Trouble has once again befallen the kingdom and you must work together with your dragon allies in Dragon Keeper 2, the cute time management game. You have to enlist the help of your dragon friends to chase down an evil witch, but to do so, you need to prove your dedication by helping them nurture and protect their young. Raise the little dragons, protect them from meddlesome “heroes” and gain the magical items needed to fight the witch!

Dragon Keeper 2 is the sequel to the cute time management game that made a splash a year earlier. It is an item collection and matching game similar to Magic Farm and Fifth Gate, but instead of caring for plants and collecting flowers, you need to care for baby dragons and collect gems. Dragon Keeper 2 brings the same fun mechanics and rich graphics as its predecessor, with an updated interface as well as new dragon types and craftable items.

The story goes that an evil witch has transformed your prince into a frog and teleported him to her secret hut far away. At a loss, you turn to your old dragon friends for help. They agree, but will only provide you with the necessary magic items if you help defend their babies from “heroes” intent on harming the dragons and stealing their treasure.

You are directed through the game via quests, with a dragon telling you what you need to do during each quest or level. The game is also quite large, with 4 different zones (containing different scenery, dragons and items) and a total of over 80 levels. However, the game is different in that you do not have a set time to complete each quest. You can take as many days as you need, and can play whichever way you feel. However, each quest will reward you with an expert “star” if you manage to complete it within a specific time limit.

During each day, you take care of the baby dragons and keep them fed. As they walk around the den, they will “produce” gems that you pick up and store in a chest. Each den will have up to 3 types of dragons each producing gems of a different color. Each dragon can also grow into 3 different stages (if you’ve taken good care of them), with dragons in each successive stage producing gems of increasing quality.

After the day is over, these gems can be combined to form various artifacts (such as staffs, boots and jewelry) that are sold for lots of cash. The artifact-crafting menu shows a list of items that can be created, and what combinations of gem color and quality are required to create them. If you have the right combination of gems, you can craft the item and sell it for big bucks.

However, taking care of these baby dragons isn’t all plain sailing. The den will be constantly invaded by “heroes” out to steal your gems and hurt the poor little dragons. There will be thieves sneaking towards your gem chest, and warriors out to attack the dragons, and even mages who can freeze them. You will need to attack the invaders (by clicking on them repeatedly) to drive them off. Doing so will gain you a bit of cash, as well as bandit essences that can be collected and used to improve your items and creatures.

In between days, once you’ve sold the artifacts you created, you can use the cash to buy creatures and improvements. You can buy new dragons of whichever color you want, as well as new racks to store more food and new chests to store more gems. You can also hire a variety of creatures: imps are used to expand your den to accommodate more creatures; trolls will help you attack invading bandits; gnomes will help you collect gems; frogs will produce magic energy that you can use to cast useful spells such as stopping time or getting mama dragon to help you collect gems and feed dragons. Choose wisely though, because space is a premium, and you should only hire creatures that complement your strategy.

While the gameplay is already fun and engaging, it’s the little extras that make it really stand out. For example, when mama dragon is helping you with your chores, you actually see her in the corner clicking her own mouse and moving a separate cursor! Other bits of “scenery” are also interactive; there’s a worm that occasionally runs across the screen that will give you cash if you catch it. There are also things like mushrooms, skulls and voodoo dolls that will produce a variety of responses when you click on them.

Overall, this is a fun time management game. Whether you like to see cute dragons running around, or like to attack invading bandits, or like to plan your strategy and create an efficient den, there’s something here for everyone. You will love Dragon Keeper 2 if you liked the first Dragon Keeper and similar games such as Magic Farm and Fifth Gate. Get the Mac version here.

Check out the other games in this series!

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Stuck in a rut? Not achieving your dreams? Sign up for a 12-step program that will change your life in Life Quest 2: Metropoville, the simulation strategy game! Improve yourself in various aspects of life such as fitness, finance and relationships. Climb the career path of your dreams and set up your ideal home and family. Achieve as many life goals as you can in the allotted time and succeed in your Life Quest!

Life Quest 2: Metropoville is the long-awaited sequel to Life Quest, the breakout hit strategy game in 2010 by Big Fish Games Studios. The original game was a life simulation game similar to The Sims game franchise, but was presented as a turn-based casual game alternative. It still lets you do the same thing: create characters and help them lead the life of their (or your) dreams. Metropoville features more of the same, with updated graphics, interface and game mechanics.

The game begins with a 60’s-style TV ad showing you how bad your life currently is (yay!) and telling you that you can change all that if you come to the city of Metropoville and sign up for their 12-step program to the life of your dreams! With nothing left to lose, your self-designed character moves to Metropoville to begin working on their dream career and life.

You are given 100 days to achieve your dreams, and are scored on how well you do in pursuing your goals. However, the game is pretty open-ended after the initial tutorial; you can basically make your character live whatever life you dream up. They could run for mayor or train to be a star athlete. They could live the bachelor’s life in a posh condo, or start a family in suburbia. They could spend their hard-earned money studying at university, or use it to improve their happiness via vacations and electronics.

While the game is open-ended, you do have a series of goals (that you choose) that you can work towards. The 12-step program is cleverly presented as a big pie chart, with each step appearing as one wedge in the pie. These wedges represent the various aspects of life you can work on, such as fitness, leisure and academics. Each wedge is also split into smaller life goals, ordered by difficulty. For example, the first goal in the Academics wedge is to improve your intelligence a little, while the final goal in that wedge is to earn a PhD and win the game’s version of the Nobel Prize. You can choose whatever mini life goal you want to work towards, and when you’ve achieved it, you can select another goal, whether it’s a more advanced goal in the same wedge or a new goal from another aspect of life.

The town of Metropoville is also full of things to do. There are restaurants where you can get your daily meal, and shops to buy essentials such as pets, clothes, electronics and cars. There are various types of accommodation that you can either rent or buy, and plenty of places where you can amuse yourself, such as the local theme park, an ice hockey arena, and a travel agency (that even offers vacations on Mars). All of these buildings will be crucial as you try to develop a perfect well-rounded life.

While the game plays like a simulation, it does have its mechanics based on strategy and time management games (although you don’t need to master these more in-depth nuances to enjoy the game). You have a limited amount of time available to spend each day, and this time is used up traveling between buildings and performing tasks. There is also a happiness level you need to maintain, and the Intelligence, Charm and Practicality attributes that you need to skill up (depending on what careers you are aiming for).

You can strategically plan your life; do you want to train in fitness first, giving you more time to do things each day? Or do you invest in training up your intelligence which speeds up future learning tasks? Or focus on earning enough to buy a car to save time traveling between buildings? Or train your charm so that you make friends more easily? Yes, there are plenty of strangers walking around town, and you can befriend them and even find that special someone that you end up marrying and settling down with.

Visually, the game is very rich and full of beautiful locations and characters (and is a welcome upgrade on the graphics of its predecessor). The interface has also been streamlined to make it more appealing yet able to provide all the necessary information. The game is also less static, with people moving around (albeit in a cardboard-style type of animation) and various things visually reacting to your clicks. The many characters in the game are also quirky and funny, acting up the stereotypes of their professions.

However, there is a slight problem that it can get a bit tedious as you are nearing the end of the game. While you’re trying to achieve your bigger goals (such as the last financial goal that includes amassing $100,000 in cash), it can feel like a chore going through the routine of working, eating and sleeping. But hey, it’s a life simulation game, and this tedium is a part of life!

Overall, the game is tons of fun, and is a nice turn-based version of The Sims (with a much lower price tag as well). There is also lots of replay value, as you create multiple characters and let them live different career paths and lifestyles. You’ll love Life Quest 2: Metropoville if you liked the original Life Quest game, as well as other life simulation games such as The Sims or My Life Story series.

Check out the other games in this series!

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Help Lisa save her agriculture reality TV show from cancellation in My Farm Life 2, the farm management sequel. Go urban and green as you help her manage a rooftop garden and supply fresh fruit and vegetables to her demanding clientele. Manage your limited space, various resources and helpful assistants. Help Lisa turn her small plot of roof into a lucrative business and renew her show for another season!

My Farm Life 2 is the sequel to one of the more innovative farm management games to be released recently, and is similar in gameplay to the Ranch Rush series, also by the same developers. The My Farm Life series shines above the many other farm management games by including features such as a persistent growing farm, a large variety of crops and products, and very polished gameplay.

In the original My Farm Life, Lisa was the unwitting star of a farm reality TV show. Unfortunately, the show’s ratings weren’t that good and it is about to be cancelled. Thankfully, a grocery magnate named Carlos comes in to bail the show out, and suggests the show take a more green and urban-friendly stance. So Lisa gets to continue starring in the show, and you get to help her manage her new rooftop farm!

Like other farm management simulation games, this game is about managing your crops and then selling them in the required quantities and combinations to your customers. You perform various activities such as buying the required materials, preparing the soil, planting your choice of seeds, watering the plants, then harvesting them when they’re ripe. You will also manage animals; the cows will need to have their feed and water supplies replenished, and will also need to be milked.

You will be introduced to new crops and animals as you progress through the game, and it will become more challenging trying to juggle the various crop types as well as your customers’ orders. You also get new machinery that can make processed goods; for example milk and strawberries can be combined to create milkshake. However, this machinery will sometimes break down and need to be repaired. You also gain the services of assistants, depending on how efficient you are in managing the farm. These assistants can help you in various ways such as harvesting your crops or providing a trading service.

As mentioned earlier, the My Farm Life series differs from other farm management games by using a persistent farm. As you progress through the game, you will maintain and grow the same farm from start to finish. This gives a welcome sense of continuity, and doesn’t break immersion compared to other games where you need to build up a new farm every level. Don’t worry about placement mistakes having long-term repercussions though; you can easily move your plots and machinery around anytime.

My Farm Life 2 does have a few features that are different from its predecessor. Other than the obvious move to the top of an urban building, the most visible change is the addition of your benefactor Carlos himself. At every level, Carlos will appear asking for a whole lot of crops, but isn’t picky what type of produce you give him. This changes the game in a subtle way. In the previous game, if you have tomato plants but your current customers don’t need tomatoes, you would just leave those plants to wither. This time, you will still work those unimportant plants since they can be harvested and given to Carlos.

An unfortunate change is the removal of the day/night cycle that was present in the original game, allowing for interesting mechanics such as chasing away robbers and using flashlights to manage your farm in the dark. As a result, My Farm Life 2 feels more static, and it doesn’t seem like it has many new innovative features.

These quibbles are pretty minor though, and the game still shines compared to a lot of other time management games out there. The art is beautiful and vibrant, and the game interface and production quality are very sleek. My Farm Life 2 is definitely worth playing if you like farm management games such as the original My Farm Life or similar games such as the Ranch Rush series.

Check out the other games in this series!

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Save the town of Pastrypot from a zombie invasion by neutralizing the zombies and making sure they stay buried in Grave Mania: Undead Fever, the time management game of zombie makeovers! Soak the zombies in formalin, align their bones, exorcize their spirits and give them a makeover before nailing them shut in coffins. And whack them on the head if they dare try to escape from their graves!

Grave Mania: Undead Fever is a store management game similar to the Sally’s Spa and Sally’s Studio style of time management games. You move your clients from booth to booth, prepping them up in different ways before sending them on their way. The only difference is that in Grave Mania, your clients aren’t paying customers looking for a makeover, but are instead uncooperative zombies that you need to permanently silence and bury!

The story goes that an unfortunate baking accident in the town of Pastrypot has turned most of its population into mindless zombies. Our protagonists are a couple who own a funeral parlor, and are unhappy that their business is suffering due to everybody becoming zombies and not staying dead anymore. So they develop a chemical that will ensure the zombies stay dead, and start working their magic on every unfortunate zombie who crosses their path.

In each level of the game, you need to “serve” a set number of zombies. They start by coming into your parlor strapped onto a stretcher, and get knocked silly. (In a cool move, the designers have turned the stars spinning around the zombies’ heads into their “happiness” level. The less stars there are, the closer you are to losing the zombie.) Each zombie will have a set of services he needs, and you need to drag him to the correct station. Another click will cause Bonnie (your main character) to come to the station and begin the processing.

There are a number of service stations in the game, with more being added as you progress to higher levels. There is the vat of formalin to kill the zombies, and a bone-alignment station to stick any offending bones back inside their bodies. There’s a voodoo station to exorcize their spirits, and an accessories station to make their faces presentable. Then it’s off to the final station where they are nailed shut inside their coffins and tossed out the window!

At random intervals, some of the stations will require more than a simple click to activate them; you will need to complete a minigame within a short time limit in order to proceed. If you succeed, an extra star is added to the zombie. Fail, and a star is removed. The minigames are different for each station; the coffin minigame involves squishing bugs and wiping messes off the coffin, while the voodoo station’s minigame requires you to scan the zombie bodies and locate the affected body parts that need to be exorcized.

Other things can also happen as you go about your day boxing up zombies. Rogue zombies might rush into your store and try to infect (and even shoot) you. A good whack on the head will solve that problem though. There is also a cemetery minigame that occurs every few levels. Zombies will try to escape from their graves, and you need to whack them on the head (notice the theme?) fast enough to keep them six feet under.

As with any good time management game, you can use your hard-earned cash to buy upgrades between levels. The upgrades here are generally straightforward; you can buy additional stations, or upgrade them to become faster. You will gain a few zombie assistants, and can upgrade them as well to do more things and to become more effective. You will also travel to other locations every few levels, and need to contend with stations being moved around to keep you on your toes.

Grave Mania doesn’t really introduce any innovative concepts in terms of gameplay. But what it does is invigorate this tried-and-true style of time management game by introducing a fun and quirky theme. I mean, who doesn’t like whacking zombies on the head and dunking them in vats of formalin? And to add to this quirky theme, the story cutscenes are even told using zombie finger puppets!

Overall, this is a great game with a fun story and hectic gameplay that will entertain you and stress you out in equal measure. You will love Grave Mania: Undead Fever if you like other store management games such as Sally’s Studio or the Diner Dash series. Get the Mac version here.

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Become the god that you are destined to be in All My Gods, the city-building simulation game. As the son of the great Roman god Saturn, prove your ability to govern by building a thriving city. Under the guidance of the other gods, master the varied tasks of food production, resource management, scientific research and more. Protect your people from the many dangers of the world and show that you deserve to be part of the pantheon of the gods!

All My Gods is a city-building game similar to the hit Royal Envoy and Build-a-Lot game series. However, it is different in that there are no distinct levels with new villages you have to build from scratch each time. Instead, you have the one city that you slowly grow as you progress through the game, with new mechanics and buildings introduced via a quest system. Also, most of the quests don’t have a timer forcing you to react with lightning speed; you can play the game at a more leisurely pace.

The premise of the game is your standard son-of-a-god-who-must-prove-himself scenario. It turns out you are the son of the Roman god Saturn, and your dad has decided to quit doing whatever it is that gods do. You have to step up to replace him, but the other gods want you to prove that you can lead your people. So the great Jupiter gets you started on a small village and tasks you with developing it into a thriving city. Along the way, a host of gods will check in on you, providing you with quests, guidance, magical items… and the occasional invading army to damage or burn down your buildings!

You start the game with a single builder, but are able to construct lots of other buildings filled with workers such as fishermen, priests and traders. However, you can’t simply build whatever buildings you want, due to a handful of restrictions. Firstly, all your workers need to be fed on a regular basis, and you must ensure you have enough food-producing buildings to support them before you go about hiring them. Your city also has a worker cap that can only be increased by building and upgrading taverns (workers love a good ale). And then there’s the issue of resources; every building requires a particular combination of raw materials (such as wood and stone) before they can be built, and good resource management is a must in this game. To make things more complicated, there are over a dozen resource types that you have to juggle!

Your choice of available buildings is also restricted by your scientific progress. There is a science resource that you can accumulate (just like any other resource), and you can use it to research technologies. Researching these techs will unlock related buildings and abilities. For example, you can’t build the market until you have researched the Money tech, which in turn can only be researched once you have discovered the Mathematics tech. Another example is the Architecture tech that will allow you to upgrade your buildings. This gives the game a civilization-building theme and captures the feeling of a people slowly improving themselves through scientific progress.

Since you are a god, you also have access to some pretty cool abilities. You have the Hand of God power to directly grab whatever resources you need. This comes at a price though; each time you use the Hand, you use up some of your limited mana energy (which recharges with the help of temples and priests). You can also use mana to move your buildings around. In addition, there’s a lightning bolt button you can use to zap bad guys. And what happens when your people decide to go on strike? Lightning bolt button!

While the game feels open-ended like a sandbox simulation game, it does provide you with plenty of quests to nudge you along. Each of the gods will have a different sector they want you to focus on; Jupiter will keep giving you quests to improve your research, while Mercury will give you economy- and trade-related quests. Don’t worry about being rushed though; these quests aren’t triggered by time, but only pop up once you’ve built your town to a sufficient level. There are also a number of random quests that will ask you to accumulate specific resources. Some of these quests will have a time limit, forcing you to focus on them immediately.

It should be noted that while All My Gods is a really engaging game with interesting mechanics, there are a few issues that are readily apparent. The user interface isn’t perfect, especially when you’re trying to scroll around the fairly large map. Scrolling requires clicking and dragging the map, and the clicking will often inadvertently open a popup describing the item you happened to click on. And when it comes to the game’s delivery, the artwork, cutscenes and narration are pretty good, but not outstanding.

Other than those quibbles, this is a game that is very charming and will keep you glued to your seat. It is a more relaxed simulation-style game, and may not impress players who are after an edge-of-your-seat type of time management challenge. Its style can even be compared to Facebook games such as CityVille and CastleVille, but thankfully without the annoying popups asking you to recruit a friend! You will like All My Gods if you enjoy city-building games such as the Royal Envoy or TimeBuilders series.

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Our fun-loving sea-faring natives are back in Island Tribe 3, the road-clearing town-building game! After returning to their volcano-destroyed island, the natives must begin work rebuilding the place. Remove debris from roads, obtain valuable resources and reconstruct buildings. Guide them in their efforts, and help them locate fragments of ancient artifacts and runes that will unlock the island’s Great Temple!

This is the third installment in the Island Tribe time management game series. It brings back the same high quality gameplay that made the first two games fun to play, while adding a few small tweaks and updates to improve the experience further. The story is also a direct continuation of what happened in the previous games.

In the first game, your tribal villagers had to escape an island with an erupting volcano. In the second game, your tribe meets an explorer who leads you to a group of islands that can be settled. However, at the end of that game, your tribe encountered an Altar of Wishes and used it to return to your original island. And that’s where this third game begins, back home after the volcano has run its course. Your goal now is to rebuild the place, and locate fragments of artifacts and runes that will give you access to the Great Temple and to a glorious future!

At first, the game seems pretty similar to other similar “road-clearing” building games (such as the Roads of Rome series), albeit with a beautiful pastel-like color palette. However, you will find that the game does have quite a few layers of gameplay and challenge in it. In addition to the base time management and task-scheduling gameplay, there is also spot-the-object type of gameplay, construction choices to be made, and even the option to score bonus points (by collecting gems) but with the cost of diverting your workers from the main goals.

The basic gameplay involves you directing your limited number of workers what to do, such as clearing debris from roads, repairing or upgrading buildings, and collecting resources. At the start of each level, you are given a set of goals that you need to complete (along the lines of completing a construction project or collecting enough resources). Most of the map will start out hidden in fog, and you will need your workers to interact with objects at the fog’s edge in order to gradually reveal the map and see what buildings or resources were previously hidden.

Almost every action your workers perform will require specific combinations of resources. These resources include wood, water and stone, with more resource types introduced as you progress through the game. You will have various buildings that will help you obtain these resources, and these can be upgraded (at a cost) to become more efficient. The main focus of the game is to manage your supply of these resources (and decide which upgrades or constructions are more important) so that your workers can complete the level goals before time runs out.

There are also plenty of other buildings and objects that your workers will interact with. There is the boathouse that provides your workers with boats to visit neighboring islands. There are totems that will reveal large chunks of the map once they are repaired. There are large construction projects such as dams that are part of a level’s goals. You might even be tasked with saving innocent bunnies from angry bears!

Now to talk about the layers of complexity that were mentioned earlier. While good strategy will let you complete each level within time limits, that doesn’t mean you have “mastered” a level. Each level also has fragments of magic runes that are scattered across the map. You will need to take a break from directing your workers in order to find and click on these fragments. Once in a while, an artifact will also appear on the map and you are given a short time to find it. Finally, there are lots of gems scattered across the map. You will need to send your workers to collect the gems, which means pulling them from other essential tasks. You will only be a “master” of a level when you can complete the level’s goals, assemble the complete magic rune, find the artifact and collect the gems, all within the expert time limit.

The game can be pretty challenging, and has a nice story and beautiful characters and art to keep you engaged and entertained for hours. It isn’t too different from the previous Island Tribe games (except for a few updates), but why fix something that isn’t broken? You will like Island Tribe 3 if you enjoyed the previous games as well as other “road-clearing” games such as the Roads of Rome or My Kingdom for the Princess series.

Check out the other games in this series!

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Relive the adventure and excitement of the California Gold Rush in The Golden Years: Way Out West, the town-building time management game! After an unfortunate incident lands Samuel in debtors’ prison, his wife has to set out into the Wild West in search of a way to pay his debts. Build wagons, inns, salons, water towers, rail stations and more as you establish self-sufficient mining towns. Use your strategy and time management skills to find gold and strike it rich!

The Golden Years: Way Out West is developed by Alawar’s Southpoint studio, and is a town-building game similar to the Royal Envoy and Hotel Mogul series, set in the romantic and chaotic American Old West. It boasts a very strong and beautiful story, giving you a first-hand view of what the pioneers faced during the Gold Rush. You will experience the trials and adventures of a penniless young family as they struggle to find gold and repay their debts.

At the start of the game, you meet an old lady who proceeds to tell you about the adventures of her youth during the Gold Rush. She and her husband owned a convenience store, but her husband was imprisoned when the store burned down and they couldn’t repay their debts. Desperate, she set out with her young son into the Wild West, hoping to find enough gold to repay the debts and get her husband out of prison. You will relive the many events of her past, from when she started out with only a decrepit old train to when she finally reached California.

The game is split into many levels as you slowly make your way west. Each level will present you with a series of objectives that you need to complete, and this is where the game really shines. Rather than being handed a whole list of things to do for each level, you are presented with a series of smaller objectives, each of which has its own time limit. For example, objective 1 could be to build a bridge to reach a gold mine, followed by objective 2 which requires you to recruit enough miners, followed by objective 3 which requires you to mine and sell the gold. This system allows you to experience the game as a developing story instead of as levels with no character.

The gameplay is pretty similar to other town-building games, and you need to focus on 4 resources: cash, lumber, gold and workers. You earn cash by building residential buildings such as wagons and ranches. These will generate rental income at set intervals. Lumber is used to build and upgrade your buildings, and can be bought with cash from the sawmill or trading station once you’ve constructed these buildings. Gold is used to upgrade certain buildings as well as to build more complex buildings, and is obtained from the mine or salon, or purchasable from the trading station. Workers are your manual labor, constructing buildings and collecting resources for you.

There are a number of building requirements that make The Golden Years a satisfyingly strategic game. Residential buildings can’t be built just anywhere, but need to be adjacent to a water tower. Similarly, salons produce more gold if there are more people living in their areas of influence. Even the number of workers is controlled, and can only be increased when your town’s population is of a sufficient number. Building upgrades are also strategic; do you upgrade your house to hold more population or to generate more rent?

You will also meet plenty of interesting characters in your journey, each of which has their own little story that has an impact on your venture. There is the architect who will sell you a blueprint when you meet his demands, and there is the native chief who will guide you across treacherous terrain once you’ve found his talisman.

The atmosphere of the game is vibrant and has that nostalgic Wild West feel, kind of similar to the Westward game series. The art is bright and colorful, and each terrain type is presented very well. There are also little bits of art and animation that make the game shine, such as the train that arrives from beyond the map into the trading station. The sound and voice-overs are also pretty decent throughout the game.

The game isn’t overly difficult, and may be disappointing for those looking for a real challenge. However, it more than makes up for it by delivering a very engaging and personal story set in a romantic time of gold mines and lawless bandits. The strategic aspect of the gameplay is also a huge plus, and makes the game stand out from other similar games. You will like The Golden Years: Way Out West if you enjoy town-building games such as the Royal Envoy or Hotel Mogul series, or Wild West themed games such as the Westward series.

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Fulfill your destiny and run the most successful prehistoric eatery in Stone Age Cafe, the restaurant management game set in the land before time! Seat and entertain your customers, and serve them with all kinds of ancient tasty goodness. Toss salads, boil soups, grill meat and mix juices to satisfy your hungry customers. And you get to do all that with your helpful group of animal assistants!

Stone Age Cafe is another fun addition to the popular restaurant management style genre of time management games. It is quite similar to the heavyweights in the genre, such as the Diner Dash and Cooking Dash game series, but it does have unique bits that make it stand out. There are the prehistoric-themed food, customers and assistants. And the storyline is quirky and interesting as well.

The game focuses on an ancient tribal village, and a young girl named Chuchii who has just come of age. It turns out that the tribe members look to their shaman and his visions to decide what their life path will be. While predicting Chuchii’s future, his vision shows her working in a very modern-day cafe, and he tells her that she is destined to be a waitress and serve food to the rest of the tribe. (So much for her dreams of becoming a princess!)

With the shaman’s vision fresh in her mind, Chuchii goes to set up a basic eatery, with the goal of transforming it into the best cafe anyone has ever seen (which isn’t difficult since it would be the first cafe that anyone’s ever seen!)

If you have played any other restaurant management games before, the gameplay here will be familiar to you. Potential customers will line up at the entrance, and you need to seat them (and get bonus cash if you seat them at seats of the corresponding colors). They will take some time deciding what they want to eat. Once they are ready, they will tell you their order and you will need to prepare the food. After serving it, the customer will take some time eating, and leave the cash and dirty plates on the table. Once you’ve collected this, the customer will leave and the seat will be ready for the next customer.

Throughout this whole process, each customer has a mood meter that will slowly tick down whenever they have to wait. Unhappy customers will mean lower profit for you. Thankfully, you will not be swarmed by a continuous line of customers. The game is broken up into various levels or “days”, and the number of customers each day is pretty manageable (but does increase to hectic levels in the later parts of the game).

There is a variety of food you can make. There are fruits and vegetables that can be made into salads. There are also ingredients such as tomatoes and onions that can be turned into soups. There is meat that can be grilled, or turned into patty to make burgers. There are fruits that can be “shaken” into smoothies. And a whole lot more! There are also a variety of customers, from princesses who are impatient, and warrior types who will fight if you seat them next to other warriors!

In between the many levels, you get to use your hard-earned cash to buy upgrades. There are plenty of upgrades to boost different aspects of the game, and your limited cash will mean you need to decide what you want to invest in. You can buy extra grilling and soup-making stations. Or you can buy grills that cook faster. Or you can make Chuchii move faster between stations. You can also buy an entertainer to keep customers happy. There are plenty of choices, and the large variety also makes the game very replayable.

Unfortunately, the game does have a couple of issues that make it less than perfect. The customer seating area is in a bar-stool format running from the top of the screen down. This means that the mood meter and head of a customer will sometimes block the plates of the customer located directly above them. There is also some difficulty dragging customers to their seats, especially when you are trying to drag couples and match their seat colors correctly.

Other than those small quibbles, Stone Age Cafe is actually a very endearing game, with a nice setting and atmosphere, and not being too hectic or challenging. You even get help from various animal friends in preparing some of the food! You will like Stone Age Cafe if you enjoy the prehistoric theme and like restaurant management games such as the Diner Dash and Cooking Dash series.

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Return to the island kingdom of Royal Envoy in the highly-anticipated sequel Royal Envoy 2! Take control of a backward province’s town planning activities, and transform it into a prosperous and crucial part of the kingdom. Build up houses, set up local industries and economies, and work your magic on the many towns and villages that dot the landscape in this time management strategy game.

The original Royal Envoy game caused a stir in early 2010, delivering an almost-perfect time management game of the village-building variety. With its fresh game mechanics and art, it improved on the genre pioneered by the Build-a-Lot series, and has since been followed by other similar games such as the Timebuilders series. Its sequel Royal Envoy 2 is finally here, and it doesn’t disappoint. The same great gameplay returns with nice tweaks and improvements, as well as a fun new story.

The game begins with the King (the same king from the first game, in his fabulous pink wig) listening to the governors of his many provinces reporting on how well their lands are doing. Every governor reports major improvements, except for the poor governor of Middleshire who can’t seem to get anything right. Exasperated, the King sends you to Middleshire as a replacement, with the task of getting the province up and running again. You are not alone in this task though; the King also sends along the trusty Cedric, your advisor from the previous game.

For such a small province, Middleshire has a lot of different zones in it, from lush farmland and dark swampland to snowy mountains and even an active volcano! In the course of the game, you will explore and attempt to develop all these areas. Each area also has a local chief who will help you by giving you an overview of the area’s problems, and by giving you plenty of advice (whether you like it or not). The interactions between these chiefs and Cedric can be quite funny and are definitely a highlight of the game.

Each area is split into a handful of “levels”, each of which has specific objectives you need to achieve. You usually start each level with a basecamp and the service of a limited number of workers. These workers are used to construct and upgrade houses and various other buildings. The houses form the backbone of your economy, producing rental income at regular intervals. In a break from the previous game, you don’t send tax collectors to collect the rent (workers are the only human resource now). Instead, the rent pops up next to the house, and you have to click on it to collect it. The same goes for the other resources you earn in the game (wood and food).

There are also plenty of other buildings that you can build in order to help you reach the level objectives. Each building will require varying amounts of the various resources. There are buildings that allow you to trade cash for wood or food, and those that generate these resources at a steady rate. There are also buildings that can boost the amount of resources you collect. If you find yourself short of workers, you can also hire more from the basecamp if you have enough cash and food.

What makes Royal Envoy 2 really shine is the addition of various fun and interesting tasks and events that you get to engage in every few levels. You will spend a level accumulating resources to build a grand snow fort, and then actually play a game of snowball-fighting against a visiting team of workers! Other minigames include navigating a dynamic maze and rescuing all your workers from it, all while trying to beat the clock.

As with the original Royal Envoy, this game is a very high quality game complemented with beautiful graphics and sound. The art is in the same vibrant and engaging style as the original, with slightly better animation. But what also makes this game great is its story and how you progress through it. As mentioned before, you will get to meet plenty of interesting characters and advisors as you go about your task of transforming Middleshire into a civilized utopia. You also get to take part in a variety of tasks (other than the basic building and upgrading, which can get a bit boring). All these factors combine to make it a really great game.

You will like Royal Envoy 2 if you like other village-building games such as the Build-a-Lot and Timebuilders series. You can get the basic version of the game, or you can get the Collector’s Edition which includes exclusive content such as bonus gameplay, an in-built guide as well as other media bonuses.

Check out the other games in this series!

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Plan and manage townships, and watch them grow into prosperous cities in Virtual City 2: Paradise Resort, the city management simulation game. Direct each city’s complex transportation network and construct crucial buildings to support your supply chain strategy. Increase their desirability in jobs, environment and tourism, and turn them into profitable holiday destinations!

The first Virtual City game was a breath of fresh air in the city-level time management game genre. Rather than the more common game style based on constructing buildings, Virtual City instead focused on managing the complex transportation and supply chain networks that keeps a city running smoothly. Virtual City 2: Paradise Resort brings us a welcome sequel to this great game, adding better graphics as well as introducing new game concepts such as the transportation of workers and tourists.

As the name suggests, the focus of the game is on transforming towns and cities into vacation destinations with booming tourism and retail industries. You will travel across the continent and visit townships in all kinds of climates and environments, doing your best to accomplish the many goals set by the local councils. Each scenario or level will challenge you with tough objectives, and there are also tight time limits for those who want to complete them at expert level.

You control a transportation business, and will start each level with a garage that can build a limited fleet of trucks and buses. Some levels are supply chain levels, requiring you to connect the various stages of a supply network in order to meet the objectives. An example would be a baked goods scenario where a mill continually produces flour, and a bakery can process that flour into baked goods to be sold at the supermarket. You job would be to hire and assign a truck to deliver flour from the mill to the bakery, and another truck to deliver baked goods to the supermarket.

You will also be running a commuting service, such as transporting residents to their jobs or entertainment venues. Since this game focuses on vacations, you will also be transporting newly-arrived tourists to the local attractions. Doing all this successfully will require you to build bus terminals at strategic spots and supply a large enough bus fleet to cater to the people’s needs.

In both the supply chain and people-moving scenarios, you will get paid for each delivery/commute. You will need to wisely spend this hard-earned cash in order to grow your business. You can buy more trucks/buses or upgrade them to move things more quickly. You can upgrade the processing businesses (such as the bakery) so that incoming flour will be converted into baked goods more quickly. Or you can upgrade the homes surrounding your bus terminals so that more people will relocate there and subsequently increase the number of people using your buses. In some scenarios, you might even need to build all the key buildings such as terminals and supermarkets from the ground up. You will need to decide which is the best way to invest your money in order to achieve the objectives within the set time limits.

The game can get pretty complex, requiring you to manage a fleet of more than a dozen trucks. You may need to manage the export and import of goods with neighboring cities, and also ensure that all the trash from various industrial buildings are collected and properly disposed of or recycled.

As if all that wasn’t enough, you will also need to manage each city’s environmental, job and tourism ratings. Level objectives may include achieving and maintaining high scores in each rating. Moving more people to their workplaces will increase the job rating, but negatively affect the environmental rating. Similarly, creating more entertainment venues will boost tourism but cause the environment to suffer as well. You will need to skillfully manage the many facets of city planning and transportation in order to create a successful and thriving city.

There are a lot of things going on in the game. This means that the learning curve is pretty steep, and the game is more complex and challenging than the typical time management games with frenzied clicking. Other than the slightly outdated-looking graphics, it is a very high quality SimCity-esque strategy game that will provide you with hours of hair-pulling entertainment.

You will like Virtual City 2: Paradise Resort if you like more complex strategy games, or other town management games such as the Build-a-Lot series.

Check out the other games in this series!

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