iPhone App: Miriel The Magic Merchant
= 5 stars
Help magical Miriel run a merchant shop for the kingdom’s hungry and impatient citizens.
The Good
- Fairly intuitive controls: tap a store item at bottom to deliver it to the table. Tap items on the table to have Miriel pick them up, and tap on people or stoves to deliver the items.
- The challenge increases with each new item introduced. I’m about halfway through, juggling eggs, flour, water, milk, strawberries, apples, chocolate beans, and candy, plus tasked with making fried eggs, cakes, chocolate cake, and pie.
- Even with all the activity, the game runs very fast, which is much appreciated during busy moments.
- Tons of animations for every action: rotating timers monitor the completion of every timed event, Miriel zooms around the screen, and most satisfying is the stacking of money when a customer settles their bill.
- Recipes require dropping two items on a stove (a cake is an egg plus flour) and later levels require a two-step cooking process (a chocolate cake means baking a cake first, then adding some chocolate beans and cooking again).
- After finishing certain levels, actual recipes are displayed — I may try some.
- Some added variety via a game-within-a-game: some levels have an additional Tetris-y block challenge with the reward of an equipment upgrade.
The Bad
- You can’t throw cooked items into the trash.
- The top stove frustratingly close to one of the customers, making navigation to one or the other a bit difficult.
- The surrounding comic book story between levels isn’t as compelling as the crazy animations within the game itself.
Conclusion
Yes, this is YATMG (yet another time management game) but Miriel the Magic Merchant won me over, and in particular, the currently low sale price of 99 cents is a bargain. I’m playing this one to the end. Highly recommended.
iTunes App Store Link: Miriel the Magical Merchant — GameHouse