| Of course, I’m also fond of the part about sleeping late and then playing games for a few hours. I don’t know what makes holidays so much different from weekend days, but there’s just less guilt about slacking off wholeheartedly on a holiday. So I spent the morning catching up on Girl Genius (my favorite online comic: it’s got humor, airships, a strong female protagonist, and mad science!), catalog shopping for fall plants (gotta order now if you want to reserve anything decent), and playing my newest videogame obsession, which is to say…
Chocolatier!
This game is nothing short of superb. Take the sort of empire-building, entrepreneurial gameplay that makes the Tradewinds series so much fun, substitute chocolate ingredients for the usual “guns and butter” commodities, and you’ll have the basic idea. Rather than pirate battles, you’ll be battling the clock in factory mode, trying to match ingredients to recipes with some sort of ballistic confectionery cannon. And of course all the in-game quests are chocolate-related.
As I see it, the only real downside to this game is that it makes me hungry. After whipping up a batch of Vanilla Almond Infusions or chasing down the ingredients for Blended Cacao Raspberry Coconut Truffles, I challenge anyone to remain free of the munchies. Well, okay, it also lacks the signature geeky humor of the Tradewinds games, but the storyline is interesting, the gameplay is a blast, and it’s all about chocolate. I highly recommend this game to anyone who isn’t trying desperately to fit into that summer swimsuit and thereby avoiding all mention of sugar. ‘Cause I can’t guarantee you won’t give in to the craving. Mmmmmm… mint chocolate squares…
Oh! This isn’t really game-related, but it is an interesting little tidbit about life here at Microsoft. I’m not sure when this tradition got started (certainly long before I hired on here!), but it’s customary on the anniversary of your hiring date to bring in one pound of chocolate candies for each year you’ve been with the company. A couple of months ago, two people in our division celebrated their seventh anniversaries here on the same day. The counter in the break room was absolutely covered in bowls full of every imaginable variety of M&Ms.
That was another really good day.
Book, Cover, Judging, Yadda Yadda
So I just have to talk about one more game this week, and it’s not exactly a splashy, snazzy, graphically gorgeous one. In fact, when I first loaded it up to try, I couldn’t help but think that it looked like something that might have been created ten years ago. The game is Alice Greenfingers, and frankly, playing it in the same week as the polished-n’-pretty Chocolatier may have caused a large part of my initial “meh” reaction. But here’s the thing: the more I played it, the more I enjoyed it.
If you have a Nintendo game system and children, you’ve probably seen Harvest Moon, the hit Japanese farming-game series. Alice Greenfingers is a very similar game. You start with a barn, shovel, watering can, a whole bunch of untilled land, and some seeds. The goal is to build your land into a productive farm, expanding your fields as new seeds and other resources become available, and then sell your produce at the market. This is a very uncomplicated game, and aside from a few basic decisions about watering and layout, it requires little planning or strategy. Basically, you plant crops, pick crops, adjust the prices if demand soars or drops (although even this part is optional), and landscape your farm with trees and other decorations. It is, in short, very relaxing. You can even set up dozens of moves in advance, then just sit back and watch.
Alice has become my default “end of the day” game; after eight or nine hours here, it’s nice to kick back with a game like this for a half-hour or so before braving the evening commute. Besides, I have a couple of virtual cows now, and I’m waiting to see how much the milk sells for. | |
