Lemonade Tycoon 2: New York Edition



With millionaires giving out money and jobs to bravest or smartest contestants on reality television, it seems that being a tycoon-wannabe is the "in" thing now. But, let's face it: most of us are not going to get a chance to become the next "Apprentice." But, you can experience the thrill of becoming a big-time lemonade mogul with JAMDAT Mobile's Lemonade Tycoon 2: New York Edition.

JAMDAT, mainly know for their games made for mobile phones and PDAs, brings the latest installment in the Lemonade Tycoon series to the Mac courtesy of the good people at MacPlay.


Lemonade Tycoon 2 lets you take your lemonade selling skills from the home neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn to the hip streets of Greenwich Village, the high-traffic areas of Central Park and Grand Central Station, to the ultimate business venues of the Statue of Liberty and Times Square.

There are three different modes to play Lemonade Tycoon 2 in. You can either choose a Time Challenge, and Money Challenge, or a Career Game. The Time Challenge gives you a limited amount of time to make as much money as you can. The Money Challenge gives you a dollar goal to reach in the shortest amount of time. Of course, the Career Game starts you as a lowly single-stand owner, and lets you work your way up to New York City's Lemonade Tycoon.

While it may not be as deep as some business simulations, Lemonade Tycoon 2 has a lot going for it.

Graphics
A title like Lemonade Tycoon 2 will generally not rely on graphics to bring you into the simulation, but I found the graphics to be quite enjoyable. Having played the original Lemonade Tycoon on the PC, I can say that the graphics have improved tremendously with this version. On my 1 GHz machine, there was no slowdown anywhere in the game, even in the heaviest sales traffic in an area like Central park. The street corners where you peddle your lemony wares are bright and colorful, with nicely detailed storefronts and buidlings. The little people mulling around are well-done, and detailed enough to tell the mothers from the school children from the businessmen. No, the graphics aren't 3D accelerated, texture-mapped, millions of polygons and the like. They are simply pleasing to look at.

Sound
To be honest, I immediately turned the sound down when I was greeted with the opening music. It's loud and peppy, with synthesized trumpets and a bouncy background track. I wasn't impressed. The sounds and music once you get into the game are much better, and quieter I might add. Some much lighter music greets you as you move through the various screens between days. As you watch the business taking place during the days, you are treated to ambient background sounds that suggest the area you are currently in. From city traffic sounds to birds in the trees to hustling people, the sounds here are nicely done. One option that I wish existed was feedback sounds for the customers. As each customer leaves your stand, a small icon appears above their head telling you what they thought of the visit. I wish that there was an option to have feedback sounds for this feature, as well. It would be nice, especially when managing multiple stands, to have some sound alerting you to the fact that everyone thinks your lemonade is to sour.

Game Play
This is where Lemonade Tycoon 2 excels. This game is very easy to get into. From the moment that you set up your first stand, buy your first stock, and sell your first cup, you will feel like an old pro. The game will walk you through what you need to know to get started. And, if the in-game hints aren't enough, there is a full tutorial included with the game. Unfortunately, the tutorial is not an in-game tutorial, but a series of HTML documents that open in your web browser, much like the Help system for the game does. This can be a bit jarring at first, since the game gives no indication that it is going to exit out and open up your web browser. I would have much rather had all of the information available via popups in the game itself.




Once you get into the game a little, you will start to see that there is more to being a successful lemonade person than just handing out cups of lemonade. Your customers are a fickle bunch. Changes in the weather, the economic climate, and the time of day all have a bearing on how much they are willing to pay for a cup, what type of recipe they will enjoy, how long they'll wait for a cup, and whether or not they want a cup at all. Luckily, Lemonade Tycoon 2 makes a huge improvement over the first installment here. Before, there were only a couple of icons that would appear over a customer's head after they had purchased a cup of lemonade. There was an icon for a satisfied customer, one icon showing that the customer didn't like something about the recipe, one showing that it cost to much, and one showing that the wait was too long. The first one and last two were no problem, easy to recognize what was wrong with the last two and take steps to fix it. But the icon showing that the recipe was not good was too vague. I would spend days of game time trying to get the recipe right, and it was very frustrating. In Lemonade Tycoon 2, there are much more descriptive icons for your customers. There are icons showing that there is too much or not enough lemon, too much or not enough sugar, and that the lemonade is too hot or too cold. This makes it much easier to fine-tune your recipe, and decide how factors like time of day and weather affect what people will want in their lemonade.

To truly become successful, you'll need to delve into other aspects of the business. You will need to purchase upgrades for your stand to keep your customers happy. Things from a calculator to a music system to an ice maker all affect how much the customer will enjoy their visit. Training of your staff will also improve the quality of service, and get your customers moving through more efficiently. Advertising will also help bring the people in, from web advertising to pamphlets to radio and television campaigns. Its also important to keep an eye on traffic patterns, as each of your locations has two or three different places that you can set up a stand.

Between business days, you can go through the tallies for the day, and get information on how customers reacted during the day. You can check out business trends, and tweak your prices and recipes to match the weather forecast and event for the next day. You do have quite a bit of control over your business, and its amazing the difference that one little tweak will make the next business day. There is also the LSX, which is Lemonade Tycoon's version of the stock exchange, where you can post your earnings and compete against other players from around the world to see who's the biggest tycoon. From a game play standpoint, this game's no lemon! (Sorry, had to get one lemon pun in there!)

Value
The career mode in Lemonade Tycoon 2 will take a while to master, and it'll be fun to see just how much money you can continue to rake in. But eventually, there will be nowhere else to grow. It would be nice if there were other cities to move to, or maybe the chance to develop new product lines (apple-lemonade, or grape-lemonade, anyone?). The time and money challenges are always good for a quick game now and then, and the inclusion of the LSX helps to keep a level of competition in the game. But, unless you find challenge in starting another career from scratch, there may not be a lot of reason to keep coming back to Lemonade Tycoon 2. But, while you're there, you're in for a great game.

At the end of the business day...
While Lemonade Tycoon 2 may not prepare you to take on the likes of Donald Trump or Bill Gates, this enjoyable business simulation will surely make you feel like a business success. And at a price of less than $20, it's really as close to a sure thing as you'll ever get in the business world.

Pros:
? Nice, colorful graphics
? Appropriate in-game background sounds and music
? Very easy to pick up
? Learning curve not too steep
? Much-improved people satisfaction icons

Cons:
? Opening music may make you leap for your volume control
? Tutorial should have been kept in-game, instead of putting it in a web browser
? Could have used more cities to keep you coming back to the game
? Would be nice to have customer feedback sounds, as well as icons


***REMOVE " " SPACE BETWEEN "pro" and "tector" in "pro tector"
EnJoy