The House of Ngaio

Help Amelie turn a ramshackle hut into the classiest joint on the island as she caters to a variety of guests, keeps her cooks busy, and racks up big money in Amelie’s Café: Summer Time. Earn bonuses as you play by mastering fun minigames! Staff and café upgrades will also keep you from going under. With gripping Time Management gameplay, Amelie’s Café: Summer Time is your ticket to fun!

Gameplay
Pretty much similar to its predecessor, players use the mouse to operate Amelie, the protagonist, as she runs around running the cafe by telling the station workers what to do, then doing the waitressing herself. As before, there is a match 3 puzzle at the bottom during game time to get power-ups from, and upgrades may be chosen only when offered (not every level, and not always to improve the cafe, which is a bummer, because who wants the cafe to look nice when the workers are really, really slow?).

Story
The protagonist decides to take a beach vacation while running new beach restaurants. It’s so familiar it isn’t funny anymore.

Audio
Some rather generic sounding tunes playing to the working crew. Even the beeps sounding the dirty alert is more attractive.

Art
The only saving grace of the game, if any. Nice, almost life-like characters that look up to you once in a while, and a nice background for the cafes. But it isn’t enough to make up for the deficiencies in other fields.

Synergy
Oh Goddess, I couldn’t even complete the trial hour. Unless you really really really REALLY like this type of game, I’d say no buy.

Rating: 1 Star(s)

Games in the series:
Amelie’s Cafe | Amelie’s Cafe – Summer Time

Jade’s line of spas have always been known for being the most relaxing, organic, and eco-friendly! Recently, however, her customers have started to complain, so Jade must travel across the country and check in on every one of her spas. Upgrade each spa to become more and more Green, and make sure each one of your customers is totally relaxed in this frantic Time Management game. Can you survive the Spa Mania?

Gameplay
About the same as its predecessor, Spa Mania 2 uses the mouse to drag the customers to the various stations and have Jade pick out the correct treatment to administer there. There are minigames too to prepare tea and incense, and to keep the players alert and on their toes, the occasional spy that comes to disturb the shop by rifling through the register or messing up the changing rooms. Kinda reminds me of Neopet’s National Neopian Bank game in this respect. Jade now also has a wardrobe of her own, and what’s interesting is that it’s not just for artistic purposes… each outfit has an impact on her work performance (e.g. speed). Impressive.

Story
Jade finds out that complains have been coming in from customers so she goes to the ground. Surprisingly, there are no investigations coming along with each new location. Just an excuse to go to the new locations XD

Audio
The music is fairly upbeat, and happy sounding; I guess it’s in keeping with the modern spa theme, since I always imagined spa songs to be like opera songs, slow and high-pitched XD Not that distinguishable by itself, but it lends a funky atmosphere.

Art
Quite prettily done, though I must say it’s lost some of the… originality and smoothness of its predecessor. This time it looks like some things are just a little out of proportion, and the story comics looks all square-ish and stiff-ish, if you get my drift. Still, nothing that REALLY distracts from the game itself, just a little irritation.

Synergy
This is a game that’s certainly worth a try, and the five levels per location is also a good deterrent to boredom, though it doesn’t give a sense of permanency (scarcely has Jade unpacked that she needs to fly off again). Now if Jade is more involved in finding out the source of the complaints, it’ll definitely be a game to keep.

Rating: 2.5 Stars

Games in the series:
Spa Mania | Spa Mania 2