Cleaning up is rarely fun to do. Unless you're cleaning someone else's mess, right? Hmm, no? How about if you're cleaning up someone else's mess... in a casual game? That's the surprisingly successful recipe for fun in Nanny Mania 2 Goes to Hollywood. After helping Mayor Whitby and his family in the original Nanny Mania, Emma moves on to help Sophia Ashford, an incredibly wealthy woman who can't seem to keep her family affairs in order. It's your job to help raise the children, care for pets, and keep the house spotless as clueless teenagers leave unmade beds and babies create problems of their own.
Nanny Mania 2 is all about turning chaos into order, and most of what you'll do will bear an eerie resemblance to real, actual chores in your home. Fortunately it's much easier to make the bed, do laundry, and clean the aquarium in this game, as all you have to do is click the mouse and wait a few seconds. Each level begins with a number of items in disarray, each highlighted in a nasty red outline. Send Emma to the nearest trouble spot to start cleaning, keeping an eye out for new messes created by family members wandering the home.
Not everything you do in Nanny Mania 2 will be a "click it and forget it" affair. Some tasks, like doing the laundry, feeding the baby or picking up litter, require you to gather items from about the house and move them elsewhere. With laundry, you even have to switch it to the drier and put the clothes away. Your extra work nets extra rewards, however, as you'll earn a combo bonus for doing everything in one big chain.
Analysis: Time and resource management games are getting to be crowded genres to compete in, as it seems just about every repetitive task we tackle in real life has been turned into a casual game. The original Nanny Mania played off of our innate sense of order and let us clean up messes without having to actually do anything. There's something enormously satisfying about making a house clean just by clicking a mouse. Speaking of which, when are my futuristic cleaning robots going to arrive in the mail? I sent the check off months ago...
Nanny Mania 2 keeps the same formula, pleasing visuals and light-hearted setting that made the original so enjoyable. New features include pets you have to care for, combo bonuses, a variety of house layouts and a few new chores to complete. Just enough to make it interesting. The game is also a good length with surprising replay value if you enjoy topping your previous stores.
One thing I'm disappointed with in Nanny Mania 2 is the upgrade system. The number and variety of items is fine, but you can only access them at certain points in the game, forcing you to make decisions you have to live with for quite a long time.
More polished than its predecessor, Nanny Mania 2 takes a great formula and steps it up a notch for another excellent resource management experience.
Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version
Mac OS X:
Download the demo
Get the full version
Nanny Mania 2 is available to download from these affiliates:
Walkthrough Guide
(Please allow page to fully load for spoiler tags to be functional.)
We've put together some tips and hints to help everyone with Nanny Mania 2. This is a time management game, so the most important thing is to get through all of the messes and chores as quickly as possible. There's no guarantee of a gold star on every level, but we hope these tips will help!
Tips and Hints
Combo Chains
You get combo chain bonuses for several common chores, such as picking up all of the clothes or trash at once, or for mopping all the puddles in a row.
You can see how many of the items are in the chain by looking at the links at the bottom left of your screen. The links that are still faded are the number you still have left to collect.
If you get all the trash at once, you'll get a time bonus. It really helps you get the perfect time for the level.
Getting tea/coffee will break your combo chain.
Right click to clear the queue and stop what you're doing. This comes in handy when something more urgent happens that needs attention. Be careful, though, because it will also break your combo chain.
First Things First
Get some tea/coffee first thing for an early boost. Keep taking refills.
Check for serious messes first and often. They are on a timer.
Have a baby bottle pre-warmed to save time when the baby gets hungry.
Do the laundry first because it takes some time and it can be running while you do other things.
It's helpful to pick up all of the clothes at the same time so that you only have to run a single load of laundry.
Don't Forget the Pets
When the dog joins the family, you'll have to let him out from time to time. He'll have a timer over his head. If you don't get to him in time, he'll leave a mess for you to clean up.
Eventually, a bird joins the family. He will absolutely leave his cage, so don't bother trying to figure out a way to keep him in it. Try to leave him for the end because if you put him in his cage too soon, he'll just leave it again.
Time Savers
Use the tea/coffee speed boost every time it fills up.
Clean everything in a room at once to save time going back and forth.
The fish keep dirtying the aquarium, so clean it near the end.
Dad messes up the chair when he sits in it, but he won't sit if it's dirty. Save the chair until near the end.
The family is patient while sitting at the table waiting for dinner. Take advantage of this to clean up without having them messing things up again.
Click on the kids when they are misbehaving to put them in time out and they won't make any messes for awhile.
When the kids start growing up, they will fight. Try to stop them before the fight actually breaks out or they will tear up everything.
If you're carrying something, you have to put it away before you can clean or pick something else up.
Posted by: Pam
|
March 8, 2009 9:26 PM