Kikoskia plays Barbie Software: Groovy Games - Part 4 of 4

Here are the last two mini-games. Yeah, this was gonna be a quick one.

Gems and Jewels

Use the Control Pad to choose a square on the board, then choose a gem or jewel for your friend. Press A to place the gem or jewel on the board. Line up four of the same shape, color, size or hollow-solid to win. Once your place your gem/jewel, you must choose one for your friend to place. Be careful not to give your friend the winning piece!

You have a 4x4 grid. You pick a gem out of the ones to the right, then your opponent picks one. You'll then have to place your opponent's piece for them. This keeps going until the board is filled or somebody wins, and you'll have to be careful where you put your opponent's pieces so as to make sure they do not win.

D.J. Booth

In this one, you help the DJ put the CDs away in their cases. Choose one CD and one case on each turn. If the pictures match, you win ten points. If not, your opponent gets a turn. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins.

Use the Control Pad to choose a CD or CD case, and press A to flip it over.

There are special pieces on the board. There is the "Wild" piece that makes a match automatically whenever you find this along with a CD or CD case. If you find two "Wild" pieces, you'll get an extra ten points. The "Jinx" piece allows you to "jinx" a piece, and if you select it again, your turn is automatically over and you will lose ten points. The "Mix" piece will mix the CDs and cases up.

If the "Jinx" piece is the last CD and there is one more case left, whoever selects them both gets ten points.

Kikoskia plays Barbie Software: Groovy Games - Part 3 of 4

In this episode, we find out Barbie Hangman is hard and that Barbie continuity doesn't exactly seem to exist.

Groove and Move

Press Up to jump up. Press Down to point down. Press Left to dance left. Press Right to dance right. Press A and B to do a special move.

You couldn't not make this wordy, game?

Help Skipper follow the lights on the screen by pressing the Control Pad arrows, A or B in time to the beat. You can earn one to ten points for each move. Press the button as soon as you see the light.

There are four lights on each side of Barbie well as an A button. Guess what? It's almost like Simon Says, and the more quickly you press the buttons, the more points you'll get out of a maximum of ten. Your score will be in the lower-left corner. There are three notes in the upper-right corner, and you lose one every time you mess up. If you lose all three of your notes, the game is over.

The patterns get longer, but they never seem to get faster.

Conga Line

It's Snake!

Use the pink arrow to find the dancers and make the conga line grow longer. If you run into the walls or the rest of the conga line, your turn is over. The more quickly you find the dancer, the more points you get.

Just like in Snake, you cannot stop. Use the pink arrow in the lower-right corner to find the next person for the conga line, since the room is bigger than the screen.

As you play, there is a pink gauge in the top center of the screen. If it empties, the game is over.

If you see pink couches and bookshelves (as well as speakers and a TV with a table), you've found a wall. Don't run into it.

It is possible to run into enough people to actually win the game.

CGR Undertow reviews Barbie Software: Groovy Games

Here's yet another review from CGR Undertow.

Kikoskia plays Barbie Software: Groovy Games - Part 2 of 4

And now it's time for three more games we've seen a million times elsewhere.

Bubble Machine

Guess what? It's Bust-A-Move.

Move the cannon so that you aim the cannon, then shoot the ball as soon as the cannon is aimed in the direction you want it to go. If the ball hits a wall, it will rebound off in the opposite direction.

If you hit any hearts that are dropping down, you'll get points for them. If you hit any stars, it will clear off any stars. The orange ones will get rid of any nearby balls, while the purple star will clear out the entire row of balls.

As you get rid of balls, the balls will eventually shake before a new row is created at the very top of the playfield.

The only difference between this and the real McCoy is that it eventually gets faster and the hit detection is much more forgiving. It's like "My First Bust-A-Move Game."

If the balls make their way to the bottom, the game is over.

Draughts

You choose between one of four pieces, as does your opponents. Guess what? It's checkers.

You can only move your pieces diagonally, and you also cannot go backwards. You can also move up one square at a time. If one of your pieces leaps over one of your opponents, you will get rid of the piece. Whoever gets rid of the others' pieces first is the winner.

If you jump over an opponent's piece, and it is still possible to jump over another of your opponent's pieces, you are allowed to jump it. This applies until there are no other pieces to jump over. 

If you can move any of your pieces all the way to the other side of the board, you can turn it into a King and move backwards as well as forwards; however, you can still only move diagonally despite that.

Daisy Derby

Use the Control Pad to scroll through the letters of the alphabet. Use the A button to select a letter. Guess the letters in a secret work to make your horse move forward in the race. If you guess wrong, your friend's horse will move forward. The first horse to pass the finish line wins!

In other words, it's Hangman.

You'll choose between one of five pieces, as does your opponent.

The most common letters are R, S, T, L, N and E, so start with those, especially with E. You don't have any clues as to what the word you're guessing is, unlike in Wheel of Fortune, so have fun with that.

Kikoskia plays Barbie Software: Groovy Games - Part 1 of 4

Darn it, Kikoskia, not again.

It's a mini-game collection with nine games in all...and Barbie is involved.

You'll select between one- and two-player mode, then select between Barbie, Lea, Kayla, Christie, Teresa, Becky and Ken over who you want to play as. You'll then choose who you want to play against. After all that, you'll play some mini-games, and you can choose any one you want: D.J. Booth, Tic-Tac-Toe, Four Scoops, Bubble Machine, Draughts, Daisy Derby, Groove and Move, Conga Line, and Gems and Jewels. You'll choose between Easy, Medium and Hard for the difficulty, then choose between learning the rules for the game or jumping straight into it.

Tic-Tac-Toe

You'll choose which piece out of the two you'll use, since the game will use symbols instead of X's and O's. Your opponent will be the other piece.

You'll then be on a yellow-and-pink checkerboard picnic blanket. The sparkle indicates where you are about to place your symbol. As always, there are nine spaces, and whoever gets three in a row vertically, horizontally or diagonally is the winner. It's worth losing at least once in any of the games just to hear the kick-ass "Nice try!" music.

Interestingly, the AI is pretty rock-solid here on Medium (as it will be on every other game), so good luck trying to win.

Four Scoops

Here's all you need to know about the game: it's Connect Four.

You'll choose between one of four flavors, as does your opponent. The aim of the game is to achieve four in a row vertically, horizontally or diagonally wins. This one is a bit trickier than tic-tac-toe, especially if you set it up so that you doom your opponent as soon as they place a piece in a specific column. Also, you'll want to pay attention to everything and look around for any potential four-in-a-row possibilities, because once again, the AI can be pretty good here on Normal difficulty.