Magic Farm: Ultimate Flower (Click-management)
I don't normally enjoy Time Management games, but I LOVE this game. It's not your typical TM, so I have classified it as a click-management game to help distinguish it from the other TM's.
There is confusion on whether or not this is Ultimate Flower or just Magic Farm, but as far as I can see, the original Magic Farm is not available for purchase anywhere, including the developer site.
There are two modes of play - Casual and Hard-core - and the tutorial is optional The options menu includes sliders for sound and music, 3-D accelerator, Full-screen, Custom Cursors and Game Warnings. If you don't like the music, you can turn it off, but I recommend leaving the sound ON, as it will give you an audio prompt when you need to do certain things.
The story is done in comic-strip-esque style, and you can click right through it at your own pace. Briefly, you need to find your missing parents, and you make money by growing and selling flowers.
Sounds so-so, right? lol~
I can see where you might think that. There is a lot of strategy involved with planting the right flowers, defending your garden from pests, upgrading weapons to fight said pests, making sure you have enough water, etc. You also have a helper, the dragon, Robin. He's pretty inefficient at first, but he's very valuable. He'll work faster if you give him a piece of candy, and when HE waters your plants, you don't lose water!
As you progress and gain experience, you must choose where to level yourself and/or Robin. For example, will it be how quickly the flowers bloom, how fast Robin can water, how efficiently you fight off pests?
You have a set amount of time for each day to grow/collect flowers and keep your plants from dying from pests and/or lack of water.
Your game is saved automatically when you exit, but you have SAVE SLOTS, as well, so if you want to work on getting the best you can per day, you can easily start the day over again (assuming that you've remembered to save
)
More strategy comes in to play when you choose what plants to grow and which flowers to collect. Between "days", you can sell your flowers, and some sell for more than others, but making bouquets out of the flowers make them sell for twice the money.
When you first start selling flowers (for each garden/level), you have to drag and drop each and every flower to form the bouquets. Once you have discovered/used all of the flowers available for that garden, however, you can just CLICK on the bouquet and the flowers that are available for that bouquet will fly into place. Ahhh, got to love the efficiency of that option! Such a time-saver!
You have quests to accomplish throughout the game, and can't progress until you finish these tasks. To check your current task list, click on the scroll next to your character's picture in the upper left corner. BE SURE to talk to people as often as possible - you never know when they might offer you upgrades and/or new quests! Also, you will have multiple gardens that you can work in, each netting more money than the last... but when is the best and most cost-effective time to start a new garden? You'll figure that out as you progress through the game!
So, how much time is there to work per "day"? It doesn't actually have a timer with numbers in it to count you down (and possibly make you panic). Instead, there is a gauge in the top right corner. When day becomes night, you're out of time! I highly recommend ignoring the gauge, and instead have your sound turned on. When you're almost out of time, you'll hear the final tick-tick-tick of the day, so you will know to click fast(er)!
The game starts off SLOW, but after all, you only have two plants to start with! The game quickly picks up speed (and interest!), so be sure to give it a fair try. You DO have that day-timer, but can otherwise do things at your own pace. Replayability comes in when you try to finish all of the levels in a certain amount of days, and/or to become as efficient as possible. There is also a trophy room for accomplishments, which is always a nice touch.
This is really a great game, I highly recommend trying it, even if you don't generally enjoy this kind of game.
If you like Magic Farm, I also suggest:The Fifth Gate (Beautiful graphics!)
Grimm's Hatchery (Collecting eggs of strange creatures to regain throne)
Dragon Keeper (Collecting gems from baby dragons to make jewelry for a quest)
