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6.7 extra fun

Nanny Mania Review

Finally a game where you can practice being a nanny before heading out to your first day on the job. Where was Nanny Mania four years ago when I needed it most?

Clean up after a yuppie
family in suburbia.

Platform:Windows
Author:Game Agents
License:Free Trial
Price:$19.99
Link:Download Nanny Mania

Nanny Mania, by Game Agents, is a simulation game that takes you day by day through the life of a suburban nanny. The young yuppie mayor of Suburbia has moved himself and his wife into their new house. Their hectic lives don't call for picking up dirty clothes, taking care of babies, and putting sofa cushions back in place. But someone's gotta do it. As the newest nanny in this rich white bread seaside community, you're hired and the dirty work falls right in your lap.

The game is divided into days. Each day you have a set number of nannying tasks to complete. Your goal is to keep the house chaos to a minimum, or to eradicate it completely. That's difficult since entropy dictates that closed systems (such as yuppie households) tend toward chaos. That's why you see news stories about some crazy old man who turned his house into a smelly trash-ridden kennel for 87 malnutrioned dogs. That could be this household if you aren't careful!

You have a set number of minutes in which to complete your tasks. If you fail, you lose one of your three lives. There's also a perfect time to strive for. In the beginning stages of the game, it's exceedingly easy to get a perfect score every day.

The screen is an isometric view of the house you'll be working in. It doesn't all fit on screen and you can scroll around to see all the rooms. Messes that need to be cleaned are highlighted with a yellow border. To clean up a mess, just click on it. Your nanny will hurry to the spot and begin cleaning. There are all sorts of messes: muddy footprints, dirty laundry, lipstick drawings on the bathroom mirror, unmade beds, bathtub rings, misplaced books, knocked over flowerpots, dirty dishes, etc. A few slaps and karate chops and dust bunnies later and the mess is gone. You can click on multiple messes and you'll hurry from one to the next after each is completed. Some tasks require multiple actions. For example, to do laundry you have to pick clothes up off the floor (there's no hamper), put it in the washer, wait for the washer to finish its load, transfer the clothes to the dryer, wait for the dryer to finish, and finally put the clothes in the dresser. Of course you can work on other cleaning tasks while waiting for the washer and dryer cycles to complete. And here's a hint: pick up all the clothes in the house before starting the washer. (You don't have to separate colors and whites. Just throw it all in together. Who's gonna know?)

Besides messes, you'll also find yourself fixing dinner for the mayor and his wife and taking care of their children. You also get to feed their fish, get their mail, and check their computer's email (they don't use a spam filter so your job seems to be reading each message and seeing if it's spammy or not).

It won't be long before they have a baby and you'll be changing diapers and heating up bottles of milk. The baby will also sometimes get lonely, and while its mother will usually play with it, sometimes you have to when she's busy. What does mom do all day? Well, usually she takes long baths and walks around the house. What about dad? Well, he watches TV in his lounge chair and goes off to play golf. And every time he comes home he tracks in mud on the hallway. Every time. He loves his golf so much that often his wife and children eat without him.

As you might expect, soon the baby is nearly a toddler and getting into messes all over the house. She'll use her walker to glide around and knock over things. She can even glide up and down the stairs. Note: It's rare for real babies to navigate stairs in a walker - especially upwards. And soon she's a young girl with a messy bedroom who likes drawing clown faces in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. No matter how much sugar you spoon into her, her bedroom remains messy. You'll have your work cut out for you.

If you've ever dreamed of taking care of a family or escaping over the mountains to Switzerland, Nanny Mania might just be the game for you. However it gets a bit dull because your only interaction with the household is cleaning. And repetitive cleaning, at that. You can't talk to the mayor or his wife or their children. You can play with their baby, but only a bit. In fact, you'll feel like a ghost because you'll walk through other members of the household as if you're a ghost. (Don't freak out the first time that happens.) The graphics and sound are pleasant enough, but the game gets boring fast unless you're some sort of crazed nanny maniac.

Casual: 8.8
Explosion: 6.8
Value: 4.4
Score: 6.7  extra fun

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Discussion

  1. charlotte /

    i thought this game wos alrite but could of been a bit more realistic and more things to do with the children nd babies but overall i thought it wos k

  2. sophie /

    I want toplay nanny mania even if i already did play the free demo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  3. Anonymous /

    can i play

  4. ghostbuster /

    The demo was boring. I wish I could play the full version for FREE! It’ll be so fun! (At least better than the demo!:P)

  5. Maniac /

    I agree. It’ll be so much more fun than the demo.

  6. yna /

    it was fun to play it………………………..

  7. Kristine /

    how will i play it it is so downlowd

  8. mariah /

    the whole babies going up stairs in a walker thing kinda disturbs me

  9. angela /

    this is so great

  10. fina /

    eu quero jogar nanny mania por favor eu adoro este jogo minha prima ta a chorar porque ela tambem gosta muito na verade o pessoal todo de casa adora este jogo imploramos.

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