anak, busaltin, super bowl, xtreme tp 3 no, kar bowl royale, yzszs challen. And what do you know: Tropix is a cellphone game. Contextual translation of bowl into Turkish. It reminds me of early cellphone titles with clumsy animation and lifeless visuals. While it's a breezy experience for the most part, some of the menus and onscreen icons don't make a lot of sense.

It's a nice way to engage the player and give them something to work towards, rather than just having a bunch of random mini-games that can be played arbitrarily. Once you've maxed out the stats for an island you'll unlock a new mini-game. Purchasing a banana tree will boost your food level, and a snorkel set will provide you with fun points. The islands have attributes that can be improved: food, fun, and comfort. Each game has its own level progression with a user-friendly save system that lets you back out to your island hub at any time without losing your progress. Several of these are fun and make up for the stinkers (I'm looking at you, Coco Bowl).

Available to play are common casual offerings like Puffer Popper (a Zuma/Luxor clone), Coco Bowl (bowling), Cascade (a match-three game like Bejewelled), Water Words (see Bookworm), and solitaire. Not to worry, though, because you can play mini-games to earn sand dollars, buy stuff to decorate your pad with, and eventually purchase new islands and games. You are a monkey, all alone on a deserted island. It's a fairly compelling package, but the $30 price tag is too much for what is being offered. Many of the clones are fun copies and there is a persistent advancement system where you earn money to increase your status.

Play for a bit, though, and you'll actually find a compelling puzzle experience here. The visuals lack anything resembling a personality, the interface can be unintuitive, and the included mini-games are all clones of existing software. When you first boot up Real Network's Tropix, you'll be forgiven if you dismiss it as yet another piece of DS shovelware.

Tropix coco bowl