Ending a level was too easy. On the other hand, I think the stats only once reported I'd made a "catch"--I never did figure out how. So I call the challenge level poor for both reasons. And I really hated having the Blue Bells played IN A MINOR KEY! Maybe for somebody else. Not for me.

As a birthday gift, Julia gets to fly across the pond and travel around picking up clues to a code. Collect the clues through Match 3 play. You can learn some things about the UK, see some pretty pictures, and if you make it to the end, collect the rest of Julia's birthday gift. Interspersed with the Match 3 boards are some jigsaw puzzles that award parts of the code. The match 3 mechanic is semi timed swapping. You win points, awards and trophies, some for being fast. But when the timer runs out you can continue solving the board. The faster you are, the more time bonus points you earn towards buying power ups; too slow and you will get zero time bonus points for the level. Earning time bonus points is challenging. You can use all your points to buy power ups. Other bonuses and power ups appear on the boards. There is one very strange / annoying / insane "feature" -- you can catch falling tiles by hitting option left click (Mac), and then use that caught tile to change the color of any other one. Since the object is to get certain pieces to the bottom and off the board, the catch feature can come in handy, but actually accomplishing a catch can make you crazy. I did not like this game, primarily for the Match 3 component. There is, however, a story to be had, so give it a try. You might "catch" on better than I could.

A lot of fun to play this puzzle game.

I played through 52 minutes of the trial hour, through the 5th city, the Tower of London. Julia?s Quest: United Kingdom has a storyline that takes Julia to landmarks in the UK, a journal that provides tourist information on the sites and records of the awards the player can earn, or has earned, high game scores to date, and features some different M3 gameplay elements like catching the falling stones removed by the player?s matches?tricky, but doable; however, you?ll have the stone on your cursor to place back on the board somewhere, so if you are working towards a time bonus, you?ve got to think quickly,?and music that is repetitive but not unpleasant (?The Blue Bells of Scotland?). Your time is recorded, but only for winning bonuses and awards; if you don?t wish to rush, you don?t need to hurry. Still, the presence of awards is incentive enough to try to complete those levels quickly by making matches beneath puzzle pieces to free them to fall to the bottom of the screen. Coins to increase your time score and other similar perks appear occasionally, though not for any feat performed by the player, such as making large matches. Perhaps I haven?t played long enough to figure out why they appear. There was one very easy jigsaw puzzle to complete, no HO scenes seen yet. There are 5 levels per city and 20 cities total visible in the journal. Also, the player can replay any completed city at will; this feature turned my initial nay into a yay! The initial levels are short: I was able to complete most levels in well under 2 minutes, two were completed in 40 secs! I received a gold cup for the levels completed in under 60 seconds. My only two real gripes with the game are as follows: you must buy the power-ups repeatedly; they don?t recharge, and those annoying Big Ben ticking sound effects at the Westminster Palace site truly got right up my nose! Decent replay values for the awards and scores.

To help Julia to get a code, you will play match3 in landscapes or places of England, like London Eye, Big Ben , etc. - Only the background! Colorful, well designed but rather irritating sound. The game itself is weak, too easy. In some boards, you have to drop just two puzzle pieces! And voila! And still have a hammer, bomb, lightning, brush, spray ... that you purchase with the points you make. But you do a lot of points per board! So, in less than three minutes you finish each location - there are 20, with 4 phases each ... Well ... not need the 60-minute free trial to end the game!

I found the game not too hard. The bonuses were overpriced, and you really only need the hammer. I HATED that coins did not drop automatically off the bottom of the board, even though puzzle pieces did. Sometimes they came off, sometimes they didn't and with no explanation in the help menu. Some of the later boards are reasonably challenging, so worth the price.

A good graphics! Great music. A simple and interesting gameplay.

Nothing special really. Mildly entertaining if you want to waste away an hour. I won't say I disliked it but I certainly won't buy it. Power Ups had to be purchased and they were overly priced for the game. However, even though I bought a few, I didn't really need them because the game was quite simple. Just ok . . .