Archive for August 2007

Welcome to the world of magic and fantasy where you run your own store in Magic Shop, a color matching / match three game. You attempt to run a magic store that designs and sells artifacts. Its previous owner, Loriel the elf, abandoned the story and no one has been able to successfully recapture its charm.

Run the store for 25 days where one level equals one day. Fulfill orders by making matches of three or more of the same elements until you create the artifact your visitor wants to buy. The amount of the needed elements appear like thermometers so you can see how close you are to creating the artifact. As soon as you complete enough matches for a single element, it will clear the board.

Not only do you need to work on “making enough elements,” but also ensure the customer stays happy while you make the ordered artifact. You can buy potions to give to the customer to keep the happiness meter from dropping. But any money (rubies) you use to purchase potions will make it harder to purchase the more expensive artifacts. So choose wisely.

Of course, all the shopping occurs at the Hall of Artifacts where you can buy the Ring of Truth, Wand of Wits, Goblet of Fame, and Wizard Bracelet to name a few of the 15 artifacts. The hall also sells small, middle and big potions for keeping waiting customers happy.

Every few levels, you play a Memory game where you find matching pairs of cards. Unlike most Memory games, the empty space left by the previous pair will receive a new pair. While you earn money from matching anything, you earn more with green crystals. The earned money will go toward sending an invitation to a Grand Wizard to visit your store.

Grand Wizards posses special talents that can help you in your store, so you want to invite them when you can. The game contains seven Grand Wizards. In the first play, I had enough to invite four.

The grid where you match the elements also comes with power ups and rubies. These rubies don’t stick around until you pick them up, so match them quickly so you have them for the next shopping trip after completing the day. Elements will flash, flicker or animate to indicate they have a power up. When you match an element with a power up, it immediately takes effect to help you create more matches.

Spells offer another way to gain power ups. They start small and the longer you go without using them, the larger they get (small, medium and max). These power ups can break stones that prevent more elements from appearing and sort elements for instantly collecting a bunch.

Magic Shop also awards trophies based on certain accomplishments such as playing so many levels without using potions or spells, creating artifacts, and keeping customers happy. You also receive title promotions as you gain enough points.

The game slowly progresses in difficulty — just the right amount. In fact, you may not collect all artifacts, meet all of the Grand Wizards, or collect half the trophies by the time 25 days ends. This increases interest in playing the game again, but will players continue playing after earning everything? The game gripped me as I wanted to meet more Grand Wizards, buy all the artifacts, and earn all trophies. While Magic Shop offers few new tricks in the match three genre, its magic will captivate matching game fans.

Download and try Magic Shop

The previous post discussed the value of saying, “Thank you.” But it’s possible to overdo it especially when it comes to e-mail. “Here’s your weekly report.”

“Thank you,” said the reply.

Add up all the thank you e-mails for things like that and it makes for a cluttered inbox. Sometimes a thank you e-mail has another purpose — to confirm the recipient of the e-mail.

Perhaps, it’s best to leave confirmation for higher priority items or confirm with a co-worker in person. If you must send a short response or cofirmation, consider putting the info in the Subject of the e-mail followed by “[EOM]” to represent “End of Message” or [end]. This way you know it’s all in the Subject and you can quickly delete it or file it.

This looks like a small thing, but enough small habits can improve your e-mail experience.

Children enjoy receiving recognition — whether it be at school, in a sport, in a hobby or a comment from Mom and Dad about something positive they did. I’ve always believed that for every negative thing a parent says, she must say 10 positive things. Unfortunately, the reverse is true for adults.

As we get grow older, we hear fewer compliments and rarely receive recognition. That’s just a sad part of life. Many managers take their employees for granted and forget how a compliment can change a person’s outlook for the better. Companies may believe that people would only appreciate recognition in monetary form, I believe people would be delighted to get a compliment or a “thank you.”

When I told a team leader that I was leaving the company to work for myself, his response was more of an insult that sounded like, “Oh my goodness! I can’t believe you would ever leave! I thought you’d be here forever just trucking along and being the little follower you are.” OK, so this paraphrase sounds exaggerated, but that’s how his side of the conversation sounded.

On occasion, I’d hear from a coworker how our boss said I did a good job on something. If jaw dropping was possible, it would’ve happened then. My manager NEVER complimented or thanked me. I don’t know about others as I couldn’t overhear conversations. When I gave my manager a gift as a good luck in a new job — I received an e-mail along the lines of, “You REALLY should not have.” Not even a thank you. I thought we liked and respected each other, but after that — I am not sure she shared that sentiment.

Simply saying two words can go a long way. You boost morale. You make them feel like they’re making a difference and they’re continue putting in their best work knowing someone appreciates the work. Children learn at a very young age that “please” and “thank you” are magic words. It looks like many adults have forgotten the latter.

“Thank you” works for all parts of life. Home, work, clients, friends, family, spouses, pets, colleagues, bosses, teachers. Make those two words count.

Not having played Mysteryville, Mysteryville 2 instantly reminded me of Magic Academy in the game play style and interface — Nevosoft is behind both games. The developer does a first-rate job in telling a strong story in its hidden object games and continues the tradition with its latest entry.

Journalist Laura Winner returns to the little town of Eurekaberg for vacation at the invitation of a friend, but finds herself unraveling a mystery when her friend goes missing. The town also plans an auction to raise money for repairing the leaky pipes. It doesn’t take long before realizing something isn’t right about all of this.

While the characters have commentary that references the previous game, it doesn’t confuse first-timers. I love the conversations between characters as the dialog interjects a lot of humor. I would like to see the interface improve in how it displays the conversations and the characters because it looks outdated and feels unwieldy.

Having reviewed many hidden object games, it doesn’t take much to see which stand out and which are run-of-the-mill. While the game play is ordinary for a hidden objects game, the well-written story and humor stand out from the very crowded genre. The lead character and other fun characters keep you interested as you feel like a part of the story.

It’s not easy to make the characters come alive and have an identity — and Mysteryville 2 succeeds here. You get to know the characters beyond the surface and discover their flaws. The smarmy lab guy makes my skin crawl, the sheriff doesn’t earn my trust, and the restaurant owner is like an uncle who wants to take care of you. The game play, speed and object selection move along nicely except when an object is long and narrow like cigarettes. That’s when clicking gets difficult.

Besides finding hidden objects to get information from characters and clues, players compare two scenes to find differences, find objects based on shadows of the object instead of words, put jigsaw puzzles together, and search for a bunch of similar object such as business cards, gems, goblets, and beakers. Hints are available based on timing. Once used, you must wait for the hint to charge back up before you can use it again.

The game breaks up into stages where each stage involves visiting a different location — some locations require more than one trip. In total, there are 22 stages, which makes Mysteryville 2 short enough that I finished in less than a day. I liked the ending and the story potential for Mysteryville 3, which would (I hope) venture beyond the little town.

Download and try Mysteryville 2

System Requirements: Windows

• Windows ME/98/2000/XP/Vista
• 500MHz or faster processor
• 128 MB RAM
• Video card with 16 MB video ram
• DirectX 8.1 or later

Freelance Folder has an insightful interview with SJ Yee, a freelance writer from Singapore. Yee’s answers will help those interested in writing know what to expect and how it’s different working as a freelancer as opposed for a corporation or publication.

I like Yee’s 10 things to do when becoming a freelance writer – I’ve mentioned some of these in past entries:

1. Get a web site: Post resume, articles, experience, contact information, what you do, areas you cover, testimonials.
2. Start Writing. For free: Great way to build up an empty portfolio.
3. Develop your portfolio: See #2
4. Be Happy: It’ll help you go far.
5. Set your Goals properly: I keep track of tasks with a personal information manager and prioritize based on deadlines.
6. Focus on Opportunities.
7. Network, network, network: Repeat.
8. Get Noticed.
9. Fasten your seatbelt: It’s a great ride!
10. Don’t do it for the money. Do it because you love it. The money will follow: Indeed. If you have a client that gives you more heartburn than enjoyment — maybe it’s better to drop the client. I’ve done this and it makes a big difference.

Magic Academy should set the standard for games in the hidden object genre. Not only does the game involve the player in an engaging story, but also it keeps things from getting boring with its variety of puzzles.

Most hidden object games pause for a short time after a player clicks a found object and require waiting wait until the previously found object makes its way off the screen before you select the next one. This is not a problem in Magic Academy, so the game moves faster.

Hidden object games don’t always have a tie in between the objects you find and the game, but all objects and puzzles connect with the story in Magic Academy. Other than finding hidden objects, players compare two scenes to find differences, find objects based on shadows of the object instead of words, put jigsaw puzzles together, make card matches and seek out all of a similar object such as butterflies, insects, spiders (I could’ve done without them!) and scrolls.

The music and dark rooms set the scene nicely. It doesn’t take much to scare me, so I turned off the all-to-real music while leaving the sound effects on. If a child likes the Harry Potter series, the game should be fine to play. My eight-year-old — who likes Harry Potter — joined me a few times, but the hidden objects were difficult for him to find. But when he succeeded, he was excited.

Speaking of Harry Potter, the developers snuck in a Harry look-alike that plays your missing sister’s classmate. That and the fact the story takes place at a wizard’s academy is where the resemblance ends. The level of challenge is just right. I failed to complete a few levels, but conquered them on the second or third try.

A timer keeps you moving and you can get help. Once you use a help, however, you have to wait a set amount of time to pass before you get another. I liked this hint style better than receiving a set number of helps since some puzzles took longer as they had more objects. The easier puzzles contained an average of 10 objects while the harder ones had 30.

Overall, Magic Academy entertains, challenges and contains a good ending. The beautiful graphics and mystery will gratify fans of hidden object games.

Download and try Magic Academy.

System Requirements

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista
• 500MHz or faster Processor
• 128MB RAM

Thanks to Gamezebo, I had the opportunity to discover a game that isn’t known around the casual game world. Plumeboom is a peacock who tries to save Orniland in Plumeboom: The First Chapter where darkness has taken over the bird paradise. Crowbeak the Dark Wizard and Cornix the Evil Scientist plan to turn the birds into evil warriors in their attempts to take over Orniland.

All in all, Plumeboom: The First Chapter offers something different and isn’t without its flaws. I actually look forward to the next chapter, if there is one.

Download and try Plumeboom: The First Chapter or buy Plumeboom: The First Chapter.

Beyond Bullet Points is an excellent book that shows you how to create effective presentations with PowerPoint. The software isn’t the reason presentations have turned dull and unfocused — but the abuse of using the templates. PowerPoint templates come with generic phrases and some users don’t bother changing the headers.

Kids today learn how to use PowerPoint in school to use for presentations. If they’re anything like my daughter, they love to go wild with lots of colors and animation. Since they rarely give the kind of presentation found in the templates, maybe there’s hope kids will move away from the generic style.

Some colleges like University of Chicago require submitting a few slides of PowerPoint as part of their admissions process — to give the students a chance to show their creative side.

The book recommends focusing on telling a story along with using a theme/motif. If you’re going to squeeze text to take up all the space in every slide — then you might as well as e-mail the presentation. No one wants to hear a presenter read the slides. The author’s site, Sociable Media, provides templates for creating presentations. But the book explains how to go about using the templates.

What memorable presentations have you seen or given? What made them successful?

Marcia Yudkin’s Marketing Minute newsletter references Jakob Nielsen’s research that says shoppers leave 10 percent of the time because the site didn’t provide enough information. She discusses how some sites don’t make it clear whether the product is a CD, book or download.

Funny thing is that I experienced this recently. I was looking up Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter on several ecommerce sites — and it took way too much digging to find out whether I was looking at the books, DVDs or something else. This should be instantly obvious without any clicking.

This advice applies to product type, colors, sizes, and so on. This mistake can make a difference of a sale. Like Yudkin says — make a list of what people would want to know about a product and compare that to your description. Let’s say you’re selling watches… think about your own experience in looking for a watch. What did you want to know? Ask family and friends what they look for when shopping for a watch. This can be your list of things to include for every watch.

DS Fanboy reports Cooking Mama gets a sequel, Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends, the new release comes with 80 new recipes and 150 cooking procedures (holy macaroni!).

I’ve played Cooking Mama and it’s a unique game. One task I kept messing up was the blowing. Forgot that the DS has the volume thing and blowing qualifies.