Do you remember the time when you first started playing video games? For everyone of us there is a first game, and playing more and more games you find out which ones you like best. Some you find because your friends urge you to give them a try, some you find by accident. Before I had my iPad I only played DS games, and while most people buy an iPad to use it as a computer, googling things on the Internet, for their mail and such, I couldn’t wait to try it as a gaming device. It opened up a new kind of games for me, that I hadn’t tried on the DS yet: (time) management games. I’ve written here before about one of my favorites, HayDay, before. I haven’t mentioned another one yet that I’ve played from the start, but when I saw a new one released this December, I decided to write about it.
Funny how coincedences happen, because when I did my research for this blog I found out that the games developers are from my own hometown here in the Netherlands! All the more reason to give these games a little love. I’m talking about Declicious: Emily. A strange name, or so I always thought, for games. But that’s the reason my curiosity was piqued in the first place, I wanted to see what kind of game was behind this name.
The games have been around for some time, the first one was released in 2006, made by Zylom. They tell the story of Emily, a waitress who wants to one day run her own restaurant, and she works in several other restaurants to make money to make her dream come true. After the first three games, Zylom decided to make the games more lifelike: a storyline was added, and Emily’s world became more memorable. And from that fourth game on, the games that followed got high ratings at Gamezebo. The seventh game, Emily’s True Love, got an overall score of 5 out of 5! It was also the first game in played in 2011.
I’m sure many of you know a lot of time management games. And while they are good, most don’t have a storyline that makes you want to come back and see what happens next. Emily’s games do: at least, I really wanted to find out how she found her true love in the end, and if it was Jean-Paul, for whom she travelled to Paris and managed his restaurant. ( it wasn’t, by the way, it was Patrick at home all along) So, what do you do in the game? Like I said, Emily runs a restaurant, where customers come in, alone or in a group, and choose to either sit down at a table or take out. Emily serves them what they ask for, sometimes she has to combine ingredients, grill them or mix them. She has to make it quick of course, before they become impatient and leave. Fast service and entertainment, along with creative restaurant decorating, can keep the customers happy and result in a bigger tip. And meanwhile there’s a little mini game for you to play, finding the mouse that pops up somewhere in your screen. And in some episodes task are added, like cleaning or tidying up. Sometimes it seems near impossible to manage all of it!
We have followed Emily through life, she got her restaurant, got the love of her life though there were some hiccups with her mother in law and a former girlfriend, and now we find her with her child in the latest installment in Emily’s New Beginning. The games aren’t free, naturally I’d almost say. They are good and full games, and the plus side is that when you’ve payed your €8,99 ( for the last game, the earlier games are cheaper) you aren’t bothered anymore by commercials, extras you have to pay for, energy that is so low that you are forced to take a break or whatever. But they do offer the first few episodes for free, so you can try before you buy.
There’s only one problem with the games as far as I’m concerned: pulse racing, heart thumping, so many goals to meet! And if you’ve followed my earlier blogs, you’ll know I’m not always in the mood for goals!