Mr Jone’s Graveyard Shift Review
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to run and manage a cemetery? In Mr. Jone’s Graveyard Shift you can tackle the answers to your conundrum by sim time management playing in the graveyard. You’ll discover what happens after the sun sets and how to handle those ghostly dilemmas.
Mr. Jone’s Graveyard Shift is a different kind of sim play from Youda Marina or even County Fair. First of all you have a very involved tale of Kranky who retires to an idyllic forested area to spend his final days with his faithful dog. Kranky becomes very cranky and lonely in his little house in the woods and calls his lady friend Mimi. Luck will have it, and she wants him to come down to her tropical paradise, but he needs to bring a few items. Unfortunately, Mimi wants a lot of things that cost plenty of money that Kranky does not have. In order to 
meet her needs Kranky must work to earn money. He stumbles on a scheme to turn his land into a cemetery to make the money, because, let’s face it, he’s old and no one is going to hire him. I guess he’s never heard of age discrimination.
The cemetery play is very similar to your usual sim play where you click on the customer to find out what he/she wants and then you go about preparing the plot to their specifications. In order to keep your supplies handy, you must buy from Mr. Bingo who delivers headstones, fountains, flowers and trees for the gravesite. You have different types of clients with different price ranges, likes and dislikes that you have to satisfy as quickly as possible. You must keep your customers happy in order to increase your reputation so you get more clients and make more money. You do this by providing the types of flowers that the deceased enjoyed while on this earth and decorating the gravesite with the best headstone they can afford.
In addition to all that, you must avoid the scary part of living on cemetery land. You have to sidestep the ghouls, zombies and ghosts who 
frequent the gravesite at night. You can avoid these pitfalls if you go home to bed, but sometimes you have to work the graveyard shift to meet your timelines. What’s even scarier is Mimi when you do not make enough money to purchase all her wants.
I think the tutorial is very good and the play interesting and funny. The character reminds me of the cartoon Courage the Cowardly Dog except the dog has a minor role in this game. It has the same dark, acerbic comical humor especially when the dead body plops into the grave you just dug. This game may not be for everyone because of the theme, but it is a good Mac sim game with many features you must deal with in the scope of the play, and it’s funny on top of it.
Features of Mr. Jone’s Graveyard Shift:
-Build Cemetery Empire
-Battle Ghouls and Zombies
-Collect Crystals
Rating: 
Nanny Mania goes to Hollywood Review
Nanny is on vacation when she reads about Sofia Ashford, movie star, and terrible mother in the gossip rags. She decides to help her and goes to Hollywood to start her new employment. Nanny’s motto is whatever the problem, begin by caring.
This Mac sim game is played by clearing one room at a time. The object is to click on the red framed items for Nanny to clean and clear. The clothes spewed throughout the house must be picked up, taken to the washer to wash, then click on the dryer and finally click to pick up the basket of clothes, and click on the dresser to put away the items.
There are only 3 people who reside in this house: Sydney the baby, Lucas the 3rd husband, and Sofia the movie star. They are probably the messiest people in the world who need a lot of attention, especially the baby. When the baby cries above the crib will show you what it needs. If you see a diaper, you click on the crib for Nanny to change the baby, then click on the dirty bundle next to the bed and then click on a trash bin to throw it out. If you see a a bottle above the crib, the baby is hungry, and you click on the small refrigerator in the nursery, then click on the bottle warmer, then again on the bottle to pick up and click one more time on the crib to feed the baby.
It’s hectic just writing about it. See how frantic it gets in the first few levels, and remember, the levels are timed so you must hustle. In between the levels you can go to the store to buy anything that is unlocked, you have the money for it, and you need to make your work easier.
Nanny Mania is like Baby Sitting Mania with a few more perks like the shop, more people and a little story to get to know the messy slobs to make it a little more personal. Sim plays are not my thing, but this one has a few more activities than a lot of the games out there. Try it out for a little work out in this play.
Features of Nanny Mania Goes To Hollywood:
-Help Celebrity Family
-Sequel to Nanny Mania
-Time Outs, Pets and More
Rating:
Smiling Pasta Review
The title, Smiling Pasta, reminds me of the pasta or cracker with the smiley face on it. It’s also a name of a Taiwanese soap opera. In any event, Mac game Smiling Pasta is a time management and match 3 pastime. Since we have been doing a lot of Hidden Object Adventures, I thought this would be a great break.
The story begins with Uncle Leo, the chef, leaving his restaurant, Smiling Pasta, to go to Italy. No reason, he just upped and left the café to Daisy the assistant chef. His confidence in her is incredible but that’s life and video games. Daisy must ready herself for the Best Restaurant Award by working hard and fast to prove she can do it.
The game is to serve customers what they want to eat. In order to make the pasta of choice, you must match 3 or more of the ingredients needed for the meal at the screen to the right. Match 3 or more tomatoes, meat, cheese, chicken and pasta. Each time an ingredient is matched and is needed for the dish, it will fly to the 
customer’s list of supplies. You’ll be getting helps like the fire when you make 4 matches that will clear (burn) several of the ingredients at once when you click on it. The star can swap with any of the ingredients but you need to make 5 matches. Once all the ingredients are met, the dish is finished and you click on the dish to serve the customer. Just be sure to serve your guests as fast as you can before they lose their patience (represented by the 5 hearts above their heads). You’ll be able to appease them by clicking on the candy dish at your lower right or if you have a coffee machine, give them a cup by clicking on the cup and then the diner. The happier customer will pay more. The money can be used at the Beach Mall for recipes and treats.
If you get only 1 customer at a time, it would be too easy, so you will be getting a multiple of guests to serve, some more patient than others. Once a chair is vacated, another customer will fill the seat. There are 2 modes of play in this game, but you have to find it first. It’s under the Option button. You can choose Normal or Easy. Normal for the casual gamer is fairly easy so this game may not be for the experienced sim time management player needing a challenge, but for the rest of us, this is fast enough. The match 3 game is not much of a challenge either but at least for novices and young kids, you have the Easy mode to switch to if you need.
All in all this game may not satisfy the sim time management fans or the match 3 fans. This hybrid didn’t have the challenge in either game and the cursor slowed down a bit and made matches difficult to make. The artwork is okay, but Daisy did look a little crossed-eyed in the opening sequence. The music started the game with a happy and upbeat tune but later got a little annoying even though they changed up the jingle. Under Options you can adjust the sound. Try it out and see what you think. I give it a 2.5 out of 5. Do you really want your pasta to smile at you?
Features of Smiling Pasta:
-Sim Time Management and Match 3 game
-7 Locations with 10 Levels Each
-Beach Mall for Shopping
Rating:
Dragon Keeper Review
So you are a brave prince on your way to marry your beautiful princess when an evil, ugly witch stops all your future endeavors. Who knows why someone would curse your beloved and the castle in order to stop you from marrying? Maybe she is interested in you and wants to be your mate? In any event, you are not going to take it anymore and you go to the dragon’s lair to see if they could help you defeat the wicked witch. Who knew dragons are so helpful? It is the year of the dragon so maybe they are willing to assist you in your quest to recover your princess.
Before the dragon can help you with this, you must help the dragons raise their own “clutch”. You take on this task by clicking repeatedly on an egg to hatch, when 
the adorable baby dragon emerges, you must take care of it by feeding and collecting their gems. Yes, baby dragons poop out jewels. Hooray! No dirty diapers to change. Click on the gem to collect because the main dragon will give you your goals to collect a number of jewels. These gems can, in turn, be forged into magical jewelry (necklaces, rings) to sell for gold dragon coins.
The progress quest is at the upper right of the screen along with the Start of Day button. You use the button to start each day of dragon duties. The screen will darken when you day is almost over. However, before you start the day, be sure you have filled your food rack, forged your jewels, and other preparatory business you must deal with. Once you begin your day you will be kept busy feeding the babies by clicking on them when you see the bubble with the drumsticks. Collect their gems by clicking and fight off the intruders. These so called heroes will enter your precious nursery to create havoc and steal your wards. Just click on the enemy and see their clothes fly off them one by one. Once they are in their undies, they will escape your cave as fast as they came into it. But, wait. They will leave blue orbs of hero essence for you to collect. Once again click on these because they’ll come in handy later in the game.
As these sim breeding management games tend to do, they increase your duties many folds. However, you with your amazing time management skills will be able to make a lot of money raising baby dragons. Hire trolls, goblins and imps to help you with your many tasks including protecting your growing dragons, feeding and collecting the gems.
Mac sim time management game Dragon Keeper is a fun and entertaining game to while away the day. It could have been longer with different types of dragons but that may be for the next version. They produce different colors and shapes of gems, but all in all it’s basically the same. There are only 4 chapters with 3 types of dragons per chapter. The dragons and characters are adorable, the artwork good and the music is cute and light making for a great time all around. So brave prince, rescue your fair maiden and raise your dragons.
Features of Dragon Keeper:
-Tale of Good versus Evil
-Sim Breeding Management Game
-Dragons, Gems and More
Rating:
Tourist Trap: Build the Nation’s Greatest Vacations Review
Wow, building your own version of the greatest vacation ever is a dream come true! Not exactly this game, but it does feature a lot of kitschy places you may find along the road in the United States. Some very unusual places you may not want to admit to your friends, but everyone has stopped at these, some times, crazy places. You remember the huge life-size dinosaur shops, the crocodile farms, the world largest or smallest whatever and more. If you enjoyed these places, and who didn’t? You’ll love this sim building game with hokey stops for an unforgettable vacation destination.
You play as the mayor of Kitschville. This wonderful town has faced hard times and is in the hole for $1,000,000.00. The city council is going to turn everything around by turning it into a tourist trap when
the major highway gets built through their village. The city planner, Barbara Brand will help you with your daunting task. You click on city hall to get ideas from the council. They, in all their wisdom, will advise you to build different tourist attractions like the gas station, restaurants, turtle farm, corn palace and more. Some of these things are a necessity when you attract a whole slew of people. There are a variety of characters roaming through your town like the seasonal college students, bus loads of seniors, business professionals, truckers and families. Each group has their own idiosyncrasies you need to cater to and make everyone happy. In addition, you must connect your structures to the main road so tourists will find you and spend their money. The cash must be used for repairs, building roads and other every day needs. You can also upgrade your locations and improve them to charge more.
Tourist Trap: Build the Nation’s Greatest Vacations is a game with a lot of activities, but it doesn’t have the manic time factor to make your game exciting. You have to wait for your money to generate before you can do anything more. What it does have are quirky characters and a good set up with the city council to advise you on how to build up your town. If your thing is sim real estate management games, this may be your game but don’t look for the anxious feeling you get when you know you have to complete your tasks in a hurry. Just enjoy the zany characters visiting your small town full of bizarre attractions. I give it a 3 out of 5 for a game you can hone your sim time management skills.
Features of Tourist Trap: Build the Nation’s Vacations:
-Real Estate Sim Management Game
-2 Modes of Play: Normal and Free Build
-Strange Attractions and Quirky Characters
Rating:
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