Escape from Paradise 2: A Kingdom’s Quest

Escape from Paradise 2: A Kingdom’s Quest is the sequel to Gogii Games Virtual Villagers-style sim game Escape from Paradise. With the help of the royal Perusah and an ever-growing tribe, our Hero must discover many of the islands secrets through strategy, mini-games, and various challenges befitting a legendary Hero and tribal leader.

The game begins with you, the Hero, stranded on a mysterious island. It’s your destiny to aid Perusah, the tribal Prince or Princess, and child of the Island King. You can customize your character to have whatever look and gender you’d like, and the King’s child depends on your own character’s gender. The Hero must complete numerous tasks at the bidding of the various tribal inhabitants of the island in order to restore it to its long former glory and rise to the rank of the new King.

A Kingdom’s Quest takes place on the island. The island is relatively large, and as your progress in the game, new areas will be uncovered. Each area features one or more new tribal inhabitants who will offer you something in return for your services. Challenges include building new huts, wells, food storage, finding various creatures or objects, and completing mini-games.

You’re not alone: you will also have the help of new tribe members whom will show up over the course of the game, with a maximum of 30 members in your tribe. You will have one Golden Tiki, who is maxed out in all stats and abilities, as well as a monkey named Taz, whom you will need to uncover various hidden objects and secrets scattered throughout the island. Taz also gives you the ability to play a variety of mini-games that don’t only earn you needed goal-objects, but also increase your skills and abilities, food, and wood reserves.

You will need to keep your tribesmen (and yourself!) satisfied in hunger, thirst, sleep, and social in order for them to be happiest and therefore work most effectively. Tribesmen can be leveled up a total of three times in three areas: carpentry, woodcutting, and food gathering.

In comparison to its predecessor, Escape from Paradise, A Kingdom’s Quest implements some different features. For example, unlike the first game, this title can be paused at any time. When you shut off your computer or close out your game, the game will save at the exact point you closed out. When you start it up again, it will start from the moment you left off.

Unlike some other games, you don’t have to worry about your tribes people dying. If their stats are low, they will slump when walking and work poorly, but they won’t die. Villagers will also automatically eat, drink, or sleep if you neglect them. Game speed, however, cannot be adjusted, making some activities feel very long and unnecessarily drawn-out.

A longer and much more challenging title than most casual games, A Kingdom’s Quest is a refreshing taste of simulation mixed with mini-games. There is a lot to do on the island, and most tasks do not have a simple, linear style of accomplishment and instead require you to think and strategize. The element of managing the happiness of your inhabitants means that there is always something to do. While your villagers are working on a certain task, you can play mini-games with Taz. They will continue to work and level-up while you play.

Mini-games include Tiki Match Three, Hidden Object levels, and even Sudoku. Tasks aren’t obvious and require you to be more adventurous.

Unfortunately, that very quality makes the game difficult and potentially frustrating. For example, Taz the monkey is the only one who can see secret hidden objects, and only when he’s standing nearby. If you’re not playing as Taz, chances are you’re not going to find what you’re looking for.

Hidden objects are hidden very, very well. Hidden object mini-games, on the other hand, are lacking, and while you may have found the correct object, many times you will have to click on it numerous times in numerous spots before the game will pick it up. Other mini-games, such as the Sudoku title, are quite difficult.

Furthermore, you have the ability to place your various buildings wherever you’d like – a nice quality, right? But oftentimes placing it within a certain vicinity will cause your tribesman to not perform tasks properly or refuse to move to a certain area entirely.

The game features a very op-ended form of gaming. It’s all good and fun until you don’t know what to do next or where to find something, and then there’s no hint system to help you. This can make the game frustrating when you’re not sure what to do next. Lastly, the role of becoming the new King of the Island and taking the hand of the royal child is simply an object of storyline, and does not introduce a new quest or form of gameplay as it might imply to some.

Overall, Escape from Paradise 2: A Kingdom’s Quest is a fun game that promises manyhours of gameplay and a buffet of original mini-games, but some elements could have been implemented more smoothly. A hint system would have done wonders for this game, seeing how creative it is in hiding important objects. Those who like Virtual Villagers-style games and the first Escape from Paradise are sure to love A Kingdom’s Quest, but those new or unfamiliar with challenging adventure games could easily be intimidated and frustrated by this title.

Review by Tawny Ditmer

Hotel Mogul

All is fair in love, war, and business. At least that’s the case in the time management and building simulation Hotel Mogul, where the unfortunate protagonist Lynette has just gotten a rotten deal in divorce court!

Lynette has only been married one month, and her husband Barry has just unexpectedly asked for a divorce. To make matters worse, she’s going to lose her business too, since her husband stands to win it all when they split. Who on Earth is responsible for that prenuptial agreement? Her lousy lawyer and best friend, who claims she must have missed that clause. Yikes. Determined not to give up (and not to hire the new lawyer she so desperately needs), Lynette decides to start a new business and find a way to reacquire her old company. I won’t spoil the plot, but there’s plenty of surprising twists.

The game play method is nearly identical to Build-a-Lot when you start. You are given a certain amount of cash, and a number of materials and workers when you start. At the top of the screen, you can also see your bank account, income, and guests, as well as your level goals. Essentially, you need to build up various properties as you play. You can buy extra materials and train extra workers as you go along, which you need in order to build, repair, and upgrade the different structures.

There are three types of structures you can build – hotel, commercial, and service. Hotels include any buildings where guests may lodge, ranging from cheap campgrounds to posh hotels. Commercial buildings generally increase the value of surrounding structures, like gardens that improve the value of whole rows, and statues which greatly improve the two adjacent properties. Service buildings include the construction mill, the real estate agency, and the museum. These give you powerful bonuses, like the ability to use the rapid construction power-up and repair all your buildings at once.

You can also buy available property by clicking on it when it goes on sale. Similarly, you can sell your properties by putting out a “for sale” sign. A cellphone will appear to indicate an offer, which you can accept or decline. Property is only available for a limited time, so you need to complete interactions before the offers expire. Property can also increase and decrease in value, depending on items you build, but also on random factors.

Buildings need regular maintenance, so you are frequently asked to repair or clean them. If you’ve built the wrong type of building, you can always demolish it. There are special conference checks, which you can earn by clicking on them when they appear over a hotel. In an interesting twist, you earn upgrade points as you play, which you can use to unlock new build types and facilities.

To keep things challenging, you have a basic income goal to meet, but also have the chance to earn the expert score and beat the expert time goal. You can replay levels to aim for these, adding some replay value to the game. While there is a timer, it’s optional. You need to beat the level within the time frame in order to earn the expert goal. However, you can still proceed to the next level even if you exceed the time limit, provided that you meet all the goals. In this sense, you really can’t lose.

The locations are interesting, including spots as diverse as Egypt, Hawaii, and South America. Despite these drastic localities, the game play remains the same in all. The production values are good, with suitable sound effects and music, and attractive graphics. It’s fairly challenging, even after just a few levels, and the pacing is very good. It manages to be hectic, yet attainable. The length is also fairly good, taking roughly 5 or 6 hours to beat, and that’s not including replay.

The tutorial is alright, but glosses over some concepts important in the game. If you’ve already played Build-A-Lot, this won’t matter much, but it might be tougher to follow if you’ve never played this sort of game before.

The biggest issue with Hotel Mogul is it’s lack of originality. It doesn’t add anything particularly unique to the building simulation genre, and lacks some of the greater depth of later Build-A-Lot titles. While the mechanics certainly work, and it’s fun to play, it doesn’t stand out as something innovative or particularly exciting.

If you love hectic building simulations, and can’t wait for the next installment of Build-A-Lot, then Hotel Mogul is definitely one to try. However, if you haven’t played many building simulation games, you might want to start with others in the genre first.

Review by Lisa Haasbroek

Gamezebo Inc.

Supple

Supple is a premier magazine for single, urban, professional women. Arin works there as an Associate editor, but she has bigger aspirations. In this life simulation game, your goal is to get Arin the coveted position of Style Editor, which has recently come up for grabs. Hugh, Arin’s co-worker, also has his eye on the job, so expect a bit of competition. You have to achieve your goal by Friday, and beat out Hugh by passing your daily performance reviews.

The game opens with Arin in her office on Monday morning. Arin and Hugh’s game performance meters (GPM) each have a red, yellow, and green area. If Arin’s performance is in the red when the boss, Margot, comes by, she is in danger of getting fired! Yellow is okay, but you must get it into the green to pass your daily review.

The GPM moves in response to the six smaller meters above it, which relate directly to her relationships with Margot and Hugh; specifically, her confidence, how much Margot likes and respects Arin, and how much Hugh likes, respects, and desires Arin. Every performance review counts, and Arin will not be able to continue if she fails her daily review. The higher the meter, the more cash she will receive as a bonus.

Arin works more efficiently if she has a high energy level, so you might want to get her some coffee and a snack from the vending machine. If Arin drinks the same coffee or eats the same snack too often, the effectiveness becomes reduced, so it’s worth it to vary her food choices.

That brings you to your first crisis – Arin is wearing jeans. Her boss, Margot, loathes jeans, so you need to help Arin to change her clothes before Margot arrives. Clothing has attributes and affects both Margot and Hugh, and should be changed frequently for the best effects. In the shop, you can examine some of the outfits and find a suitable one within your budget to buy. In the closet, you can select an outfit to change into.

In order to shop, you need cash. To help Arin earn money, you click the monitor on her desk and select “work.” To earn money, Arin must beat Hugh at obtaining stars. The stars represent researched information that Margot might require later in the day. Each successive star is worth more money than the last. You must keep track of the answers Arin has researched. When Margot asks Arin a question, you can answer if she knows the information, or evade the question if she does not. If Arin is overworked, her efficiency will start to decrease. Arin’s life needs to be kept in balance. Taking courses will also boast Arin’s efficiency.

Three vertical measures indicate Arin’s energy level, how many drinks she’s had, and how angry she is. As you play, you’ll see word capsules floating down across the screen. These tell you how a game event has influenced one of Arin’s meters. If Arin is angry, her other meters will start to fall. You can alleviate this by being nasty to Margot or Hugh. Of course, being too nasty will backfire, so balance is called for. Energy is assuaged by snacking.

As Arin interacts with people and her environment, the experiences she has may have different effects on her, but you control how she ultimately reacts. For example, you want to keep Hugh happy, but not TOO happy or he will win out. Flirting with Hugh will increase his desire for Arin, but doing this in front of Margot makes her jealous. Likewise, if Arin catches Hugh and Margot flirting, her GPM will suffer. Arin can buy lingerie to impress Hugh, which is needed to get intimate with him. Intimacy occurs in the “boom boom” room, or bedroom. It’s not overly graphic, but given the sexual situations, as well as adult banter, dirty jokes and occasional harsh language, Supple is not something you might choose to play with the kids.

Gifts can also be bought for Margot and Hugh, and given at the right time can really boost GPM. Arin can get fired for dressing inappropriately, slacking off (red GPM) for too long, or for not working enough. Drinking at the bar can result in intoxification, another big office no-no. Before Arin gets the axe, she will generally get a warning from Margot. Being fired ends your game.

Although the graphics and animations appear much like The Sims series, the dynamics are different. Both games include emphasis on relationships, and allow the user to manage different aspects of the character’s life. However, while The Sims has many goals to choose from, Supple focuses in on one goal – getting Arin the promotion she wants, which requires passing her daily reviews. And, communication between characters is much more pivotal then in the Sims and other life simulation games (like Ciao Bella for example).

Supple is very complex, and the learning curve means you should expect to play the game a few times before you’ve mastered it. It’s not a casual game that was designed to be played, well, casually. Sometimes, especially in the beginning, it is a bit overwhelming to meet the demands of Arin’s job.

As far as sims go, Supple offers a great deal of depth and relationship focus. The AI, music, and dialogue are all very good, and respond reasonably to events as they unfold. The production value is impressive for a casual game. While you have a set goal of becoming the Editor, you can also compete for higher scores, leading to greater replay value. If you’ve gotten very good at the game, you should be able to beat it in a couple of hours. However, getting good enough to do this will take you quite a few hours to start, so it’s a good value for money. Kudos to the developers for focusing on the emotions of the characters and their relationships instead of just the usual external factors.

Supple review by Gamezebo Inc.

Create A Mall

Enjoy Create A Mall, the game where you’ll play as Kelly, a promising mall creator working at a growing store development company. Build gorgeous malls with beautiful stores. Attract crowds of clients and propose them jewelry, clothing and office decorations.

Create A Mall is an exciting simulation game. You’ll create and manage various malls. Serve as many clients as possible to earn more money. Then upgrade your malls to make them more beautiful, attractive and practical! Hire various workers, buy equipment and build lots of stores, entertainment places. Create A Mall features 6 different cities to play and 22 varieties of stores to build, 9 store types and lots of awards to win. Enjoy polished graphics, nice music and addictive game play. Download Create A Mall game and have hours of simulation fun for the whole family!

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

Virtual Families

If you were a professional game reviewer, naturally you’d want to bestow high marks on a deep and ambitious game. But what would you do if that game wasn’t finished? If it were laden with many technical and graphical issues that marred the experience? And what if it were an unoriginal concept?

Such is the case with Virtual Families, the latest from developer Last Day of Work (of Virtual Villagers fame), and while we had fun with this The Sims-esque game, we also grew frustrated with its lack of polish and innovation.

Ah yes, we know LDW has a faithful fan base, and we expect to see user review scores that challenge our “average” rating, but we like a healthy debate here at Gamezebo.

Virtual Families is a human life simulation that looks and plays similar to The Sims. Gamers “adopt” a character who moves into your home. Hit the computer to a dating website and “order” a bride who is compatible with your personality. Perhaps you both want kids or have occupations that compliment each other?

When the spouse arrives the couple should enjoy a short embrace (though it doesn’t always happen) and then you start life in your home. As with The Sims you’ll keep an eye on their needs and desires and help them stay happy, whether it’s dragging them to the kitchen if they’re hungry or let them take a shower if feeling unclean. In some cases they can do things together, such as watch TV or surf the web on two computers in the same den, but our experiences show they lead separate lives for the most part, which is a bit disappointing.

The game is played from an angled top-down (“isometric”) view just like The Sims, and as with EA’s game you can also buy items, upgrade parts of your home, have kids, adopt pets, and so on.

But the A.I. (artificial intelligence) doesn’t seem to be, well, very intelligent. For example, my guy Andy was hungry but wouldn’t eat when dragged to the kitchen — despite having a fully stocked fridge with a variety of foods (including pricier organic goodies — and so he’d just get weaker. His wife, Dahlia, doesn’t like cooking but the game said she was happy when thinking about it. Huh? A day later, the game said Dahlia enjoys nature sounds so I dragged her outside but instead she went back inside to start dusting. OK, so I’m willing to acknowledge there should be some amount of unpredictability, but there were too many instances like this.

Another thing players might love or loathe, and one that will be familiar to those who’ve played LDW games, is that Virtual Families plays out in real time. Therefore even if you close the game and turn off your computer, the events will continue to unfold in your home. But I’d argue time passes by too quickly: I stopped playing on a Friday afternoon at 4pm and didn’t pause the game (to stop time) because I knew I’d play more on the weekend. But when I booted up the game on Sunday at 5pm it said…”Sadly, Dahlia has passed away…” Sigh.

Along with A.I. issues there are some graphical ones, too, such as characters who stand on a table or bed or walk through a wall or fridge. It doesn’t ruin the experience, but leads one to believe the game isn’t finished.

The game does offer a few things not found in The Sims, such as healing sick characters (with meds or calling a physician), giving players moral dilemmas to tackle and watching the events unfold, praising or scolding behavior with Black and White-like hands you click over the character (to reinforce good or bad actions) and collect objects around the home, such as bugs, coins, leaves and so on.

One of the features we liked the most was the more than 100 Trophies you can collect once you accomplish certain goals, be it making $100,000, curing a serious illness, picking 50 socks up from around the home or buying items such as a pinball machine or fish tank.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more torn while reviewing a game than I am with Virtual Families. On one hand it takes an existing and proven concept — “borrowing” the virtual life elements of The Sims, the best-selling computer game in history — and adding a real-time element, trophies and other goodies. But at the same time the game just feels unfinished, primarily due to the aforementioned A.I. issues.

Fans of this genre, though, or of LDW’s Virtual Villagers or Fish Tycoon games, should at the very least download the game to try it for free before deciding if this is a (virtual) life worth living.

Review by Marc Saltzman

Wandering Willows

Wandering Willows, the newest release from PlayFirst, is a delightful and unique adventure that sends you on a journey to whimsical lands of magical creatures and zany new friends. You and your trusty new pet will do everything from digging holes to dealing with Alien aircraft while charming your way into the hearts of everyone finally finding your way home.

Wandering Willows is a simulation-style game (think the MySims series) that focuses on friendship and doing things for others while helping yourself. After a bird tears a hole in your hot air balloon you find yourself stranded on a beautiful island inhabited by people who are so happy there they never want to leave.  You do want to go home, though, and to do so you are going to need help and good friends to get you there.

An adorable pet adopts you and never leaves your side, becoming instrumental in your completion of the game. Everyone wants to barter with you, so you set off to explore the island and complete 162 quests, from finding items to making complex gadgets to repair your balloon.

You’ll begin by customizing your avatar, where you can customize everything from gender to skin tone.  You find yourself in “Grassland town” where you meet ten of the island’s hilarious inhabitants, each of whom has unique personalities, likes and dislikes. For example, there’s Art Gunderson, the elderly farmer that loves raisins and wearing ball gowns; and Debbie Katz, prim and proper librarian type that adores flowers and trendy clothing and several others.

You will have conversations throughout the game to find out what people need, and can click to read the dialogue and refer to the top of the screen for the “to do” list to keep track of your quests. Once you learn your quest, (which can consist of things such as making food, clothing, flower arrangement or gadgets) you and your pet will travel on foot looking for items and bring them back once found. You may need to find patterns to make someone a costume, or you may have to bake someone’s favorite bread.

Each time you satisfy someone you become more popular with that person. You start out as an “acquaintance” and work your way up to “Best Friend.”  While searching for items you will dig up things such as onions and oil, climb trees for fruits and nuts, and charm other animals for items ranging from wool to diamonds. You will also have to grow some items in the garden and purchase others from the store.

The town’s currency is known as “Willobees” and can be earned by selling items at one of three stores: the Sewing store, Flower store and Cooking store. These items can be picked up by you, but must be obtained for you by your pet by either digging, climbing, or charming another animal into giving it up.

You have an inventory list and a notebook that keeps track of all recipes, patterns and floral arrangements. There are more than 40 animals and each has different strengths and weaknesses you can use to your advantage, such as the “Torzil,” a strong climber and weak charmer, or the “Gruffie” a strong charmer and weak digger.

Animals can be charmed into giving up eggs which can be placed to incubate and if needed, you can trade your pet to meet your goals faster. Collars can be made to increase each pet’s abilities.

Once you have completed the majority of quests in “Grassland town” you will be introduced to “Tropics Town” where you will meet six more adorable characters and continue to search for recipes, patterns and other items.

To win the game you must complete 162 quests, including the nine necessary tasks to fix the balloon and return home (such as patch basket hole, reattach balloon, acquire CB radio). After the game has ended, a screen appears giving you the option to quit or to continue playing in order to earn the twelve available medals in the games trophy area.  A few of the medals consist of meeting goals outside of patching the balloon such as earning 100,000 “Willobees” will win you the “Entrepreneur” award and obtaining “Best friend” status with every island resident will win you the “Social Butterfly” medal. Once completed, these medals can be submitted to Playfirst.com along with your high score.

Some people may find all the repetitive clicking and long term searching frustrating, but ultimately that is what makes the game challenging and rewarding by finding all of the well-hidden objects. One of the most challenging aspects of the game is collecting all of the pet eggs, which must be charmed from other animals. It can take over ten tries before an animal will give an egg.

Unique gameplay, beautiful artwork, and a funny storyline with colorful characters will prove Wandering Willows a winner among adventure and sim game fans young and old. This game offers a challenge without the pressure of time constraints, and since it will likely take you at least 20 hours to complete all the quests, it’s a great value for the price.

Review by Gamezebo Inc.

Virtual Farm

Have you ever wanted to run your own farm? Here is your chance in the new game Virtual Farm. Till your fields and plant your crops to see if you can turn a run down farm into a prosperous business in this cute simulation game.

You play as an old farmer who has inherited a farm in dire need of your help. The only successful crop growing on the farm is grass. A green thumb, a healthy dose of patience and a keen eye on the market will help you to turn the grass into profits and thereby expand your crops to include new vegetables, fruits and flowers. As you earn money, you can purchase additional plots for more crops, up to a total of 60 beds.

Although you have to start small and be content growing grass and tomatoes to sell, eventually you’ll earn enough dough to really get things moving! New farm equipment will be available for purchase. Get a new tiller to help fertilize the ground, upgrade your harvester to help you get those crops to market faster, build a larger storage center to keep goods on hand until their demand is high and even trade in your watering can for a far-reaching hose. Who could ask for more?

But there is more! Not only can you grow a wide variety of crops but you can also build support structures to turn your produce into other goods. Take all of that boring grass and feed it to your cows. They’ll produce milk which can be sold for a lot more than the grass. You can even purchase a churn and turn the milk into fresh butter.

Other produce can be used with different buildings as well. Cucumbers can be fed to the sheep that will produce wool. Sell the wool as it is or purchase a spinnery and weave the wool into fine textiles. Have a lot of tomatoes on hand? Great! Build another pen and feed the tomatoes to your pigs. You’ll be able to sell meat at the market for a huge profit. More support buildings will become available as you progress through the game, constantly increasing the potential earnings of the farm.

Locals will contact you and ask for specific harvests. Sign contracts with them and deliver the goods on time for the biggest profits. Fail to deliver in a timely manner will result in the loss of your cash deposit on the contract, which could spell certain doom for your farm.

Another aspect of the game that can make or break your farm is the market demand feature. Every few minutes, the demand for various products will change at the market. If you keep an eye on these demand levels, you can charge exorbitant prices for any of your products when the demand is very high. This can give you a much needed cash boost now and then. Just be sure to reset your prices lower when the demand goes down, or you’ll end up with stockpiles of product that just won’t sell.

I found the game remarkably similar to Alice Greenfingers in many ways, though without the high level of customization for your farm. The overall premise is the same – plant stuff, harvest stuff, sell stuff, make money, buy stuff, wash, rinse, repeat. And, as with Alice Greenfingers, toward the end of the game, the tediousness set in. Endless harvesting of plants as quickly as possible over and over and over again, just to keep up.

One other frustrating aspect of Virtual Farm is that although there are a lot of different production buildings you can purchase, there doesn’t seem to be a way to fit all of them into the lot at one time. I could be missing something, but I wasn’t able to have all of them going at once. This became a big problem as the tasks later on call for a wide variety of products and I had to demolish certain buildings to make room for others and then switch them back later on, at great cost.

All in all, this is a very cute game, with no real ending. You can continue to work your farm indefinitely it seems although once you’ve purchased all of the upgrades, there isn’t much else to do aside from sell the produce. If you enjoy farm and growing sims like Alice Greenfingers, then you’ll probably get a kick out of Virtual Farm. It’s at least worth downloading the demo.

Review by Heather Lane
Gamezebo, Inc.