My Exotic Farm is a real-time simulation farming game. You begin your exotic farm with a single ostrich. It is your job to build a big farm with happy animals. I found this game to be very annoying. Since it is in real time, everything goes extremely slowly unless you pump up the speed. Once your animals are fully fed and happy, there isn't a whole lot for you to do except wait for them to get hungry again. You can resell the animals once they grow a bit but I kept having to buy expensive food for the more expensive animals so it was really difficult to get ahead. Personally, I ended up just buying a bunch of ostriches. They lay eggs that you can sell in the market. Granted, they don't sell for a lot of money but it's enough to keep your animals fed for awhile. But, really, the game was just too boring to keep my attention for long. I'd rather spend my time on The Sims.
Game review: Family Restaurant
Family Restaurant is a restaurant simulation game that is similar to Cooking Mama. You are given a template for each dish and it is your job to match it with the ingredients at hand. The closer your food matches the template, the happier your customers are. While the game isn't difficult, it can get annoying. There are times that you, the player, swears that your food matches the template but you'll only receive a 60%. Since you're making the same basic dishes over and over, the frustration level rises with each dish. However, there are some dishes that are extremely easy to hit 100% every time. Luckily, the overall score for each level is an average of all your dish percentages so those 100%s even out the lower scores.
Game review: Vogue Tales
Vogue Tales is a wacky fashion-themed time management game. You play fashion designer Wendy. Her grandmother sent her a mysterious gift but before she could open it, a thief stole the gift and her favorite dummy. Wendy must raise enough money to go to London to get her stuff back. Once again, this is a game where the customers choose the type and color for the piece of clothing they want. Wendy takes the design to the fabric, where it is magically sewed, then hands the clothes to the customer. There isn't anything particularly difficult about the game. Though it can be a challenge to keep the customers happy. You can buy upgrades for help you keep their hearts full.
Personally, I'd like to see a little more variety in the time management genre. While the general themes are slightly different, the gameplay is exactly the same. I'm ready for something amazing to come along and make me love the genre all over again.
Game review: Golden Hearts Juice Bar
Yet another restaurant themed time management game, Golden Hearts Juice Bar tries to change things up a bit by making the "restaurant" into a trendy drink bar. Unfortunately, the changes that make the juice bar possible makes the game annoyingly difficult right from the beginning. Of course, it doesn't get any easier as the levels go on. You play Kelly, a college student who is trying to each some money to continue her studies. So she takes a job at the local juice bar making milkshakes and strawberry smoothies. While this sounds like a great job, the game makes it extremely difficult by taking it out of a bar-typed setting and using a restaurant setting instead. As such, Kelly has to crank out as many drinks as she can while waiting on tables. Add in the fact that each drink takes a couple of seconds in the blender, it's not too difficult to end up with some cranky customers. You can make them happier with the house band but they seem to take an awful lot of breaks.
Also, the game setting teases you. There are things available that you can use but the customers don't want. So if you accidentally click on them, you are screwed. This includes things like lemon wedges for the drinks and slices of cake. They don't come into play until the middle of the second restaurant level.
I'm rather disappointed in the game. I wanted it to be really good. It's a great theme but it's just not used very well. If the designers had used the bar instead of seating the customers at tables, the game would be a lot easier and a lot more fun to play. I hope that they'll make a sequel to the game with a couple of minor changes. It'll be cool to have a bar-themed time management game. I think it'll bring back memories of the old Tapper games.
Game review: Jojo's Fashion Show
There has definitely been a sudden influx of fashion-based casual games. Few of them really had anything to do with fashion though. Well, things are different now. Jojo's Fashion Show is definitely about the fashion and nothing else. You play Jojo Cruz, a retired fashion designer. She's trying to come back to the fashion scene and it's your job to help her. The goal is to make the best outfit you can. You are given three models, a variety of clothes and a couple of themes. It is your job to create the best outfit for the given theme with the clothes you have.
Sounds easy, right? It's a lot more difficult than you would think! Sometimes you don't get the right clothes and you are forced to just throw something together before the model walks onto the runway naked. But sometimes everything comes together and you create the absolute perfect outfit.
This is definitely a game for those interested in fashion. I can't imagine someone who doesn't like clothes enjoying this. Clothes are the game. And this is most definitely the best fashion game I've come across so far.
Game review: Turbo Subs
Turbo Subs is a time management game where Rebecca and Robert from Turbo Pizza decide to open a sandwich shop. This time the shop is in New York City and is located on a train. The game plays much like every other time management restaurant game. You make food and serve it to customers. However, the restaurant is laid out a bit differently. Instead of having straight counters, these ones are in a circle. It makes it a little more difficult to click on the actual customers since now they stand sort of behind each other. Also, it's a little annoying that some of the food takes so long to make. The customers can request a toasted sandwich but then they start getting angry when the sandwich takes longer to make.
Overall, it's not a difficult game. Though it's not particularly interesting either. There isn't anything that sets it apart from any other time management restaurant game. A good game but not a great game.
Game review: Blood Ties
In Blood Ties, you are recruited to help private investigator Vicki Nelson solve some unusual missing persons cases. This is accomplished by finding clues around town. There isn't anything particularly amazing about the game. It's a fairly typical hidden object game. Some of the locations are interesting because they look a bit more life-like than in other hidden object games. I really wish there was more for me to talk about though. I did enjoy playing the game but not any more than I enjoyed playing the Dream Date series or Mystery Case Files.
Game review: Greek Goddesses of Solitaire
Hades has kidnapped all of the Greek Goddesses. In order to save them, you must beat the God of the Underworld in various games of solitaire. I have to say that the game pretty much delivers what you would expect. Each goddess has a different variation of solitaire that you need to beat in order to rescue her from Hades. In between some of the levels, Hades tries to trick you with a card game. He shows you a card, mixes up all the cards and you need to pick the correct card. It's not particularly difficult.
Overall, the game is dull. It's fairly easy to beat Hades in each card game and when you do save the goddesses, you don't receive any sort of reward. This might be a nice change of pace if you play a lot of solitaire games but it's not something you'll be playing very often.
Game review: Chocolatier 2: Secret Ingredients
Back in October, I talked about the first Chocolatier game. Since I had a lot of fun playing the first one, I gave the sequel a try. Chocolatier 2 was even more fun than Chocolatier 1. Perhaps it was due to playing the first one but I was able to make a ton of money and gain new recipes very quickly. The basic gameplay is the same and it's easy to pick up if you haven't played the original. The big change is that now you can make your own recipes. Once you reach Entrepreneur status, you can buy your way into the lab to research new recipes with various ingredients. To show just how easy it can be to achieve this, I only played the one hour demo and managed to not only access the laboratory, I also created two brand new recipes. I even got the chance to implement those recipes before the trial ended.
I've played a lot of casual games lately and I have to admit, this is the most fun I have had in a long time. I think anyone would enjoy Chocolatier 2.
Game review: Fashion Rush
It seems that fashion based time management games are becoming extremely popular. I've already talked about Fashion Fits! and Fashion Craze. Now we've been presented with Fashion Rush. Fashion Rush is similar to Fashion Craze in that your character has to pick fabric colors and clothes styles instead of just handing out pre-made clothes. However, this game steps it up by making you keep track of how much fabric you have available. Each color has a set amount of fabric and each time a piece is cut to make a garment, the roll gets smaller. When the roll of fabric runs out, it is up to you to put a new roll on the holder. (Hm, that makes it sound like toilet paper!)
You also get to choose which styles of clothing you are going to offer to your customers. There is a limit of four styles per level but it is up to you to decide if you will sell four styles of dresses or one pants design with a jacket, a shirt and a dress. I found this part to be the most exciting. If you don't like a certain style that is offered, you don't need to offer it to your customers. Of course, the problem is that a lot of the designs are cute and you can only have four designs at a time!
While I'm not a fashion mogul, I do like the direction that these games are taking. Instead of forcing the gamer into an already determined path in the game, there are a ton of choices that are being offered. Considering that these types of games need to follow a "work your way to the top" type of theme, it is really refreshing to have at least a little bit of say in the storyline. I hope that more time management games pick up on this. Maybe one day we'll see a Diner Dash where Flo gets a say in what goes on the menu!