Winemaker Extraordinaire

While there does not seem to be a week going by without a release of a new hidden object or time management game, the number of options for people who enjoy strategy games like the Chocolatier or Tradewinds series’ is rather limited. All the better that Winemaker Extraordinaire turns out to be a compelling and well-made game in the same line. Instead of making coffee, truffles and chocolate bars the player travels the world to acquire new wineries and collect more and more blends of wine.

Maria Bellaventura is in a sorry plight: exhausted from her job, unhappy in the big city and grieving for the death of her grandfather. In a particularly touching introductory scene, Maria receives a letter from her grandfather who tells her to return to the family vineyeard in Italy. There she gets to know the first of fifteen members of the Guild of Extraordinary Winemakers,an organization that fell apart many years ago due to greed and selfishness. She also learns of the “Vino Ultimae,” the world’s most glorious wine. Maria’s grandfather tore the recipe to pieces and gave one piece to each member after the guild’s separation.

The main objective is to gather and reassamble those pieces, but this task will require a lot of orders and favors, which Maria has to fulfill for the former guild members. In the beginning you only have one winery in Italy and two different wine blends, namely Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. As you progress in the game, new locations in Germany, France, Australia and other countries will be unlocked, and you get the chance to purchase five more wineries altogether, allowing you to make more profits and to expand your variety of wine blends.

The process of buying supplies, selling wine and unlocking new blends is quite similar to Chocolatier, as is the world map and the layouts of the different locations. In each town is one supplier, where you can fill your stock with differently shaped bottles and various types of grapes, at the cellar you can sell wine, from the travel terminal you can reach other locations and at the guild you will get new quests and orders.

However, not every grape is available in every country, and the costs may vary, too. A very realistic touch of the game is that you can plant some types of grapes at your wineries, for example Riesling in Germany or Nebbiolo in Italy. Furthermore the production of some wine blends is also restricted to only one country; highly expensive Champagne can only be made in France and Malbec has to be produced in South Africa.

While the number of wine blends is extremely small compared to the large variety of different recipes in Chocolatier, the actual process of wine-making is more complex. There are three different mini-games that really spice up the game. If you decide to grow grapes in your vineyards, you can handle this process by yourself or hire someone for a large amount of money. The rows of soil have to be planted, watered and pruned. The number of grapes that you grow strongly depends on your performance in this time management-like game.

You are also able to influence the quality of your wine, which will increase its price remarkably. Therefore you have to remove leaves and little twigs from a grid by selecting three or more of them. According to how pure the grapes are your wine will get a one- to five-star quality. The third mini-game deals with the production of the wine itself – in the style of Tetris, rows of grapes have to be reordered according to the formula of the recipe, thereby constituting the amount of wine you produce a day.

Winemaker is definitely as addicting as Chocolatier, thanks in particular to the variety of mini-games and the interesting storyline and characters. You’ll find detailed descriptions for each person you can find a detailed descreption, the same applies to the wine blends which may be an interesting feature for wine connoisseurs. The graphics are very easy on the eyes and the retro-style of the game goes very well with its theme and creates a highly appealing atmosphere.

Granted, the game might be far too easy for people who have already finished similar games, and the length is not that convincing either. After approximately five hours you should have completed the game’s main goal and be ready to test your abilities in the free mode, which does not offer any additional challenges.

Nonetheless Winemaker Extraordinaire is definitely a recommendable game for both fans of and newcomers to the genre. The quest to help Maria bringing her family business up to its former glory is undeniably entertaining and compelling. It is up to you to find out if this wine is to your taste.

Review by David Becker

Gamezebo Inc.

DinerTown Detective Agency

This week I take a more personal look at some of my favorite things in our forthcoming game, DinerTown Detective Agency, the fun spoof on the traditional hidden object genre that is being released this week!

One of the really cool things about DinerTown Detective Agency is the Wall of fame – this is basically a virtual trophy case for players holding a collection of uniquely styled magazine covers for each solved case. When you’ve made your way through each individual case you’re amply rewarded with a trumpet herald, a “case solved” screen takeover and then taken to the wall of fame screen where your new case cover is proudly displayed!

Wall of Fame

It always spurs me on when I see my wall filling up each time I complete a case – there are a total of 25 covers to collect and it’s rewarding to check back throughout the game and see the cases you’ve solved to date especially since they involve some great comic art work.

Magazine covers

Another cool aspect of the game is the assembly search screens that you’ll see as you tackle each mystery – these will include a couple of screens from each location.

You’ll often have to search for broken down components of the utensils and tools that the suspects have manipulated rather than the whole object. This makes the game more challenging as those pieces may often take a second or third look before you recognize them for what they are – items include things like scissors, watering cans, coins, creatures and much more.

Like any real world detective, you’ll also need modern tools to help reveal hidden clues that can’t be detected by the naked eye which is where our crafty little forensic tool kit becomes useful. Even when you’ve uncovered most of the hidden objects in a particular scene, you’ll also need to use your dusting brush, magnifying glass or eyedropper to uncover crucial clues like fingerprints, spilt juice etc and reveal even more hidden items.

Forensic tools: Eyedropper, Fingerprint brush, Magnifying glass

With these great features adding more variety to the traditional hidden object game, I hope they  will make your gaming experience much more enjoyable and remember you can play DinerTown Detective Agency this week so don your thinking cap and start solving those mysteries!

By Ryan Sindledecker

Gamezebo Inc.

Supermarket Management

With most of us having the chore of going to the grocery store at least once or twice a week, who wants to sit down and play a game taking place in a supermarket? Supermarket Management puts you on the other side of the store: management. Instead of figuring out what to buy, you help customers find what they need. Supermarket Management contains all the good ingredients expected in a time management game.

The hero of the game has finished college and needs a job. By chance, CEO of Superstore Bob meets her at a traffic jam. Impressed with her handling of the jam, he invites her to work for him in his grocery store. She starts with stocking shelves, checking out customers and giving them their orders in the deli and bakery. Slowly, she works her way up with her creative ideas to improve the store and gains a few helpers.

She opens new stores and when that happens, she is back at the bottom doing all the work again. At least, until the store earns more profits that she can use to hire employees and add upgrades. After a few stores, she runs into the union leader who requires that employees take a break. So any time she has employees, she needs to give them a break and do their jobs – a clever twist.

Though similar to Supermarket Mania in game play and graphics, this one comes packed with more features and variety. Like any time management game, your job is to reach your money and customers served goals as fast as you can. If you reach the expert time, you’ll get more coins for your shopping trip to upgrade your store. You need every coin possible as it’s hard to come close to buying everything before you move on to the next new store.

Almost every cashier asks, “Did you find everything all right?” Well, it’s true that customers can’t always find what they need. So they stand there with a bubble indicating their need. You need to drag ‘n drop them to the right shelf. This is the only drag ‘n drop in the game, something that bothers a few people. The rest is point ‘n click. Don’t you love it when the store hands out free samples? That’s in the game, too. When customers want a sample, you need to point ‘n click your way to make the sample match what they want.

At the deli, customers request seafood, cheese or meat. After selecting the item, they have four things from which to choose for each category. You must watch their faces to figure out what they want. In the bakery, different kinds of cakes and toppings scroll across the screen and you need to select the right ones to match the customer’s order. Actually, the bakery begins with one item and you’ll graduate to two or three items as you upgrade.

On top of all this, you still need to ensure shelves are stocked, customers checked out and carts filled up. All of these activities keep the game from becoming monotonous, and the game lets you multitask. If you click a shelf to stock and then make a sample for a customer, the employee will still go to the shelf to stock it while you make the sample. It keeps the game from ever feeling “slow” as so many tend to do.

Just before you think the game feels repetitive, you run into one of two mini-games, which are sales. In one game, people line up at different cash registers. You distribute the sale items to the customers based on their requests. In the other, you work the deli counter distributing orders of one, two, three or four items per customer. This can turn frenzied.

While the overall game’s production values are high, it contains a few annoyances. In the bakery, you can click and the game ignores you. So you have to wait for the cake to come back and click again. The people just don’t warm up to you. One guy always has his hand on his head like he’s looking for something. The young shelf stocker does this little Egyptian dance. Cute at first, but both get old fast. The female employees’ poses and celebrations feel stiff and stereotypical. Even the hero of the story never gets a name and acts as fake as Elle Woods does in Legally Blonde.

Sometimes you want to yell at the stock boy to “Stock the shelves yourself!” instead of have to click all the shelves he needs to restock. Supermarket Management has a nice help file (albeit one weird typo), but you can’t access it from the main menu – only from within the game when you pause it.

Nevertheless, this solid time management game is worth adding to your grocery basket of time management games, or at least sampling. But don’t expect it to be a best-seller.

Review by Meryl K. Evans

Gamezebo Inc.

Hollywood Tycoon

Welcome to Hollywood Tycoon, a star-studded strategy game where you call the shots. Immerse yourself in the world behind the scenes of all the glitz and glamor as you build and manage your own Hollywood studio. Make vital decisions on which script to purchase, which actors to hire, and how much to invest in the hopes of producing a BLOCKBUSTER hit!

• Win and collect awards and achievements
• Earn points and buy stuff to expand your character
• Watch the blockbusters you create

Youda Marina

Beachfront property? Check. Some cash in the bank? Yep. A desire to build up a successful marina? You bet. So long as you’ve met these requirements, you can create and maintain a thriving harbor in Youda Marina. This business sim with a time management element might take a while to wrap your head around but offers a deep and enjoyable game if you’re up for the challenge.

The overall goal of this marina simulation is to build a beautiful – and efficient – marina, but in order to get there you perform dozens of smaller goals such as docking motor boats, creating attractions to make for happy guests, and of course, raking in plenty of cash (which can then go towards newer facilities to keep everything running smoothly).

As you’ll learn in the functional and comprehensive tutorial, you’ll first survey the map and decide where to build key structures, beginning with a radio station to communicate with boats and a lighthouse to speed up their docking (and better see at night). Much like a real-time strategy (RTS) game, a mini-map in the lower right corner of the screen can also be clicked to quickly jump to a given spot.

In some cases you’ll build on land, such as bars and restaurants, while at other times you’ll add onto the dock (and adjust the length of the extension to allow for bigger yachts), adorn it with lamps, ramps, drop in some buoys, and so forth. As with real-time strategy games, Youda Marina will help you find where you can build by showing you a faint green outline on the map (meaning you can place it down there) or it’ll be red (indicsting where you can’t build).

On a related note, construction is comprised of five main categories and each of the items within requires a certain amount of money to build: land attractions (hotels/resorts, amusement parks, taverns and marina tours); shore facilities (rescue facility, helipad, gas stations); event facilities (sea park show, surfing school, fishing excursions), utilities (police station, hospital, fire station, and so forth) and infrastructure (ramps, buoys, graders, asphalt road). Some buildings need repair over time (which costs money) or you might choose to clone a building to place another one down efficiently.

The more guests you can attract (and the longer you can keep them at your marina), the more facilities and attractions you must build to handle the traffic, and the more money you’ll get. In fact, you’ll be tasked to reach certain milestones within a given time, which is where the time management component comes in. The game features a day-to-night cycle, too.

The main game mode is made up of four different maps (shore, bay, island and lagoon) but only the shore is available at the beginning of the game. The more missions you complete (and the more you improve your “rank meter,” where stars are awarded for playing well), the more locations (and facilities) you’ll unlock. You’ll also discover different kinds of boats, ships and cruises as you move about the various areas and gain access to the “relaxed” mode from the main menu (eliminating the time element).

Because of the large number of buildings and areas, there is quite a bit of meat on the bone here. If you can get past the somewhat steep learning curve and (at times) multitasking mayhem, the game can get quite fun in the thick of it.

Visually speaking, though, Youda Marina isn’t much to write home about, but it’s not terrible either. It’s just that the colors appear to be washed out and the game seems to lack high detail for both the buildings and environments. The music, though, made up of island rhythms (think steel drums), is catchy and fitting.

All in all, Youda Marina is a good pick for those in search of a challenging business sim, with plenty of replayability.

Review by Gamezebo

Jessica’s Cupcake Cafe

Help Jessica transform her aunt`s failing old bakery into a complete success. Get Jessica’s Cupcake Café up and running by attracting plenty of customers with delicious recipes and a hip atmosphere. Use your Time Management skills to earn as much money as you can, open up brand new shops, offer more tasty items, and upgrade your equipment. Keep the candy-coated cupcakes coming to please your clientele!

• Play over 42 different levels in 9 exciting locations
• Upgrade with cool power-ups and amazing machines
• Built in cookbook with real cupcake recipes to make at home
• Earn online medals at PlayFirst