light fixtures, and windows and doors, and your time for each level is kept by a gradually shrinking tape measure. The music is annoying (but no more so than any other computer game). I turned it off, but I kept the sound effects on, which are cute and not at all distracting.

Flip Flop Home Edition is fun and surprisingly challenging, and gives a much-needed freshening to the stale casual puzzle genre. The game is available for $19.99 at BigFish Games, but they also offer a 60-minute trial version so you can try it out before you purchase. For someone who began my play session with extreme frustration over the lack of innovation in casual games, I am pleasantly surprised that I am able to end my evening by highly recommending a game based on the same old formula.