There are lots of people in the world who appreciate fine cuisine, including me. I love cooking and playing games, but the thing is I could never do that simultaneously, or could I?

Some things are hard to replace in life, for example, my bubble genre obsession. My family could never understand that, my friends could never understand, the heck, I couldn’t understand that either, but things happen and you get to play lots of Facebook games during the social media game epidemic and then you get addicted…for life. That is exactly what happened to me and “bubble” games. I consumed lots of them, before iPad got into my life. It replaced Facebook instantly but my crave for bubbly stuff (and I don’t mean the alcohol drink) was always there. So, cutting to the chase, this is a review of one of them, my recent discovery – Bubble Cooking Adventure by Renatus Media, LLC. This company has released so many different bubble-something games, I couldn’t even count. But Bubble Cooking Adventure is the one that's worth your full attention.

This game offers you a delicious journey across 7 countries, famous for their unique ethnic dishes. In each country you come across a dozen of towns, bursting with bubbles that bounce above the boiling pots. You are to shoot them using various techniques, boosters and magical kitchen utensils. A small spoiler: those countries are of Asian, European and Arabic origin.

So the gameplay is pretty nice and easy to get a read on. Just shoot bubbles, color-matching them, and try to aim more accurately. That's it. However, two characters are good-looking, bubbles are nicely designed (and I’ve seen a whole bunch of them), tapping control works perfectly and levels are getting harder very quickly (best way to test your leveling skills). All above-mentioned and some other features make this game a great example of bubble shooter & match 3 that is pretty hard to find on the App Store.

And my favorite thing about Bubble Cooking Adventure are collections of different dishes: lasagne, peking duck, sushi, pastilla, tiramisu, gingerbreads and others that always make me think of what I need to order for dinner today, yummy!

Although, to be honest, there are some things in this game that I would change. One of them is that the game is getting really hard after the third country opened. You couldn’t possibly pass levels without using boosts, so keep that in mind and better not waste them on Russian levels, take your time. And it takes too long to restore lives. Couldn’t play it as frequent as I’d like to.

Nonetheless my verdict is that Bubble Cooking Adventure is good-looking, brain-teasing and addictive. Everything true bubbles need.

A free-to-play toy for every dreamer with an iPad

Do you believe in parallel universes? Yes or No, you can’t deny that there’s one each of us travels to every night - the elusive universe of dreams. And there are people, who dared giving it flesh in a new hidden object game.

Recently, I got my hands on the game called Dream: Hidden Adventure released by Renatus Media, LLC this October. And if someone asked me “Is it worthy or not? ”, my answer would be a firm ‘Yes’! I liked it… actually, it was love at first sight - not only due to my deep love for HOGs, but because it’s so beautiful and overwhelming.

You fall asleep to find yourself in the mind-boggling Dream world. It’s is built up from three hovering islands – Dreams, Nightmares and Absurdities - coming alive with every finger touch. A 3D interactive map allows players to revel in the bedazzling beauty of isles, looking from all sides, until they want to explore more.

What is your mission in this divinely beautiful, perfect world? A closer look will reveal a dark spot whirling next to the dreamy islands - the all-consuming Black Hole. And you are to rescue dreams, and their extraordinary inhabitants, from being sucked in by it.

Visual side is 100% the strongest side of Dream game – juicy graphics and unseen originality peculiar to each location appeals to the Dreamer in every player. I personally was impressed with the Underbed: the most uncombinable items are mixed so brilliantly that you start to believe – such place can really exist somewhere.

Those, who ever played HOGs, will know what to do: go to location - find items from the list - get reward. Time-limited quests, three search modes and collections… But that’s just the tip of the iceberg called Dream. Its creators invented lots of “tasty” novelties, putting a new face on the well-known genre.

Here are some of them:

* Instead of energy, you need drowsiness to explore dreams.

* You may multiply the fixed number of XP points gained for each found item, but only if you find the next one very fast. There’s a scale that shows how many times it may multiply.

* Presences (like breath-taking Mist or funny Wordworm) that complicate the search. They might be dispelled with special artifacts, and… summoned intentionally with other no less special artifacts to get unique, rarely found things.

* Wide range of collectible and purchasable stuff: tools (for one-time help in search of items), bonuses (making it easier to find various items and artifacts and active for a certain period of time), weapons (used to deal with presences and monsters) and charges (used to assemble collections).

* Bartering with characters (to give something and get some thing in return)

* Progress in each location is reflected in terms of “sleeping”: weariness - yawning - slumber - siesta - deep sleep.

At first, you may even get lost in this vast reality, but the Help section can always help you out. Plus, there's a “cloudy Casper-boy” (my own name of boy having a blue skin and curly hair resembling a cloud), giving you a piece of of tutorial after each level.

Nothing is perfect in this world, so is the Dream game. And though nicely impressed, I have noticed a couple of flaws. The first one is peculiar to most hidden object games – lots of words! Dream “bombards” players with long stories and level intros (or is it a trick to make players sleepy and closer to actual dreaming?). They're actually funny and well-written, but can be a bit annoying when all you want to do is play! The other thing I disliked were fixed positions of items in one location (let's leave out the details) – after a few levels I was able to find any item blindfolded.

But even those things couldn't change my mind: I loved Dream!

You should try it too if you...:

• · more into “picture” rather than “action”
• · like extraordinary plots
• · crave for addictive gameplay
• · are an inveterate Dreamer!

Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did...and do every evening!