Part extreme coordination test, part card game, part tea-themed RPG (no, really!), Chipper's Tea Party is typically British and typically quirky. It's also a very decent game for Windows Phone, and the only reason this is an extended flow rather than a full review is... that I'm not good enough at playing it to get far enough into the game! The screenshots below will give you an excellent idea of what to expect though.
A unique puzzle, RPG and casino hybrid game for your Windows Phone! Finally there's something to do while you're waiting for your tea to brew!
4 Arcade modes
18 challenging events
Black Jack table
Buy, Sell and Level up Teas to improve your game
Online high-score boards (cross-platform)
Here's Chipper's Tea Party in action:
The main menu, you'll be back here quite often - note the Manga-esque feel to the graphics.
A tutorial set of screens introduce the core gameplay. Essentially, panes of tea cups scroll quickly up the screen and you have to spot chains of cup backgrounds of the same colour, tapping to temporarily freeze the scrolling while you tap out your chosen chain length...
Already, some of the game's dynamics can be seen - different scrolling speeds, different 'hold' durations, and so forth.
After each completed level (that you're happy with), it's time to head to the BlackJack table. No, really...
It's not clear whether there's a genuine link between tea and BlackJack or perhaps the developer wanted to make both games anyway and thought a mash-up might be fun(!)
With that in mind, you take your coins from the core tea tile game and bet them on a hand of BlackJack (a.k.a. '21')
That worked out well, I've doubled my coins! Completed with animated coin fountain...
As you might expect from the 'coins' language, there's an expectation of buying something with your ill gotten loot. In this case, 'power teas', which can be used in the main game to help you carve out ever higher scores:
You can own up to three power teas at any one time, coins permitting...
In the core game then, you use the Power Teas as needed and - hopefully - start racking up some decent high scores.
As an alternative to the arcade nature of the main game, there are also sets of events/targets...
...ranging from easy to impossible, but fun to have a crack at anyway.
Finally, there's an overall difficulty slider for the main game, ensuring that, however good you get at scoring chains, there will still be a challenge for you.
There's a lot to like here, from the chirpy electronic background music to the back and forward nature of the dual-game. The core tap-to-hold-and-chain gameplay is harder than it looks, which is good, and it's very easy to get flustered when you miss a tap by a couple of pixels and your entire strategy is derailed. But once Chipper's Tea Party grabs you, there's an awful lot of gameplay ahead.