Review: Ice Tycoon

Type: Time Management
Platform: Android
Price: Free from Android Market

Ice Tycoon is a simple game of selling ice-cream.

Gameplay
You tap on various ingredients to create an ice-cream. If you used up an ingredient, you have to spend some money to refill it. If you make a mistake, you have to throw it away and start over again. This will cost you some money. Once your ice-cream is done, you need to drag it over to the customer and then click on the money they left behind. If you take too long to fulfill an order, the bubble over the customer's head will disappear for a few seconds. You clear each stage by earning the required amount of money before time runs out.

Thoughts
This is a simple game; there is no storyline and all you do is just create ice-creams according to the customers' orders. While I like the cute graphics, nothing ever changes. You still get the same customers and the same ingredients. So the game can feel repetitive after a while as you are just doing the same thing over and over again.

Each stage will get progressively harder and you will need to handle increasingly complicated orders at a faster pace. I enjoyed the challenge of beating my old score but I also felt frustrated at certain parts of the game. It can be difficult to tell what ingredients are used at a glance especially when the colors are so similar for the strawberry sauce and cherry. It can also be difficult to notice what sauce is between the scoops of ice-cream because so little of the sauce is showing.

While this game isn't very deep, it is a fun way to spend a couple of minutes.

Verdict ★★★
Game page

Review: Stand O'Food 3

Type: Strategy, Time Management
Platform: PC
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games

Riding the wave of success in his hometown, Ronnie the Chef extends his Stand O’Food chain to Tinseltown, where he meets Nikki and Mr. Clarence, and disrupts Mr. Torg’s evil revenge plans.

Gameplay
There are three types of restaurants, each serving a particular food. Each restaurant takes about 3-4 stages before you move on to the next. There are three types of difficulty settings available.

The gameplay is the same as the previous two games in the series. Parts of a food item rolls out on conveyor belts and you have to assemble them in the correct order to create burgers, lasagna and pies. Along the way, you have to try your best to fulfill the customers' side orders and remember to add sauces to increase the price of your food.

Thoughts
The graphics are better than the previous games, less clunky and cuter. The game is fast and responsive. The game does a good job of teaching you the basics in the beginning. I played under Casual difficulty and it gets pretty hectic by the 5th restaurant when the combinations are more complex. A little strategy is needed as you can't just pick everything off the conveyor belts but you also need to maintain a cool head under time pressure. The latter is the hardest thing for me to do.

Verdict ★★★★★
Game page

Review: Supermarket Management 2

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC and Mac
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games

Kate starts having strange dreams where disasters always seems to hit the supermarket manager. Her grandmother thinks it is time for her to run her own supermarket.

Gameplay
In this game, you are the manager of a supermarket. You start off with a few tasks, like keeping the shelves stocked, ringing up the purchases and putting the trolleys back in place. As you progressed through the levels, there will be additional counters which served as mini games. You will be able to purchase upgrades like bigger shelves and assistants to make your job easier.

Thoughts
I felt that this is a pretty decent game, fun to play but nothing earth-breaking. There is no difficulty setting in Supermarket Management 2 but overall it feels easier than Cooking Dash 3: Thrills and Spills. It never gets so hard that I cannot proceed to the next stage. I noticed that there is a 3D mode option available. I wondered if it means that the game can be played in 3D? But my monitor does not have the 3D function so I can't test it.

Verdict ★★★★
Game page for PC and Mac

Review: Jet Set Go

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games

In this game, you help April to run and improve a travel agency. You will also get to travel to different destinations and make sure that the holidays go smoothly.

Gameplay
You start with a one star travel agency. To increase the number of stars, you have to make that that the gauge for Excitement, Appeal and Satisfaction are filled up.

To fill up the Excitement gauge, you have to attend to customers in the travel agency and help them book a trip. You can use the money earned to buy new and better equipment for the shop. Buying new things also fills up the Appeal gauge.

To fill up the Satisfaction gauge, you have to travel to different destinations and fulfill your customers' needs. Different destinations will require you to do different tasks. So in one place, you might need to serve food to the customers while in another place you need to take photos of them.

Thoughts
Having the player go to different destinations helps to break up to monotony of running the travel agency. They function the same as the mini games in other time management games and after a while you might find that you are doing the same tasks but in different locations. I like that you can choose different difficulty levels to match your skill level.

Verdict ★★★★
Store page

Review: Jane's Hotel Mania

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games

Jane asked her niece, Jenny, to help manage her hotels.

Gameplay
You started will four rooms which you can upgrade later on in the game. As you progress in the game, you will get more facilities at the hotel. Besides Jenny, there is also a chambermaid and a porter to ensure that the hotel run smoothly. Different types of  guests will come to your hotel and request for a room. They will also make demands like getting their room cleaned or having the fireplace lit up. There is a time limit to fulfill the guests' demands and taking too long to complete it will result in no tips. If you ran out of time, it will cause the guest to lose some happiness. Depending on the type of task that was requested, you may have to call the chambermaid or the porter to complete it.

Thoughts
Despite this being a Jane's Hotel series game, Jane actually appears very little in game and the show is run by Jenny instead. I feel Jane's Hotel Mania is a friendly game for people who are new to time management games. The difficulty curve is very gentle and it is pretty relaxing to play. As the facilities increases, there are more requests to handle but it doesn't get to the point of being overwhelming. Loading times can be a little long and each level may take 15 seconds or more to load.

Verdict ★★★★
Store page

Review: Angelo

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games

Angelo is an angel in training whose job is to ferry baby angels from one cloud to another.

Gameplay
You control Angelo and has to ferry wingless baby angels to different clouds. Depending on the options you have set, the clouds may be labelled "1, 2, 3..." or by the flags of different countries. The babies will alert you when they want to move to another cloud by holding up their hand and a bubble with their destination will appear over their heads. You can pick up to three babies at one time and when you drop off more than one baby at the same time, you get a bonus. In the later stages, you will encounter challenges like fat babies who can only be ferried one at a time.

Thoughts
I find this game boring and repetitive. There seem to be little point in the game except moving the babies from one cloud to another and to another and to another. Angelo can level up but I don't think there is any difference apart from the clothes changing color. The graphics are not very pretty and there is very little animation, mostly static pictures. At times it feels like a bunch of clipart moving around the screen.

Verdict ★
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Review: Cooking Dash 3: Thrills and Spills

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC and Mac
Price: USD 6.99 for the game or USD 13.99 for the Collector's Edition from Big Fish Games

The latest installment of the popular Cooking Dash/Diner Dash series starts with grandma and Flo visiting Mr Big's theme park. It reminds grandma of the time when a teenage Flo worked at the rundown theme park restaurants. The Collector's Edition includes an exclusive venue, a strategy guide, wallpapers and screensaver. The Collector's Edition is available for PC and Mac.

Gameplay
You sit the customers in the restaurant by dragging them to the tables. If you manage match the customers with the same color seat, you will get an additional bonus. The customers will then take a few seconds to read the menu before deciding on what to he/she wants to order. It is then up to Flo to cook and/or serve the dishes to the customers before the hearts run out. Some of the dishes are ready-to-serve while others will need you to cook them first.

Cooking dishes takes at least two steps. You have to bring the raw ingredients to the stove or grill or fryer, depending on the type of restaurant. Then halfway through the cooking process, you have to click on the stove again to flip the dish that is cooking. Although this action is optional, as in the dish will still be cooked regardless of whether you remember to flip, there are benefits if you remember to do it so you should try to flip the food if you can.

Before each stage, you can play a mini game. How well you do in the mini game will determine how many of a certain type of dish you have that is ready to serve at the start of the game.

Thoughts
This game is the latest in the Cooking Dash series, so it is nice to see that the developers have improved the graphics in the game. The visual style is still there but the lines look cleaner and neater. It's all just subtle differences but it's nice when you notice it. Each restaurant has its own theme look, theme song and theme dishes. It keeps the game interesting even though I am still doing more or less the same actions.

This game is still as addictive and fast paced as ever. My main problem with Cooking Dash games is that at some point, it will become too hard for me to continue on playing. This game is as difficult or as easy, depending on your skill level, as other games in the series. I still have to handle a lot of things at the same time and it's rather overwhelming in the later stages. It didn't help that most of the dishes cannot be prepared beforehand as they will get burnt or lose their freshness.

Verdict ★★★★★
Store page (PC and Mac)

Review: Amelie's Cafe: Halloween

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games

Amelie's Cafe gets dressed up with a Halloween theme.

Gameplay
As the owner of the cafe, Amelie is in charge of taking orders and serving the food. Each counter in the cafe prepares only one type of food. Some of the counters are staffed by one of Amelie's staff and these types of counters needs the most care and maintenance. You will need to click on the counters to get the staff to start preparing the food. The counters will get dirty while the staff prepares the food so you will need to keep an eye on the cleanliness levels of the counters. Once it gets too dirty, you can't prepare any more food on the counter until you clean it up.

The faster you perform your actions, the more the bonus bar at the bottom gets filled up. To claim the bonus, you have to match three of the same type by clicking away the unwanted ones. The goal of each stage is to earn a certain amount of money displayed in the top right corner. At the end of each stage, you will also be shown whether you have met the optional requirements eg. whether you have served all the customers, kept your counters clean right til the end etc.

Thoughts
This is a time management game, nothing more and nothing less. There are just stages and stages of frantic cooking and serving customers in the cafe, broken up by cut scenes. There are no complex storyline or mini games or trophies. But I think people who like time management games will like this because it is at heart a pretty fun time management game without the unnecessary and perhaps distracting additions.

Playing the game seems easy at first as it is just a matter of clicking here and there. Unlike other time management games like Spa Mania, there is no extra step to do at each station. So the pace of the game can get really fast. There are so many things happening at the same time that it is difficult to keep an eye on everything. I hardly even have time to think!

The game is rather weak in graphics and it looks a little pixelated on my 1920 x 1080 screen. I also think the style isn't cute and looks a little ugly but that's my personal bias. Thankfully the pace of the game is so fast, that I hardly have time to notice the graphics after a while.

Verdict ★★★
Store page

Review: Hospital Haste

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC and Mac
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games for PC and Mac

Sally graduated from nursing school. Her dream is start her own hospital to treat people but first, she has to work at various hospitals to earn her certificates.

Gameplay
In Hospital Haste, patients with various illness will arrive at the hospital and it's your job to assign them to their rooms and make sure that they get their medicine and treatment. Sally has a trolley which she wheels around and collects items to bring to the patients. Chaining the same actions together will net you a bigger bonus.

Later in the game, you will encounter different people representing different illnesses. Sometimes the same illness may need different amounts of medicine and time needed to recover. Patients will also start arriving from different entrances. After each stage, you can use the money earned to buy upgrades which makes things easier while playing the game. You can also use the hearts earned from happy patients to purchase equipment for Sally's hospital.

Thoughts
Playing Hospital Haste reminds me of another game as the gameplay is very similar. I have to move between different floors to deliver items and collect dirty laundry to bring to the washing machine. The first few stages are tutorials where they will run through the basic gameplay. Almost every stage has some new addition to the game but everything is explained clearly so I don't feel lost.

This is not a serious game despite dealing with diseases and illness. I enjoy the strange and funny diseases that the patient suffers from, like having bunny ears and slowly turning into rabbits. Sadly, quirky illlnesses such as this does not appear often and most of the time it's mundane illnesses like coughs and dizzy spells. It is satisfying to see happy patients and to see the empty hospital fill up with equipment I bought. So it's kind of letdown that when I move on to the next hospital, I lose all the upgrades I have bought previously and have to start from the beginning again.

Verdict ★★★★
Store page (PC and Mac)

Review: Spa Mania 2

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games

Having successfully opened a line of earth friendly spas in the first game, Jade decided to take it easy. However, she soon heard that the customers were complaining so she decided to drop by all her spas to make sure that everything is running smoothly.

Gameplay
For those who have played Spa Mania, they can skip the tutorial. The gameplay remains pretty much the same. Drag a customer to the changing room to get him to change into a bathrobe, then drag him to the stations he requests for, before finally dragging him to another changing room to change back into his street clothes and collect payment. Like Spa Mania, there also mini games in Spa Mania 2.

Thoughts
The graphics have improved and everything looks a little bit better. The customers get a new look and there are new items to buy. But all these cannot hide the feeling that Spa Mania 2 is just Spa Mania with a makeover.

Maybe it's just me but Spa Mania 2 seems to start out on a harder level. There are more things to take note of. Now I have to clean out the changing rooms after each customer change back into their street clothes. Almost every station will need an additional click to activate Jade after I drag a customer to it. I often forget to click again because logically if Jade and the customer are both at the same station, she should have performed the action automatically. What happened is that the customer will just wait at the station until I suddenly noticed it and have to quickly click on the station before the customer loses his patience. It gets really frustrating when there are many other things demanding your attention at the same time. The useless assistant who does nothing on his own is also back in Spa Mania 2.

Fans of Spa Mania will most probably like Spa Mania 2. It's more of the same thing, just looks a bit different. For me, I feel too much frustration while playing it to like it much.

Verdict ★★★
Store page

Review: Spa Mania

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC and Mac
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games for PC and Mac

Jade is against the use of animals in the cosmetics industry. After being challenged by Madame Dubois, the owner of such a cosmetic factory, Jade decided to start her own earth friendly spa. With the help of her friend, Jake, she starts first by learning the ropes.

Gameplay
Jade's journey will take her through ten different spas. There are five stages in each spa so altogether there are 50 stages for you to win. You start with three stations in the first spa. You have to drag customers to the correct station of their choice. At some stations, you will have to perform an addition action, maybe choose the correct facial mask, before it can be considered complete. After each stage, you have to option to spend your hard-earned money on upgrading the spa.

As you progress through the stages, you will unlock mini games. These mini games will have an impact on the spa, whether it is the replenishing of products the spa offer or enabling Jade to perform her actions better. You will also unlock new colors and designs for Jade's outfit.

Thoughts
The difficulty increases gradually and it isn't overwhelming for a new player. I do wish that the customers would move on to the next station automatically instead of having me to drag them. The variety of mini games keep it interesting. As far as I can tell, the mini games are optional and there is no need to play them after every stage. My main complain is that you have to tell the assistant every time you need him to do something; click on the changing room to get him to clean it, click on the tub to get him to refill it. The most help he'll give on his own is by waving his hand in the air to alert you. What's the point of having an assistant then? Fire him, I say!

The graphics are cartoony and cute and will appeal to the young and old. It is nice to have a storyline and a villain. I am more motivated to continue playing the game because I want to see how it turns out. By simply having a brief write-up when a new customer type appears ensures that they are not faceless and generic. If you look closely, you may see a figure looking suspiciously like Madame Dubois pacing outside the spa and taking notes.

Verdict ★★★★
Store page (PC and Mac)

Review: GabCab

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games

The cars in GabCab have faces like Thomas the Tank Engine and Jay Jay the Jet Plane. Although this game feels specifically marketed for young children, the cute cartoony graphics will appeal to the young and old.

Gameplay
Gameplay is easy, just pick up customers and bring them to their destination. There is not even any need to plan the route as the game will automatically choose the best route. When a customer gets to his destination, he will throw coins into the air and the player can catch them by moving the mouse over them. The money earned can be used to buy powerups or upgrades.

Thoughts
I find the game easy to play, so easy in fact, that it felt like a kid's game. The difficulty increased a bit as the game progresses but overall it still was easy to clear the stages. The automatic route planner works well, only on a handful of occasions do I need to manually override it. The graphics are big and cute and the sounds felt cheerful. I think kids will have fun playing this game. For older players, it might not hold much of a challenge.

Verdict ★★★
Store page

Review: Air Control

Type: Time Management
Platform: Android
Price: Free and Paid (UK£1.99) versions

Air Control is a deceptively simple game with simple graphics and a handful of sound effects. The player has to get the planes to land at the airport by using his finger to trace a path to the landing site. The planes come in three different colors representing three different places they can land. There are no stages. The game ends when two or more planes crash into each other.

The game starts slow. As more planes appear with increasing frequency, it can become quite hectic trying to keep track of all of moving planes on the screen. Planes paths cross each other frequency and I often had to reroute a plane when it looks as if they are going to crash. It is easy to miss a potential crash when there are more than ten planes on the screen at the same time.

I've been playing the game quite a bit after I downloaded it from the Android Market. It is quite satisfying to be able to land a plane safely. I often turn to this game when I feel like playing something but did not want to spend too much effort or time at it.

The free version is ad-supported. The Blue Ocean map is also locked in the free version.

Verdict ★★★★

 

Review: Rachel's Retreat

Type: Time Management
Platform: PC
Price: USD 6.99 from Big Fish Games

I recently tried out this time management game and I had so much fun that I bought the game when the trial period ended.

Plot
It is a simple story about Rachel, who after having much difficulty finding Nirvana, decided to build her own spa retreat.

Gameplay
There are five resorts in the game with ten stages each. The first resort is partly a tutorial to teach players the basics. Each of the resort has a different look.

In each resort, the player can build various stations to fulfil different needs. Some stations can be upgraded to handle three clients at one time while so stations can only handle one. The player has to drag the clients to the correct station based on the thought bubbles that appeared over their head. If the station is in used at the moment, the player can either let them wait in the waiting area or change their mind by clicking on a special table. After going through a few stations, the client will achieve Nirvana status. The Nirvana-state client will walk off to the Nirvana room when the timer runs out or the player can sound a gong to get a few clients to enter the Nirvana room at the same time.

After completing a stage, there is a optional stage where the player has to rearrange the clients' seating arranging to bring about Nirvana for the whole room.

Thoughts
I like that there is no sudden jump in difficulty. The tutorials were well written and everything was explained clearly.

As the player progress, there will be new challenges thrown in for the player to handle which keeps the game interesting. The player will need to build platforms and extensions before a new station can be added. At the later stages, certain stations will face water or electricity shortage and the player will have to find ways to avert the clients to other stations.

After the frantic mouse clicking needed to handle demanding clients, it is nice to have the option to solve a puzzle without any time limit. The earlier stages are pretty simple to solve. A bit more thinking is involved in the later stages and being too lazy to figure it out, I often skip them.

The graphics and sounds are pretty good. Even the voice acting in the cut scenes between resorts is not too bad.

Overall I find it to be a pretty polished game. It is definitely one of the best.

Verdict ★★★★★
Store page