#numuki

As an adult I still find myself weirdly consoled by the visuals. There's something just so distinctly youthful and girlish about Holly Hobbie and her pony rides and friendship lockets that makes me yearn for all the best, most cherished aspects of youth.

For anyone who was too intimidated by the sassiness of Bratz, alienated by the adult nature of My Scene, or found Barbie just too broad a concept, Holly Hobbie rested comfortably in the joys of innocent girlhood, seeming to remind the young girls who actually owned these dolls that some of the best days of your life could be right now and are most likely miles and miles away from high school and boys.

Not too much of that aesthetic is here in The Hey Girls: Muffin Maker-any game that takes the cake on that is Holly's Attic Treasures-aside from the natural coziness of a family owned café and the cute little kitchen you occupy during gameplay.

Not that you’ll have much time to admire it as your eyes will be zeroed in on the muffins passing by if you have any hopes of succeeding.

Like I said before, Muffin Maker is all about speed and timing. There are only four levels and each one causes the speed of the conveyor to speed up, making what was once an easy, almost boring task, increasingly more difficult.

Levels one through three are breezy, easy and simple much like the Holly Hobbie franchise in a nutshell, but it's really the finale that warrants this game getting its own entry.

The last level is something manifested from the deepest depths of my personal, already anxiety ridden hell, the lavender conveyor belt's brisk pace jumping straight from manageable to nightmarish.

Like a skit out of I Love Lucy, expect your muffins to become sloppily prepared if they get any garnishing's at all, most of the fixings decorating the stainless steel that pursues its nothing existence on an infinitely looping rollercoaster of horror.

Of course I'm exaggerating but to this day I still struggle to keep up with the brisk pace of the muffin conveyor belt at the last level, leaving far more fixings within the general vicinity of the muffins and making my results screen something fills me with an unbridled rage-once again, exaggerating.

Though it's a very short experience, I always find myself going back to Muffin Maker simply to prove I'm worthy of the final level and one day get the honor of having a flawless tray of muffins to call my own. As far as simple flash games go, it's certainly not that half-baked. ♡︎ 4/5