Jenkat Games or Jencat Games, call us whatever makes you feel good!

For those who may not be aware, I wanted to let our blog readers know that Jenkat Games is now offering a free download of our first game, Cafe Mahjongg!  We are testing a new idea as a method of giving away full download games for free, and we welcome you to give the game a try.  The best part?  This verison of the game is not a trial version, but an UNLIMITED PLAY, FULL VERSION of the game.  If you are someone who enjoys relaxing with a warm mocha beverage while taking a break to play your favorite game (as I do) then I think you’ll find this game to be a great way to “chill”.  Heck, if you want to play at work, go ahead… I promise I won’t tell. 

Click here for more information about the game, and a link to download your FREE FULL VERSION of Cafe Mahjongg.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Jenkat, Games.

Given my love of all things coffee and chocolatey, I could not resist downloading Yummy Drink Factory.  The description of the game sounded a little reminiscent of the famous Diner Dash time management games, and the look of the game art appealed to me.

First, the not-so-good:  The characters in the story are rather obnoxious.  How can I feel motivated to play well and cheer myself on, if I am playing in the position of the main character — who happens to be very cold-hearted and rude?  I also am not a fan of having to click “Next” to read sentence after sentence of rather drab dialogue between the characters.  I prefer to get the gist of the story all at once.  I am a working woman, after all. 

On the other hand:  The game art is very pleasing to the eye — wonderful, vibrant colors and scenery.  Since I am pretty awful at time management games, the tutorials were appreciated, and I was glad that the recipes were so simple from the start.  The difficulty seems to increase very gradually, so I was able to keep up.  I also appreciated the option to end the level once the daily goal is reached, as some levels (as true with any game) aren’t as fun as others.  Best of all, I loved the “coffee shop” setting of the game with a fantasy twist — and the perspective of the camera viewing only the counter, materials and customers is refreshing when compared to the old model of actually showing the main character move about the scene.

Overall I would recommend giving this game a play, especially if you are a fan of time management-meets-memory games.  Official Jovi scale — I’d give it a 7 out of 10.

If you would like to try the game for free, CLICK HERE. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 2:56 pm and is filed under Jenkat, Games.

To to anyone still reading this blog… Hello…ello…ello…  In case you are wondering why this space has been rather inactive as of late, hopefully I can briefly explain without boring you to tears…

First, Jenkat Games recently relocated its “Games Hub of Love” to lush and lovely Minnesota!  Moving a business — even a small one — isn’t ever as easy as you hope it will be.  Also, you may have noticed that we launched Jenkat Games 2.0 over the summer.  We realize there are a few bugs to deal with, and we appreciate your patience as we work out the kinks.  We’d love it if you would take some time to send us along any comments or suggestions you have about the site, as we do want to make this site as fun as possible for our loyal players.

We have also been hard at work on a new download game, that should be available this fall.  Does anyone here enjoy hidden object games?    We also have two new online games in production that are just about finished, and our goal is to launch them on the site in the next couple of months.  Hopefully the new games will be a fair reward for your continued loyalty!

Anyway, we are settled into our new digs, and I should now have more time for bloggin’.  I hope you will read, and more importantly, I hope you will comment on my silly ramblings.  I am looking for friends to add to my new profile, so help me out by chatting me up here, will ya?

It’s good to be back in the saddle!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 11:38 am and is filed under Jenkat.

After several delays we now have much of the new site in place. We’ll have more info on everything that was added later today, but for now, here’s a quick overview:

- A new user Profile Page named “My Profile”
- A new header, showing you your wink total and how many friends are online
- The ability to add friends and track their high scores and winks
- The ability to see your high scores, your friends’ high scores, and much more
- The ability to message your friends and challenge them
- Your favorite games and your most recently played games

Also coming soon is a new JenkatGames.com Store, which will feature merchandise with characters from your favorite Jenkat games! Again, more to come later today, but for now, if you find any issues with any of the new functionality, please either post them in the comments below, or submit them via our support page. Thanks!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 4:15 am and is filed under Jenkat.

Happy Monday, Kats!

I just downloaded Tumblebugs 2 over the weekend, and I am enjoying it verily!  I loved playing the original online version of Tumblebugs at my former place of employment, and always hoped for a sequel.  I had actually given up that hope long ago, as the original Tumblebugs was released back in 2005! 

For anyone else that has given the game a try - is it just me, or is the first level really hard?  I guess I need to investigate further to see if there has been some new gameplay element added to the new version that I’ve missed - something required to pass the level that I am neglecting.  After several tries, I am struggling… and it is bugging me out.  Pun intended. 

The graphics of the game seem to be just as good as the original - not really better, but definitely on par.  I am learning that I shouldn’t play in full screen mode, because seeing the bugs rotate on a fairly large widescreen monitor is making me queasy!  Playing in window mode seems to solve that for me.

All in all, this very Zuma-esque game seems pretty fun, and worth a try.  And, if you have any hints for me - please comment below.  I stink at this game, and I was a semi-wiz when I played the original.  Guess I need more practice.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Jenkat, Games.

Today Jenkat is celebrating the birthday of someone very special - your friend and mine, TC!

I only wish our profile pages were live so that you could send your wishes to TC directly, but fear not - they will be soon!  For now, feel free to leave a greeting here by commenting below, and help us make “The Boss” feel all warm and fuzzy inside as he turns thirty… something.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TC!!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Jenkat.

Work continues on the second iteration of Jenkat Games. We can’t give you a definite date right now, yet sometime in the near future we’ll be launching Phase II of Jenkat Games.

What does that entail? Let me give you a sneak peek…

* Profile System - we’re going to keep it simple, as a lot of you already use places like Facebook and MySpace. However, you’ll be able to upload a picture/avatar of your choice and let people know a little about yourself, if you choose.

* Friends - you’ll be able to add friends and keep track of how they’re doing. This feature will really begin to shine when we get to Phase III later this year.

* Lots of Stats - not only will you be able to see everyone’s high scores for each game during nearly whatever time period you like, we’ll finally reveal who is the leader in Winks for the whole site and each game. In my mind, this is one of the coolest features, especially if you’re a stat junkie or you just like to play and aren’t really concerned about high scores. If you play enough, you may be the best player in a certain game, even if you don’t have a high score - It’s all about the Winks!

* Jenkat Store - this will feature t-shirts, mouse pads, coffee cups, buttons and a whole more featuring your your favorite Jenkat characters including Jenkat herself, Floyd and Goldie, and many more.

* Other Features - we like to think we’re making our login system more user friendly, along with editing your data. Plus look an improved search engine on the site and some other goodies that I’ll bite my tongue on for the moment.

It’s coming soon and hopefully you’ll find it a valuable part of your Jenkat day!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 10:41 am and is filed under Jenkat.

Casual games are king and Jenkat is the queen, at least we like to think.  A new version of Finders Keepers online has been posted to JenkatGames.com.  Your favorite treasuring hunting lads (Floyd & Goldie) are ready to give you an improved experience online.  Now, if you beat the game, you’re rewarded properly.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Jenkat, Games.

As some of you may have noticed, many of your online scores and winks disappeared yesterday. This was, unfortunately, not a planned event. Fortunately, we were able to recover pretty much all the scores thanks to us having a nightly backup of all of our data. We did, however, lose about six hours of scores and winks for any games completed from about 12:15 AM CST (that’s -6 GMT right now for those visiting from outside the US) until about 06:10 AM CST on March 2nd.

Now, how did all this happen? Without going into too many boring details, one lucky user was temporarily the holder of 99.99% of the scores and winks on the site. This was through no fault of their own. What caused it was a small logic error in some neat score tracking code that we have. It’s what enables us to keep track of your scores for you even if you happen to play a couple of games while you’re logged out.

If anyone is noticing anything strange with the site, please don’t hesitate to contact us via our support page. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and we’ve made several updates to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 2:53 am and is filed under Jenkat.

Hey everyone…

I just wanted to let you all know that some of you might be experiencing some problems when logging into the site right now - namely the disappearance of your Winks and high scores for the Online Games.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience, and want you to please rest assured that we have our lead tech guru on the case!  He tells me the problem is only temporary, and he is working to resolve the issue as I type this post.  We hope to have everything back to normal in the next several hours, and we ask for your patience in the meantime.

If you experience any other issues, please contact us via the e-mail form on our Help page.

Thanks so much for playing, and please check back here for updates.

– Jovi

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 1:54 am and is filed under Jenkat.