“Welcome to the Mystic Emporium, home of the finest potions, magical trinkets and exotic plants this side of the netherworld”.

Mystic Emporium ($3.99)

In this time management game from 99 games you play an up and coming sorceress who has always dreamed of having her own magic shop. Now it’s time to make that dream a reality. Fans of games like Cake Mania 3 will feel right at home in this Emporium, but with a theme that’s not food related and a few twists thrown in the game stands well enough on its own.

Presentation

Up to this point I can’t recall a time management game that really had bad graphics, and Mystic Emporium is no exception to the rule. The emporium is nicely detailed, and the characters are bright and colorful. They have great entrance and exit animations, and some of them even have cool little things they do while waiting, like the witch tossing an apple in the air and catching it. I also like how certain standard time management elements have been skinned to fit the environment, such as the garbage pan being an actual creature that eats your mistakes.

The sound effects are good, and really add to the atmosphere of the game. From blatant noises like the witch’s cackle or the hiss of the snakes in medusa’s hair to more subtle tones like the slimy slither of the octopus tentacle that replaces the trinkets, everything blends together to make you feel like you’re in a netherworld magic shop. I just wish the patrons were a little more chatty while waiting in line, though that’s usually my complaint in these games. The music is good in the context of the game, but it actually gets kind of annoying if you just sit and listen to it on its own for a little while. I know most of you won’t do that, but I’m just saying…

Controls

The controls in Mystic Emporium are all about tapping. You tap on a customer to take their order or to give them their product. You tap on the cauldron to prepare or to take a potion. You tap on items to upgrade them in the store. I think you get the picture. For the most part the tapping is pretty accurate, which is actually pretty amazing given how small some of the areas are that you have to tap in.

For some odd reason, though, I seem to have problems selecting patrons a lot of times. It’s a bit surprising, given that they are probably the biggest objects you need to tap in the game. I’ve also noticed some problems tapping during the mini-game that you play every once in a while, but I think that’s a result of the mini-game being sluggish as a whole.

Game Play

The basics of Mystic Emporium (and most time management games, for that manner) are that you must earn enough money each day to keep your emporium going. To earn money you must keep your customers happy, which means keeping them supplied with all the potions, magical trinkets and berries that they desire. In the time management world a level corresponds to one day that the store is open, and throughout each day patrons will come into the store. Tap on a customer to take its order, and then get to work providing them with what they need. Magical trinkets are the easiest, because you just have to take it off the shelf and give it to the customer. Be sure to continually replenish you stock on these, because they are nice for getting a customer out of the store quickly.

Next up are the most complex items, which are the potions. You tap on the icon for the potion the customer wants and then tap on the cauldron you want to use to make the potion. Then you have to gather the components from your shelves to make the potions and add them to the cauldron. Thankfully you can carry two things at a time, but as the game progresses potions will start requiring more than two ingredients. Once all the ingredients have been added you light the cauldron and let it brew (luckily it auto-stirs). Once the potion is complete and you pass it on you have a happy customer. Finally there’s a berry that you can grow by adding the requested ingredients to a flower pot. You can work on this while you’re serving the customers, and it’s always a good idea to keep one on hand in case someone requests it.

Whenever you serve a customer you’ll earn some money. The item you’re selling has a fixed cost, and then the customer will give you a tip depending on how your service was. There is a certain monetary goal you must reach for each day, and once you’ve surpassed that goal there’s an expert level you can try for. You don’t need to reach the expert level to move on to the next day, however. In between each day you have the opportunity to spend some of your money. You can use it to buy more cauldrons, or you can upgrade your cauldrons to produce potions more quickly or your shoes to move you around the shop faster. You can also by a harp that will help soothe the clients and make them more patient.

Every once in a while a mini-game springs up where you have to keep the playing field clear by tapping three or more of the same pictures in a group to clear them from the screen. When you collect a certain number of a specific type of picture you’ll fill up a bottle which will earn you a bonus to help you out for a few days. You get two lives to try and fill up a bottle, and you lose a life if the objects get to the top of the screen before you clear them.

Suggestions

The main thing I’d suggest is getting rid of the mini-game. I appreciate their effort in trying to break up the flow of the game a bit, but for me it doesn’t add anything to the game, and it’s too sluggish and unresponsive to be enjoyable anyway. That being said, if they’re going to leave it in, and least make it run as well as the rest of the game.

Conclusion

I know time management games are a bit more niche than most casual games, and there’s not a lot about Mystic Emporium that will turn you on to them if you don’t like them to begin with. If you’re already a fan of the genre, however, this is one you won’t want to miss. The addition of things like the magic berry and the phoenix (you’ll find out around day 10) give it that something a bit different than most games of this type. And of course there’s the whole setting in the first place. If you’ve never experienced a time management game before, this is probably one of the better places to start.