Laruaville 3

This is the first game of the Laruaville series to incorporate the puzzle-M3 fusion concept in order to collect all the coins, instead of playing like a "traditional" M3. Many of the features of the later games were originally introduced in Laruaville 3, including the help book explaining the assorted gadgets which is a feature in all the other games this developer makes except the very first 2 Laruaville games.

The puzzles are a little rough around the edges, which makes this game surprisingly challenging because things like having a few more torches placed in the playfields weren't introduced yet, and the bombs from the first 2 games are still present, albeit with a different look. There are also a lot more ladybugs. Even though you aren't tasked to remove them like most of the newer games, having that many insects gets annoying at times.

There are 90 levels to play, and a ton of minigames, mostly mahjong, which in this game has the "parking spot" and undo buttons along with better looking playing tiles. IMO there were too many mahjong games, but it does get your town built a little faster. The only other minigame type in Laruaville 3 are spot the difference games, which do have a nifty feature of 2 hidden bonus coins in every scene.

The town scene to build this time is the size of the one in Laruaville 2, so you have to scroll the screen quite a bit to see it all and it'll get crowded with all the things to build. The bonus sparkles are back from Laruaville 2. The story of the ghosts finding a new place to live and having to restore the seasons is charming and much less hokey than the previous game. I also liked that once the town is finished, the seasons will change periodically if you keep playing.

No Steam Achievements, but I'm pretty sure this is the last Laruaville to feature in-game achievements, one of which is bugged in the Steam version. :( But if you enjoyed the newer games of this series, still recommended for discovering the ancestry of the "modern" Laruaville games.