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’m an old married woman, but playing Dream Day Wedding had me reflecting back on my own wedding day, grateful there were no crises. Dream Day Wedding combines I Spy-style puzzles with Choose-A-Story and the match card game.

Search for things the bride, Jenny, needs in the usual settings from the florist and the bakery to the dress shop and the honeymoon suite. When I found enough items on her to do list, the game rewarded me with a Choose-A-Story so I could learn how she and Robert met, fell in love and got engaged. The story can change every time you play, so like those Choose Your Own Adventure books, you get a variety of wedding stories.

Dream Day Wedding kept things interesting by having mini-games. For example, while I sought items from Jenny’s list, I kept my eyes open for bluebirds of happiness until I found enough to reach the golden anniversary (50 bluebirds). In between levels, I played memory match where you find pairs of cards until you clear the board and receive a reward of a needed item for the honeymoon.

The music put me in a wedding and love state of mind while I sought out cleverly hidden items in the various rooms and stores. Sometimes a level stumped me so that I needed to rely on Cupid to give me a hint. The game doesn’t take long to complete and is a great way to escape reality without much concentration. Some games frustrate a player, but this one rarely does, which is a nice change of pace especially when you’re fighting the flu as I was.

Mystery Case Files fans will like this one, but don’t expect as many features and puzzles as those found in Ravenhearst. Consider this one a lighter and shorter version. Puzzle lovers of all ages will enjoy this lovely graphics-based adventure. The game took only a few hours to complete, so those with little time to play will find this one doable.

Download the game from your favorite site:

• Amazon
• Big Fish Games

Yesterday, I talked about bloggers receiving free stuff or posting advertisements. I left out another discussion on this topic — when publishers send books, videos and other odds and ends for review without asking.

I received a book about adopting and caring for a cat. Have I ever talked about cats other than the time when everyone was putting cat heads on Dvorak and a comic for Geeks with Cats. Once in a while, I’ll review something that comes to me without notification, but most of the time I don’t because it’s not a topic I cover or it’s not closed-captioned. But I’ll review everything I ask for.

Publishers send things to everyone on their list in hopes that the recipients will review them because it’s already in their hands. Reviewers don’t have a lot of time to kill, so we need to select the things that would interest the audience. We don’t want to waste your time. Sure, we could post a review on Amazon and B&N, but I won’t read something that doesn’t interest me. Plenty of books sit on shelves waiting for my attention so I’d rather read those.

I’m lucky that I receive enough books to that I can’t touch the ones gathering dust on their bookshelves. But I also do abstracts for GetAbstract, not just book reviews. I’ve also gotten into game reviews since joining Big Fish Games — the only time I ever play electronic games. Gotta be careful not to take on too many games or else no work gets done. What I like about Big Fish is its offerings contain the kinds of stuff I like to play.

Here are the best books I’ve read in 2006 in no particular order. Beware that not all of these books published this year, but rather they’re books I read.

* Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things: I haven’t written this review yet as I just finished it. Reading Norman’s follow up to Design of Everyday Things makes me want to read the original, but got other books that have priority.

* Next to Me is a lovely autobiography about a British businessman who happens to have Parkinson’s.

* Book Yourself Solid is a solid book that prompted me to make changes to my marketing efforts.

* Metaphorically Selling shows how to take a fresh approach to giving presentations and selling.

* The Corporate Blogging Book contains everything anyone needs to know about business blogging including making the business case and case studies.

* Writing White Papers helped me feel more comfortable about doing white papers.

* Blogging for Business is an easy flowing read that also educates people about business blogging.

* The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class refreshed my memory on facts I vaguely recalled and provided details on things I didn’t know much about.

* The Street-Smart Writer provides me with security so I know where to go if I run into problems in the writing biz.

* Tie (Fiction) Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is one of few fiction books I read this year. The book enlightened me on the Chinese culture in an absorbing story. You Could Do Better is a chick-lit style story that makes a great beach read. What I liked about it was the author’s attention to detail on TV history and trivia.

Can you help this Mom-and-Pop style bakery grow and survive the world of Mega-Marts?

It may not have “Tycoon” in its name, but Cake Mania runs like a Tycoon game. You’re Jill (sorry, guys, no Jack), the owner of a bakery who just graduated from culinary school. Jill’s grandparents’ bakery closed thanks to the new Mega-Mart nearby. The goal is to operate a new bakery and earn enough bucks to re-open Jill’s grandparents’ bakery.

Every level requires meeting a financial goal prior to moving to the next level. You can watch your progress at the bottom of the screen, which indicates how much cash you’ve earned in the level and the goal you need to reach. The game has over 45 levels (months) and four different styles of bakeries. As you earn money in each level, you can use it to buy more equipment and operate faster.

You don’t simply take customer orders. You also give them a menu, bake their cakes to their requirements, serve customer, and collect money. Some customers require faster service than others. When you get a new kind of customer, the game tells you about the customer. One example customer is the college student who doesn’t have a lot of money, but has more patience than most customers.

Every cake must be baked in a certain shape and frosted with a specifically requested color. You may need to add decorations, but it depends on the customer’s request. Cheer up customers who lose patience by turning on the television to a favorite station or giving them a cupcake. Of course, you have to earn enough money to buy the television and cupcake microwave.

Levels are represented by the months of the year. Level one is January. As you go through each level, you’ll see characters reflecting that month’s holiday. Expect heart-shaped cakes and cupid in February, a bearded Easter Bunny in the spring, and Dracula. These folks may appear another time of the year as they take vacations, too. Serve Dracula as soon as possible because he scares customers away. These characters keep the game interesting and non-monotonous, a problem that can afflict these types of games.

The superbly designed interface makes those cakes look yummy. As you progress through the levels, you get more customers and the game gets more frantic. The early levels are easy and great practice in preparing you for the advanced levels.

Cake Mania comes with well-written documentation and guides the player throughout the game as new elements enter. Oh, and Jill must do everything as she can’t afford to hire help. As you get more practice, you’ll find a rhythm that works for you. However, once you reach a level where you start losing lives (not earning enough money for the level), it’s going to be tough to survive the level, as all lives were lost in one level.

The game just misses on one point. Once you get stuck on a level, it seems impossible to get through it with all four lives intact.

Sandlot Games has successfully created an addicting game with enough elements to avoid boring the player. Be prepared to work fast and come up with a routine to make it happen. Thank goodness those cakes can’t be eaten, otherwise we’d be in trouble. There’s a handheld version of the game, but better stay away or else real work won’t get done.

System Requirements
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Pentium II 400Mhz or better
128 MB System RAM (256 MB recommended)
3D Hardware Accelerated Video Card with 16 MB Video RAM
Internet Explorer 5.0+, AOL 5,6 or MSN browsers
Direct-X 7 or above
Keyboard and mouse required
Joystick and game pad are not supported

Cake Mania doesn’t have an official rating, but it qualifies for E (Everyone) by ESRB standards.

Download the free trial. The regular price is $19.95.

If you spend your book reading time on non-fiction like me, here’s an opportunity to read a short fiction that provides a nice summer read and an history lesson. I probably spent about two to three hours reading the book.

See’s story explores the culture and lives of the people living in 19th-century rural China. The book provides a history lesson in the form of a fictional story that centers around two girls from childhood through womanhood.

The richly told tale begins with the tradition of footbinding to keep girl’s feet small therefore ensuring they’re “marriageable.” I knew about the small feet, but not about the horrifying and vividly described process.

After reading the book, I researched the topics covered in the story and discovered the author accurately captured 19th-century China. Readers learn about arranged marriages, different classes (poor, rich, farmer, butcher), friendships, married life, education, the secret writing of Nu Shu and the infighting in the country.

At times, the characters come across as unemotional or mean and it’s true. Sometimes you like and sometimes you don’t like the central characters, but it’s a reflection of those times. Besides, if the main characters were always happy go-lucky and 100% likeable, wouldn’t that be predictable and dull?

The book starts a little slow, but picks up speed after the footbinding. Once it grabbed me, I was eager to finish it. I don’t have many opportunities to read fiction and with this short book, I had the opportunity to quickly enjoy a fictional story while learning more about the Chinese culture.

Title: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Author: Lisa See
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812968069
Date: June 2005 (Reprint: February 2006)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Cover Price: USD: $13.97 Amazon: $5.58

Turning 30 wasn’t as I had hoped. Being the youngest of three by a gap, I was used to feeling young and always younger than everyone else. As I entered my thirties, I felt depressed whenever the ages of a football star, actor, or big shot manager appeared in an article. They were such big successes and not even 30. There I was, in my thirties believing I had accomplished little outside of raising a family. After all, anyone can become a parent and not anyone can become a CEO or best-selling author.

Reading each story, my reactions ranged from “I’ve been there!” and “I remember that!” to “Never been through that, thankfully, but I understand.” And “OK, maybe being 30 had good points.”

In reading books like these, a collection of true and intimate stories, you sense that you’re there listening to a best friend or being a fly on the wall hearing stuff that you would otherwise never hear. Great collections do just that and The May Queen succeeds. Any gal in her thirties will feel less solitary while reading the stories.

Flor Morales shared her experience of going back and forth between El Salvador and California where her family shamed her for cheating on her husband, an alcoholic. She proceeded to tell her tale of crossing the border for good to pursue a better life with another man.

In my twenties, I wanted to climb the corporate ladder as high as I could go. But my expectations started toppling after my second child arrived when I was 29 and not a manager. Slowly, I began to change wanting instead to climb the family ladder with an occasional nudge from a career success. It turned out, from reading these stories and others about us Gen-Xers, we struggled with the “having it all” in our twenties and as we matured, we came to appreciate life more as we understood successful careers were nice to have, but not something that made life completely meaningful.

In “My Missing Biological Clock,” Megham Daum pondered her lack of interest in becoming a mother in spite of society’s pressures of “having it all.” So every story isn’t about horrific or incredible things that happen to others and not us.

Ayun Halliday’s “A Random Sampling Age Thirty to Forty” resembled a list more than a story, but what an insightful list! Read a random sampling of things that happened between ages of thirty and forty and compare those to things that happened between ages of 10 and 20 and 20 and 30. This fast-read will instantly cheer up anyone struggling with having lived three decade of their lives.

With 27 stories of varying lengths in over 250 pages, busy women in their thirties can easily read a story in between feedings, during lunch break, traveling somewhere exotic or whenever they find a moment to simply take pleasure in a good story. As a mom of three with my own freelance business, it was effortless to take a break to read one story at a time and feel another ounce of appreciation for life in my thirties.

Title: The May Queen: Women on Life, Love, Work, and Pulling It All Together in Your Thirties
Author: Andrea N. Richesin
Publisher: Tarcher
ISBN: 1585424676
Date: March 2006
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Cover Price: USD: $14.95 Amazon: $9.72

Write short reviews (>50 words) of local businesses and earn Starbucks
cards, then $100 for 40 short reviews. Contact me for information. It didn’t take long to get up and running. You must live in the US.

I enjoy it and it takes only a few minutes to do the first five (do five
reviews and you earn a $5 Starbucks card. Do 20, and you can get four, the max). Send an email and I’ll get back to you with full details.