Game Time! Ada's Shopping Mall

Ada's Shopping Mall

Year: 2013

Company: Trinity Home Entertainment

# of Levels: 40

What I Paid: Free

Time Spent Playing: 4 hours & 46 minutes

Story Line: Grandpa is sick and the shopping mall has fallen on hard time so Ada takes it over.

Review:
+ Stores up to 3 profiles at the same time.

- The play feels very slo-motion. This is a little hard to describe but there is a slight delay when I command Ada to do something to when she actually does it.

- This game is similar to Sally games where there are multiple stations that each client may want to visit. However, if I remember correctly for Sally, there was about 5 areas max that they could visit (not counting paying at the cash register) but this game there is so many areas and the higher the level, the more that comes up. Not only that, but the clients can be at a "station" and request items that they need brought to them before they can start or finish the station. For example sometimes people will request an iron before they try on clothes or a yoga mat before they will finish with their workout. This makes it feel like there is too much going on in the game.

- You have to be very specific with your finger when you point on something you want them to do. If you are even slightly off, the person you're trying to move, won't move. I found this to be incredibly annoying because it's not something that I've come across very often.

- There are no specific instructions. It tells you generic things like make sure you "keep the customers happy" but doesn't explain in higher levels when it adds things for you to do. For example, later in the game when people go to see a movie they can request popcorn. You have to go get the popcorn and deliver it to them before they start the movie. The problem with this goes into my next point because the symbols of what the people want are so small that some of them are unrecognizable. It took me until a few of the customers got so mad that I wouldn't bring them popcorn and left before I even saw the popcorn machine. Plus the symbols for the treadmill and the movie theater are almost indistinguishable from each other.

- I know it's meant to be challenging but some things are just annoying. Why is the kitchen dishwasher in the perfume department? Why can't the "workout girl" character who insists on bringing her dog into the mall clean up after he poops on the floor? And why am I cleaning up dog poop with a vacuum? Giving the dog a bone or food would have made more sense to me.

- I played this entire game and still can't figure out how to discard an item that I picked up by mistake, like the yoga mat or popcorn or a gift wrapped box.

- You can only chain 10 commands together at one time which is a bit awkward since so much is going on but you have to wait for Ada to complete some of her tacks before you can assign her more which slows down my game play.

- I don't want to brag but I am an EXPERT at time management games. They've always been my favorite to play and for some strange reason they relax me. I have played many upon many games and this is the first one I have come across where I barely passed LEVEL 1! This is much more of a reflection of the game than it is of me. I think it's because it feels like it has a time delay and that I just wasn't use to the "slo-motion" of this game. It wasn't until halfway through this game when I became adjusted to the game play and figured out a few secrets to help me through. 

Overall (Worth the money?):
The only reason that I don't feel cheated from this game is because I was able to download it for free from iTunes. There are more than a few problems with the game; the delayed response when I touch something, too much going on in each level, having to be pinpoint specific when I try and command people places, the fact that there are very little instructions, and it just goes on. The only fact that was a positive for this game was that up to three profiles can be stored at the same time. I guess the old saying "nothing good comes for free" applies here.

C

Gameplay Tips:
- You are able to command Ada somewhere (say for example the clothing rack) before the person actually arrives there. Being proactive and sending her to places and people before she's asked really comes in handy with saving time.
- This is a very slow style of Time Management gaming because the customers have a lot of patience and it takes a long time for the patience to disappear enough for them to leave. So get a lot of people into different "stations" at your mall and just go back and forth between them all. The key isn't speed but the amount of people per level that you can serve.

**Check back every Tuesday for another game review and feel free to tweet me @popculturedlife with any time management games (that I can get from the iTunes App Store) that you would like to see in a future review!**