Jacquie Lawson Country Cottage Reviews

I agree with everyone saying how wonderful the graphics are. I was so excited to start playing this, but have been frustrated along the way. It began with only being able to earn 500 points everyday, and what seems like literally 24 hours has to pass. I also agree with what others are saying about how you have to play the three simple games way too many times to get 500 points. I am really looking forward to decorating the cottage, but it may be weeks before I get there. Not sure I have the patience for that. Now, JacquieLawsonCountryCottage is frequently down and I don’t find this out until after I played a game to get the message that it is not working and the points I have earned are not being registered. The idea of JacquieLawsonCountryCottage is so wonderful. I hope they value what is being said in the reviews and make changes. I realize a lot of work and talent goes into making JacquieLawsonCountryCottage and I would be happy to pay a fair price for it and be able to enjoy it. Update: They have changed it to daily to earn points instead of every 24 hours! Also, it looks like they were working on it quite a lot because I am no longer getting the message that JacquieLawsonCountryCottage is down. Now, if only some other ways to earn points and the allowance of earning more points in a day (unlimited?), I could get to decorating.
Update: Dropping the rating because it is ridiculous how few points you get for playing the games when the items require such a higher number of points.

As usual, the Jacquie Lawson folks have exceeded themselves with the graphics. I agree with the other reviewers that playing the three games over and over to get points is tiresome. However, it’s a nice way to entertain yourself when you’re on a long phone call. The point requirements for some of the items are a bit high. After I met all the point goals and reached the level where you could redecorate the place by picking items from a catalogue, I stopped. I liked the cottage as is. After all, I put a lot of work in getting it in shape. ;) It would be nice to put fresh flowers on the tables or add books to the bookcases, but that’s not an option. It would also be great for the stationery activity if you could send your note to one of your contacts in your Jacquie Lawson contact list, but you’re not permitted to that. Seems strange. I was hoping to find several of the wonderful Jacquie Lawson easter eggs, but they only recycled the ones of the cats mewing and the dog lifting its head. For example, I’d love to see the sheep stop roaming and do something when you click on them. I figure this cottage adventure is a work in progress. It’s worth the download.

The scene is a charming, but rundown cottage. The user can play 3 (boring) games to earn points up to a max of 500 points per day. The 3 games are 2 forms of solitaire and a game were you fit tokens (gems) into a grid. You can earn many more points playing the gem grid game (the more boring game) than the solitaire games. Once the player earns enough points they can be spent on house repairs. But you can only earn enough to do one or two repairs per day. So, not very exciting and not too rewarding, but the graphics are really lovely.

Update: the developer asked me to update my review. They say they have eliminated daily caps on points earned (not as of today, though). Also, that they will Be bringing on new games. I have never had a developer do this before. It seems a bit rude.

Let’s see if they can made these beautiful graphics into an engaging experience. They have quite a ways to go.

I’m a long time Jacquie Lawson customer and fan. I’ve spent many hours happily playing the games and enjoying the graphics of their yearly Advent Calendars as well as their Curio Collection and English Garden.
This Country Cottage app could be amazing and entertaining, and it is improving with each update, so I am determinedly hanging on. The people at Jacquie Lawson seem to be very responsive to the reviews and comments people have made, so I find that encouraging. I hope they will continue to improve JacquieLawsonCountryCottage experience with more games, more decorating options, details like being able to shut the curtains (and the outdoors getting dark at night like it does in the English Garden and the Advent calendars). A clock would be wonderful, decorative items to put on the shelves - so many possibilities!
I would happily pay for JacquieLawsonCountryCottage as I do each year for the Advent Calendar - hope y’all are listening!

Sent 2 weeks playing lame games to get enough coins to almost all the repairs. Opened the game the next day and over half of my repairs were missing. Started earning coins again and also contacted customer support. They had me log out and back in and it reset the game to be back to the tutorial and lost my expansion pack. So now I have lost everything and the tutorial didn’t even pay me coins for doing it again. Luckily I had enough to get the games unlocked.

Customer support after a week of back and forth offered to give me a refund. I send them my email account, they can’t find me. I contact them back, tell them I can log in fine with that email for them to say, we see that email address in our system and how to log in. So they can find it when not offering a credit, but it seems to not be in the system when offering one. I really liked the idea of this game and the advent calendar, but customer support has runnier both for me. Not worth the money I paid for it.

My wife and I are huge fans of Jacque Lawson, but this misses the mark. I don’t mind the idea of playing a game to earn points to clean up the cottage, but the payoff is bad. Two main problems. First off, the developer seems to think their fans have all the time in the world to play this. It takes way too long to earn the points to clean up one small thing. The point earnings need to be drastically improved. I don’t get JL apps in order to grind away, I get them because I enjoy the music and graphics and playing the games a couple of times. Second problem is that the creative side is missing here. In other JL products, the Advent Calendar and the Garden, the philosophy and goal is that we get to be creative and decorate our own way. In this cottage, on the other hand, we grind to earn points so we can press a white dot to clean something up. JacquieLawsonCountryCottage seems to be made in a completely different philosophy than other JL products and I am not a fan of the change.

Update for Garden Expansion Pack. The latest update is such a let-down as a for-a-fee app. Although there are improvements (seeing the item in place before buying), the garden is not integrated with the country cottage except for jumping to the writing desk. (Who needs it? Use the JL card app instead.) Unless I’m missing something, you can’t “travel” from the garden into the house by walking through an arch or gate which defeats the purpose. After a few clicks you’re DONE, cleaning up and even selecting items to “redecorate.” And it’s super glitchy, kicking you out completely at times. There are three more games, one (the puzzle) doesn’t work at all—a COMPLETE waste of $4.99. Won’t be falling for it with the country kitchen. The JL English Country Garden is much better. Sorry, developers. I’m a huge JL fan, but this SADLY disappoints. 3 stars because of the artistic graphics.

I love the graphics, but I really thought more game options would appear as I “cleaned up”. I agree with a lot of the other comments the points earned did not seem to balance well with the “cost” of improvements and is even worse once you get to the point of redecorating. I enjoy the 10-up solitaire game, but tend play the the crystals game when trying to earn points... it seems to be a better return on my time. I absolutely LOVE the word scrabble game in the new garden add-on, although I do have to keep a crossword app open. Even if you know the word there may be more than one option… and only one will work to make all the words.

One suggestion on the garden and the cottage… add options to change the seasons and decorate the cottage for holidays.

I have been a fan and subscriber to JL for many years. This free app exceeded my expectations. In a few afternoons I’ve managed to repair the cottage, exchange several of the furnishings and replace the siding. As others have noted, the graphics are first rate. The music (and nature sounds) are also quite lovely. Finally, I give thumbs up to the programming of Klondike solitaire, which my dear grandpa taught me to play. One can either drag and drop the cards (apparently a good brain workout) or click and select the next move to be made automatically. Many thanks, Jacquie Lawson! I look forward to purchasing the expansion packs.

(Note: I don’t see a space to identify the name of the reviewer. You may use « satisfied customer » I don’t wish my name to be published!)

As everyone says, Jacquie Lawson and her team create beautiful cards, calendars etc. BUT they are not gamers. Looks as though the games came from a Microsoft package designed in the '90's. Very disappointing plus the algorithms are designed to make sure one fails a lot! The Country Cottage is particularly frustrating. I am good at solitaire but I can't beat the algorithm. The cottage and the garden are delightful, BUT a very limited amount of catalogue choices. What if one wanted to cover the couch and chair in the same style? No luck! The garden is beautiful though I do recognize several 'looks' from the cards. Again, more plant choices please. Right now I have close to 5000 points a nothing to spend them on. So disappointed. The only good thing is no one dies or is gunned down.

Updated new review… I have really been enjoying this since last update. I’m wondering if more games will be added and I see other things coming soon?

I love the idea but you get very few points when you’ve played a game. The worst part is I have won a game and due to technical difficulties I never received points for it. This has happened quite a few times. I love the idea of this. It would be nice if points would actually be added and I will give this more stars. My daughter also has finished the cottage and now cannot get back into it. It stays frozen and says logging on. I noticed another review stating the same thing.

I’ve noticed that the time of day is off by about 12 hours. When I visit the cottage at 9:30 in the morning the game tells me I have already earned my 500 points for that day, but I can continue to play just for fun. If I visit the Country Cottage at 9:30 at night, I am able to play the games and earn points. I’ve looked everywhere to find out how I can contact JL about this issue, but there isn’t any place to contact the developer. So I am here posting a review, hoping they will see this and fix the problem. I do not want to play the games late at night in order to receive points to fix my cottage. Please help! Thank you.

I played those three games over and over just to get the cottage done. I was determined but really bored. Why on earth was there nothing more to do? Today I decided to buy the garden. I thought maybe since I have to pay for this one it will work better and have more features. Instead it doesn’t work at all. I thought maybe the new games were in the charger so I went in there and played a game and it took all my points away. I still can’t find the new games and the garden doesn’t even seem to have any icons to click to fix things up. It looks like it could be so beautiful but it is just a mess. The website has no instructions except how to buy it. Something is happening at JL I think. A good company going down the tubes.

First, thanks for switching up the “Cottage” so that you can accumulate unlimited points.
Also, the 100 point bonus was a great idea!

What is going wrong for me, and without any pattern I can discern, is the “theoretical” 24 hour clock before the 500 goal point resets.

For a while there, it seemed like it was pretty close to working, resetting on or about 1:00pm(ish) CDT everyday; something I could anticipate and count on. However, the reset has been getting increasingly inaccurate.

Today, it’s now 12:45pm CDT, and it’s telling me it still won’t reset for 4 hours. ☹️

I really can’t imagine how the programming is set up that results in different reset times every day. This is VERY frustrating. I try to play and earn my points during lunch, but now the reset time is getting closer to supper.

Sure hope you can fix this 🙏!

Otherwise, it’s a gorgeous app that I’m really enjoying, although adding a few new games for more ways to earn points would also be appreciated.

But if you’re only going to do one thing- PLEASE FIX THE CLOCK.

Thanks 😀

I love the graphics! But unless I’m missing something there are only three games to play and though the graphics in them are lovely they aren’t so exciting that I want to play them over and over...and I have to do that in order to win enough points to do anything to the house or garden. I get around 25 points even if I win a game and every chore I want to buy costs 150 points or more. So I suggest you plan more games, give more points for winning or playing and reduce the cost of putting things to rights.

I had 53,000 points saved in the main Country Cottage game, planning to spend them all at once to “fix the place up”. Yesterday, I downloaded the new add-on pack for the garden; shortly after it was installed and I opened it, all of my previous/saved points disappeared and I was back at square one!! Needless to say, THAT IS NOT OKAY! Put my points back, please.

Addendum: I went back to JacquieLawsonCountryCottage later tonight and my points were back. Don’t know what happened but problem solved.

I really wanted to love this, as I’ve enjoyed their Advent Calendar for years. They have a cute idea, but JacquieLawsonCountryCottage is pretty basic with only 3 games that earn a very small amount of points. It takes many, many points to “Fix up” the place and there aren’t many other clever rewards to inspire us (Seeing cobwebs swept just doesn’t do it). The worst part of JacquieLawsonCountryCottage is that it experiences technical difficulties VERY FREQUENTLY such that is doesn’t record the few points you might have earned. It needs major work. Keep at it, make it a little more interesting, and add a couple more games.

JL responded to my previous review saying they were going to change the point system, so I finally tried the revision and it still too tedious to play the same three games over and over! Since so many have mentioned this, why not just reduce the cost of everything? It would be nice to be able to play a few rounds of games then actually do something.
I don’t know what else the game involves besides cleaning and repairing since it would take me a while to get beyond that if I was motivated to play. It’s got good potential and lovely graphics.

I love the advent calendar and was enjoying working on the cottage and the garden. When playing the jewel game, it black out and the points disappeared as did all the work on I did on the garden as well as some of the work on the cottage. If this can be resolved and I have to start from scratch, I’m out. I agree with the others that there needs to be more points and in app purchases “if they don’t disappear in a glitch” so work can be done without having to spend hours doing the same games over and over.

I agree with Rabbit Pal. I love the graphics, but I get tired of playing these same three games for about 30 minutes in order to earn enough points to accomplish one or two things around the cottage. The point values need to be adjusted, or there needs to be more ways to earn points. I wish I could explore more, like I could with the advent calendar. I would glad pay for this if it could be a little more interesting.