Ice Cream Craze: Tycoon Takeover is the sequel to the original game that made time management games great (heh). Help Anna grow her business from an old ice cream truck into a force to challenge the well-established ice cream mogul BigCo.
In the original Ice Cream Craze, you helped a teenager in the 1950s named Jan run her parents’ ice cream parlor. Now, 2 decades have passed and you find out that her store was shut down by a giant company called BigCo. Now you play the role of Anna, Jan’s granddaughter. Anna believes that she can compete against BigCo and starts by serving ice cream in an old truck. Granny Jan is also there to give advice along the way.
The overall goal of the game is to grow Anna’s business enough to challenge BigCo. She does this by having over $5000 in the bank and a significant business presence at all 9 locations across town. The way you do this is what makes the game stand out from other time management games and introduces a fresh new perspective.
The main part of the game is to serve ice cream to the customers in the ice cream truck. This starts out pretty easy at first, with just cones, 3 flavors of ice cream, and 3 toppings to choose from. But depending on the difficulty of each level, you may have to juggle cones, brownies and cakes, and all sorts of flavors and toppings.
The difficulty of each level depends on where in the city you are and what you are playing for. And this is where the game stands out from other time management games. In other games, you can buy upgrades between games. In this game, however, upgrades are rewarded for completing specific levels. So you’ll need to decide whether you want to play around with an espresso machine that gives you temporary speed boosts or a cupcake plate that keeps your customers satisfied longer.
The game is not just a linear series of levels as well. The game is separated by days, and what you decide to do each day has a huge impact on the success of your business. Will you spend day 9 trying to win the espresso machine? Or should I try to set up a new circus position for ongoing side income every day? Setting up new stalls might be a good idea, but if you don’t go for efficiency improvements, you might find some of the more advanced levels a bit unwieldy.
It’s this overall strategy that gives the game much of its appeal and will keep you coming back for more even after you’ve finished the game. Do you want to play as a businessman and quickly establish bases all over the city? Or would you rather increase the efficiency of your service and earn lots of money every day?
The appearance of the game is not too bad either. There are no flashy movies or cool animations, but the game’s graphics are nice and definitely capture the feel of an ice cream parlor. However, one thing that bothers me is the abnormally large eyes that the characters have. They just give me chills…
Ice Cream Craze 2 is a great game to try, not only because it contains a very good time management aspect, but also because it revolves around a very fun and delicious business. Also, the overall business and strategic decisions you have to make in this game give it a unique feel that is different from other time management games out there.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
You can read more about Ice Cream Craze: Tycoon Takeover at http://gamepudding.com/r/ice-cream-craze-2.html
