Archive for March 2007

I’ve played a handful of tycoon-style games, but Fairy Godmother Tycoon stands out as the most fun, humorous and creative of them all… to date.

With many tycoon style games on the market, they can get tiresome unless they cover a favorite theme. But each one has something unique to make the game different from the others. But Fairy Godmother Tycoon goes the extra mile all around as I explain the review.

Some developers are producing “similar style” like “match 3,” “hidden objects” and “run a store” games to ride the wave, but not just any game can become a winner. I’ve gotten stuck on one or two “run a store” games and can’t pass the level no matter how many times I try. A successful game challenges players enough that they may have to replay levels a few times — but too many times, and it’s frustrating.

Another nice feature I’ve seen appear in more games is “Zen” or “Timeless” mode. This allows players with little time available or people who struggle to move to the next level get through the game.

In “hidden objects” games, the bonus puzzles and the music gives them their uniqueness. Also the sensitivity to click a found object can affect the game’s success. I’m reviewing Abra Academy where players gain more time by clicking on wooden matches. Those things are so small and hard to click that I’ve had the gremlin come out to punish me for clicking too fast. Dream Day Wedding used bluebirds for bonus points, which were easier to click.

“Match 3″ games depend on the story and graphics. Magic Match: Genie’s Journey was cute, but a little cheesy. The original had more charm. Cradle of Rome had a nice theme and story going where you try to build the city of Rome and work your way up from peasant to emperor.

Ready to hear the story of Fairy Godmother Tycoon? Once upon a time, there was a land known as Onceuponia and it had nine quirky villages. The Fairy Godmother managed potion stores in these villages, but competitors took over and almost ran her business into the ground.

Fairy Godmother hired me, the hulking Viking looking gal, to save her stores. The boss gave me goals to meet in each village before moving on to the next one. The first to conquer was Tutorialville. That helped me learn the business as Fairy Godmother didn’t want to throw me to the wolves, dragons and bulls when moving up to the seriously competitive villages.

This YATG (yet another tycoon game) succeeds in challenging players to run a business. Players must decide the following before the start of each day:

• Study weather reports to determine what potions to stock up on
• How many supplies to buy
• What to charge
• What marketing tools to use
• What to upgrade (building, potion maker, entertainment for entertaining people waiting in line, spells, spies, etc.)
• How much, if any, to invest in research for a new potion
• Whether to hire contractors to help promote your product or stop the competition
• Whether to take out a loan or pay it back

A celebrity or local resident popped in to request something or ask for help on occasion. Celebrities included Jack and Jill, Cinderella’s stepsisters, Red Riding Hood, Little Miss Muffet, Rapunzel and Pandora of Greek myth fame. It was an honor to meet them all, well, most of them. Some weren’t too nice. Be careful with the pop-in events as they could gain or lose beans (currency of Onceuponia) and inventory.

The people of the nine villages — Sure Would Forest, Beantown (not Boston) and Pirates Cove to name a few — needed help dealing with big head, floating, fire, broken heart, and swear curses. The goal for conquering each village typically required earning a specific amount of beans or driving competitors out of business.

Fairy Godmother reported in between each village and the witty dialog had me laughing. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw the people who needed the liquid clothing potion to cure their curse (figure it out?) walking around with black boxes over their… ahem… privates.

The only annoying experience I had with Fairy Godmother Tycoon was the too small screen (picture-in-picture style) displaying the store. Also too small was the space where the villager’s opinion appeared. I spent too much time trying to scroll to read the opinion and it wasn’t long before the day was over.

Truthfully, Fairy Godmother Tycoon was the best tycoon-style game I’ve ever played. The comical conversations, variety and challenges were neither too heavy nor too light. They’re just right as Goldilocks would say (and she’s a competitor in the game). Beware: Game will hook players with magic. Play at your own risk. This is an addiction worth experiencing.

Download the game from your favorite site:

• Amazon
• Big Fish Games

I’ve noticed a trend lately in email newsletters stating “Do not respond to this email as it will go to Email Never, Never Land,” or something along those lines. Sending email newsletters with a valid “Reply-To” would work better. What are the chances subscribers will notice that line?

I’m betting that not all email newsletter services have this ability. What about redirecting emails? It’s easy (at least on my server) to forward any emails going to “aaa@abc.com” redirects to “customerservices@abc.com.”

Should neither of these options work, then all you can do is make a note that the email address won’t ensure a person’s email gets where it needs to go. But is it possible for an email newsletter service not to have either option available?

How many of you know someone who has “Reply Allitis”? A good friend of mine is afflicted with it and it frustrates me when she replies to everyone where a reply to the sender would do. I don’t have the spine to tell her to cut it out. And she’s very computer literate. How do you deal with it?

Interesting fact: The number of people who write “e-mail” outnumbers those who write “email” by a huge margin. 3,430,000,000 to 135,000,000. Yet, I can’t regularly use “e-mail” unless it’s a client’s preference (my writing is flexible for others, just not for me). Looks like I have over 100 entries with “email.” Ouch.

Last week, I saw a bakery-style truck with “Bimbo” emblazoned on it. There was nothing adult or insulting about the name as the Mexico-based company sells baked goods. I took three years of Spanish in high school and couldn’t recall if bimbo meant something. The online dictionaries didn’t produce a translation, so I can only assume it’s a proper name with no meaning.

According to the company’s web site, “For years, we’ve been delivering a wide range of high-quality baked goods to consumers throughout the US…” I’m curious as to why the company didn’t rebrand it for its U.S. operations.

Couldn’t find a good resource discussing translation of brands, but here’s fun resource on marketing translation mistakes. Like the site says, “Also, take these with a grain of salt…They may be contrived and not true, or if true, unrecognizably transformed.”

Maybe with the exception of cuss words, we don’t need to be so concerned with the product names as we used to be. Or should we?

Ah, this is one thing I don’t miss about the corporate world: Signing office birthday cards and notes. I believe in being thoughtful with cards, but it was stressful when you’re the eighth person signing the card and all the good stuff was taken.

The Office, U.S. version of the hit British TV show, had an episode where the employees signed a birthday card and Michael claimed he could write something cool and different. Of course, he didn’t. Instead, he insulted the employee.

Signing a birthday card should be a non-event — and most of the time, it probably isn’t. But in trying to sign the card, an employee starts thinking he doesn’t want to write something already said or maybe his should be more meaningful because he’s buddies with the birthday person. One lucky coworker was a talented artist and almost always drew something funny on the card, unless it was a sympathy card.

How do you deal with it? A one-person business doesn’t have to worry about it except do the remembering. That’s where PDAs and personal information managers are lifesavers.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Meryl Evans

As if the daylight savings time change wasn’t enough to contend with, Microsoft picked a bad page to have a typo. A page that many people have been accessing. What’s verion? What happens when you get two verions?

Also found this typo on a kids sports program information page. Do we get to take two classes for free? What class complements this one?

Ancient Rome wasn’t built in a day (couldn’t expect me to avoid the cliché, could you?), but it doesn’t stop me from trying in Cradle of Rome, a matching game where players build a Roman empire complete with over 20 masterpieces from village and taverns to Coliseum and Pantheon. Players also work their way up from Peasant to Emperor of Rome.

The purpose is to match three or more of the same object to clear the game board, but it isn’t simple as I advance to higher levels. After conquering earlier epochs, the battles get harder as it takes two matches to destroy a box. Instead of building up frustration, bonuses appear along the way to help me destroy troublemaker spots. Such bonuses include a hammer that can break a box, a lightning bolt that randomly knocks out multiple boxes, not necessarily the ones I want, and a bomb that destroys a specific area. The game contains eight bonuses.

More challenging is getting rid of the chained boxes because the objects can’t move. That means creating a match around the box to clear it. But that isn’t where the challenge stops. I run into objects that have two chains on them and have little room to get other objects lined up to make a match.

The Cradle of Rome game board also changes as you advance higher up in the chain of command to make it difficult to clear objects in corners or to access the boxes that have only one way in. Beautiful scenes representing a part of my growing Roman city appear behind the game for environment variety.

When I eventually lose all my men, the game ends. Fortunately, I don’t have to start at the beginning and work my way up to the fourth of five epochs. The game lets you pick up from the last epoch. As I advance in game play, I pick up strategies for getting better at defeating the board. Unfortunately, no strategy comes to mind for defeating the piles of objects that are double-chained with little room to make matches. I need more bonuses. Too bad, I can’t bribe anyone for them.

In one weekend, I made it past 50 levels. The game comes with over 100 levels to keep feeding my addiction that kept me up past my bedtime and interfered with my nighttime reading. The font styles, the music, the objects, the background and stunning graphics contribute to the game’s ancient Rome feel.

Whether you have time or not, the game fits various schedules. While it doesn’t require regular play, its addicting nature can suck in a busy person’s time as it did mine. I forced myself to read one chapter in a book before rewarding myself with one level of Cradle of Rome.

This is an almost perfect game that’s only missing one thing: Timeless mode. This Zen mode lets kids play it without the stress of beating the clock and adults like me who panic watching the time run out. The music isn’t my favorite, but it fits the game and it’s easy to turn off.

Cradle rocks!

Download the game from your favorite site:

• Amazon
• Big Fish Games

I haven’t been too lucky in terms of health lately. I got the flu shortly before a major family event. Then something hit me over the past weekend, but the symptoms were all over the place. I listen to the body and rest, but it doesn’t keep the guilt away when you’re a one-person business. It’s a struggle knowing I have clients waiting on me.

Some people work through illness — and I did on many occasions when I worked in the corporate world. I still do in my one-person job — but I have to make an executive decision whether it’s good or bad for the client. This past illness was definitely “do no work” that I had to turn down the opportunity to get a new client. But poor quality vs. gaining new one. I would’ve lost the new one had it not been my top-notch work. On top of that, it would’ve meant someone out there not having good things to say about the work.

Even if I know I can do the job for a new client, it’s more pressure because I want to do the best work possible and exceed expectations. I gave the client an alternate name to try to help her out — but I don’t always give a name because it has to be someone I know will do a good job.

If this company’s service is anything like its editing and spelling, watch out.

Thanks, Mark.

Tween (pre-teen) girls should love Belle’s Beauty Boutique. I bet my nine-year-old niece would get into it if it’s not too fast-paced for kids her age, but alas, she hasn’t stopped by since I started playing the game. Continuing the popular tradition of running a business game where you serve customers and keep them happy, Belle’s is all about the hair (how appropriate considering I’m in Plano near Dallas known for big hair and plastic, but I don’t have big hair!) and the typical stuff you find in a spa.

Shampoo, color, cut and dry are all included along with polishing nails. The ones that make a player go nuts are the hair coloring and nail polishing because you have to select the color the customers want. It’s tough with the color selector moving at different speeds and in different directions. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve given blue hair to someone who wanted blonde. As soon as this happens, I immediately give the person a treat, usually magazine, tea or a spa treatment depending on what you have.

Belle’s Beauty Boutique comes with two modes: Story and Endless Beauty. In story, like other similar games, you shoot for a goal and the game gets harder as you advance. Continuous mode is non-stop except to upgrade the beauty shop. I couldn’t get very far in Endless mode.

Story mode works better as I advanced most of the time. As it should be, I didn’t easily reach the goal on every level, and sometimes it took a few tries to get through it. Some games made it impossible for me to work my way past a level. I like a game that challenges without being impossible and Belle succeeds. In the later levels, you gain helpers — a good and bad thing. Your helper could beat you to a customer and you have to redirect yourself elsewhere. Madness, but fun madness.

The only thing I became exasperated with was moving the customers around. Well, that and losing my game due to a bug in the software and having to reinstall it after receiving a fix. Sometimes, the mouse pointer didn’t pick up a person or sometimes the person slipped in the wrong chair. You have to work fast and in these cases, I had my mouse pointer and clicked where I needed.

One improvement I’d like to see is an indicator of whether I selected the right nail polish color. Figuring out the color of polish on one-pixel sized fingernails is difficult even with perfect vision.

According to the information about the game, it has bonus levels. I’ve yet to see one at this point. In Belle, you don’t have to collect cash. Just move customers from chair to chair, clean chairs and put customers close together to get bonus points when they flirt or gossip. The game has a nice variety of customer types from kids getting ready for prom and brides to the gossip and guys.

Belle’s Beauty Boutique isn’t only a tongue twister, but also it’s another enjoyable run your own business game. It’s just a matter of what you like as many of these games exist and one or two are bound to catch your interest.

Wow… we’ve come along way from the days of fixing up our dolls’ hair and makeup.

Download the game from your favorite site:

• Amazon
• Big Fish Games