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9.2 neato burrito
I matched three dogs yesterday and they disappeared. Seriously. Talk about games invading your real life. That was a sign that it was time to take a break from creating my dream match-three game (when it's finished I'll call it Cake Painter Pro) and play some Fairy Godmother Tycoon.
We've had Tycoon games of every other sort, from Shogun Tycoon to Abraham Lincoln Tycoon... so I guess it was just a matter of time before someone made Fairy Godmother Tycoon. In the physics classroom I was taught that anything can happen eventually given infinite time and resources. We may not have those in our universe, but we did get enough to make Fairy Godmother Tycoon, and that's cause for celebration.
Fairy Godmother Tycoon, by Mock Science, appeals to both kinds of people in this world: those who like running a business, and those who like fairy tales. The premise is that once upon a time in the land of Onceuponia things were pretty bad for the average peasant. Witches were getting out of hand putting curses on them to enlarge their heads... or break their hearts... or put songs in their heads that are impossible to stop humming. Dragons were breathing flames on them. And cruel experimental bakers were cramming four and twenty blackbirds into a single pie. (Some peasants were big on blackbird rights and thus really offended. This kind of dates the game, actually, because times have changed and I personally don't get too offended by crowded pies.) Seeing a business opportunity in the plight of the common peasant, a fairy godmother set up shop selling curative potions. Her business boomed, but soon became oversized and bloated... and smaller upstart potion vendors began to nip at her heels. She decided to bring some fresh young blood into her criminal organization/company, and you were top on her list.
At first glance Fairy Godmother Tycoon looks extremely complicated, but you'll pick things up quickly thanks to Paulie Sugarplums' help in Tutorialville, the first village to welcome your tiny potion shop.
Your main business is selling potions, and lots of them. Every potion has one or more ingredients that you'll need to keep in stock in order for your store's potion maker to mix potions. For example, a love potion may be made of one part fish heads and two parts itsy bitsy spider. (Already you may have guessed that Fairy Godmother Tycoon is a great game if you like learning the secrets of magic potions.) The prices of raw ingredients fluxuate daily, and the chance of a peasant getting cursed also goes up and down. Basic gameplay involves looking at the day's curse forecast, purchasing more raw stock if you think your store will need it, and setting a price for your potions. For example, on days with an 85% chance of being cursed, many peasants are going to be looking for potions and you can charge high prices. On days with a 10% chance, you'll want to lower your prices.
By the way, peasants use beans as currency.
Other business options available to your tiny potion shop are advertising and research. Every day you can spend any amount of beans you like on ads. These take the form of junk mail, singing telegrams, etc. You can also hire a motley assortment of goons to take your ad campaign to the streets. There are dwarves wearing signboards and someone named Blaire the Witch who scares up business for you. There are trolls who grab peasants and shake them until they agree to visit your shop. (Very comical.) You can place these goons anywhere in the village and monitor their influence. Your village will be in danger of additional curses arriving, so you'll also want to spend some of your daily budget on researching new potions. That way, when trouble arrives your new potion recipe will be ready to go and you can continue meeting your customers' needs.
If you don't have the potion your customers need, you run out of ingredients to meet potion demand, or you keep customers waiting for too long in a boring rickety shop, they'll leave unhappily and complain about you to any other peasants they meet. (You can tell they're complaining because you can read their thought balloons. But that doesn't work in Nancy Drew - Danger on Deception Island.) Luckily you can upgrade your shop by renovating the building, hiring a jester, or hiring a faster potion maker, such as one of Santa's elves.
Things begin to get challenging when your competition (other potion shops) get more ruthless. In your quest to become a potion baron, the Fairy Godmother will send you to eight villages, and in each the competition will be waiting with bigger shops and more resources. Cultivate your business acumen! Make charts and plot graphs.
Fairy Godmother Tycoon is wittier than a Black Adder episode, and references every possible fairy tale and fable imaginable. Some references are laugh out loud funny, and Mock Science deserves applause for the writing alone. There are so many references in the game that I suspect they went into alternate universes just to find more fables. My personal favorite fairy tale is "Donkey Cabbages," which my mother used to read to me as a child. This game brought back fond memories of witches and maidens eating cabbages and transforming into donkeys.
The graphics are excellent. Each of the villages are colorful and well-designed, and the peasants bumbling around with their curses are boffo entertaining. Especially when they're cursed with giant heads. Or when they're lit afire. In fact, how do peasants walk around with their heads on fire? That's one of the mysteries of this game.
Fairy Godmother Tycoon is one of the best Tycoon games, and has unusually high production values for a casual game. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone thinking about starting their own business. Also, if you ever catch on fire, concoct a potion of two fish heads (and the secret ingredient: water) and drink it quickly. It will ease that painful, burning sensation.
Download Fairy Godmother Tycoon