When Games Simulate Life - Indie Sim Games Overview.

Like simulators? There are hundreds of independent game developers who developer excellent and very unique games you should really know about. Here are some of the picks.

Coffee Tycoon (Jamopolis)

Coffee Tycoon gives sim games a jolt of caffeine. It’s packed with awesome graphics, tons of features, and lots of fun. Start fresh with one store, customize your coffee business by giving it a name and choosing a logo and store design. From there, choose a city start your coffee empire, maybe New York or L.A., or if you are really daring, the coffee capital of the world: Seattle!

Coffee Tycoon is filled with dozens of charming characters who will offer up their opinions, good or bad, on the quality of your store. Choose from dozens of store upgrades and coffee recipes to customize your business. First, you’ll need to choose a name for your coffee company. It can be anything you like. Some examples of names are: “Sally’s Coffee”, “Cup of Joe” or “Cream and Sugar.” Adjust the percentage of each type of Employees to meet your daily need. If you need more Money, make more Employees Baristas. If you need more Customers, make more Employees Managers and so on.

Betty’s Beer Bar

Betty’s Beer Bar is a fast paced and addictive arcade game. Your task is to serve the customers as quickly as possible - keep them happy and they will give you huge tips. Serve them coffee when they’re about to get drunk, to keep them awake - drunk customers rarely pay. This nurse had one beer too many. With good reflexes and a sharp mind, Betty will earn enough money to leave her original work place and start progressing towards her own bar in the caribbean! Betty’s Beer Bar features four unique scenarios and over fifty original and fun animated characters in a beautiful hand-drawn, cartoonish style.

It also includes different soundtracks to keep you fully immersed in its world. Even bears come to Betty’s Beer Bar. You can choose your own difficulty level to keep the game challenging at any time. It also includes an in-game tutorial so you will be playing in no time. You can also play in several different modes - including Free Play, Time Challenge and Story Mode, complete with inter-level cutscenes. And ifyou feel like competing, post your score in our online scoreboard.

Smugglers 3

In the case of Smugglers 3, you are a pilot in a interstellar conflict. However, instead of spending your time in non-stop battle action sequences, Smugglers 3 is based more on text.
Smugglers 3 places you in one of four factions. Each of the factions has different objectives and weapons. Playing through the game, one of your main goals is to trade goods with the various planets that you visit. This will help you to build up your funds so that you can buy better weapons and a better ship. In addition you will undertake missions that will help to increase your standing within your faction and win you medals of honor.

You do in fact have action battles in the game. However, the battles consist of you and an enemy in a turn based conflict that shows you both ships, a proximity meter and the special weapons that you each have available. These battles work very well to put you in control of all the important factors of the battle without making you get too tied up with minute details.

Game Download Links:

Coffee Tycoon http://www.deprice.com/coffeetycoon.htm

Betty’s Beer Bar http://www.deprice.com/bettysbeerbar.htm

Smugglers 3 http://www.deprice.com/smugglers.htm

John Deprice loves simulators. His collection is publically available at http://www.deprice.com/games-6-1.htm

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Three Methods for Making Money from Online Games

Many options exist for online gamers to make money whether you are an avid World of Warcraft player who just wants to make a little side income to cover game subscriptions or an entrepreneur looking to generate a full-time income. Millions of people around the world play online games, also known as massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), and these virtual online game worlds have created a real world money-paying market for in-game goods. Three common approaches to earning money on the online game market are discussed here.

1. The most straightforward method you could employ for making money is to play for in-game money to the exclusion of other game activities. Every game has some form of currency whether it is platinum in EverQuest II, ISK in EVE Online, or credit in Anarchy Online. Amassing an in-game fortune will provide you with a valuable commodity to other players.

Customers can be found for your in-game currency within gaming community websites and forums, direct internet advertising, and many people auction their game wealth at eBay and Player Auctions www.playerauctions.com. You can also sell your currency to another company that specializes in delivering in-game currencies to players. Many of the companies that sell currency actively buy currency because it is how they get inventory. Such middlemen companies proliferate on the internet and can be easily found by doing a search related to your specific game. For example, a search for “World of Warcraft gold” will delivery many sites and ads from places that buy and sell the gold.

An advanced method you could take for building more in-game wealth is to purchase a high-level game account. This would provide you with a game character that is powerful, capable, and has a great deal of access in the game world. A high-level account would let you collect more in-game money at a faster rate. Just like the real world, the more you have, the more you can get.

2. Another common method for making money from online games is to develop characters. All MMORPGs possess levels, which apply to the character that the player uses. A brand new character is a level 1 and would not have much in the way of abilities or market value. However, a much higher level character could be readily sold to people who want to start a game with a strong character that is capable of many fun activities in the game world.

Popular games like Dark Age of Camelot, Guild Wars, EVE Online, and Ultima Online have active markets for accounts. In order to develop a character with attractive and marketable qualities, you should be very knowledgeable about the game you are working in so you will have the skills to quickly build a character that will sell at a good price.

3. A natural step beyond developing characters is to become an account broker. This is a profitable approach to the online game market and means that you will buy game accounts and sell them to other players at a profit. Using character development skills to boost the value of a bargain account can go hand-in-hand with brokering.

To successfully do this, you must be experienced with the game or games in which you are dealing so you will know the traits of a good account. You will also need to research your market by regularly scanning the closed listings at eBay to see how much accounts are selling for. The Player Auctions site is another excellent place to research the going rates for various types of accounts. Knowing the market is essential for you to develop the ability to spot bargains. Buying an account at an undervalued price will allow you to sell the account at a profit.

Once you have acquired an account to sell, you can list it for sale at eBay or other auction sites, or sell directly from your own website. Marketing the account with a detailed description of the account’s traits and assets helps to get a sale. Do not skimp on your marketing message. Prospective buyers will want to know exactly what they are getting before they spend a few hundred dollars.

Game account brokering is a more advanced method for making money in this market because it requires research, time, and the willingness to take some gambles on an account’s potential value. Still, account sales are a significant portion of the online game market and can generate a good income for you if you know your game and what your customer needs.

Whatever method you might use to make money from online games, you should always focus on a niche market that interests you. Find a place in the market where you have superior knowledge and it is not over saturated with competition, and you could be on track to join the many other successful business people in the unreal estate market.

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Category: newgamestore | Tags: account, currency, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, EverQuest II, Guild Wars, mmorpg, World of Warcraft | Be the First to Comment »

Weird Games, Part I

Tired of playing same old boring games? There are dozens of wacky, offbeat or just plain weird games out there and I’ve got the scoop on the latest releases. Check ‘em out.

Varmintz (Skunk Studios)

This humorous game places the safety of a wacky crew of raccoons in your hands. In Varmintz Deluxe, you guide five furry creatures through an obstacle-packed maze.

Varmintz Deluxe brings back classic hop-and-dodge style gameplay in a fast-paced, character-rich environment. The game includes a range of characters and stars. Varmintz is a scrappy raccoon posse in search of golden eggs. Each of the more than 50 levels contains a variety of challenging obstacles and in-game enemies, including rabid dogs, lumberjacks, cowboys, joggers, and skateboarders.

Oh yeah, it’s the only game of this kind, where you have no weapons whatsoever. Good luck!

Free Download: http://www.deprice.com/varmintz.htm

Enigmo (MumboJumbo)

Enigmo is a 3D puzzle game where you move various streams of flowing liquid so that the droplets get to their destination. Liquids (water, oil, and lava) fall from “droppers” and will bounce around the walls of a mechanism. You move and rotate into position various types of bumpers, sliders, accelerators, and sponges in order to divert the flow of the falling droplets. The faster you complete each level, the more bonus you will receive.

The puzzles in Enigmo are mainly about studying the environment and knowing the devices at your disposal. How does water react with the sponge? How does oil react with the bumper? What will happen with the lava if you rotate the slider just a little bit? The game is made more complex by having to accomplish elements in a certain order. You not only have to divert 50 drops of liquid into the receptacle, you also have to first gain access to the receptacle. There’s a lot about which to think, here, and it’s rare that I ever solved a puzzle correctly on the first try. Trial and error is the way to get through this game

Free Download: http://www.deprice.com/enigmo.htm

Pax Galaxia (Dio Games)

Pax Galaxia is a uniquely addictive real time strategy game of stellar conquest. The difficulty ranges from extremely easy to nearly impossibly difficult. While the easy modes are suitable for a fun couple of minutes trying to beat your time records, the more difficult ones will require all your concentration and the mastery of all the tricks of the game to overcome the computer players.

There are more than thirty maps to choose from, and you can quickly make many more using the random map generator and the easy to use in-game editor. You can choose between four levels of difficulty and each map can be played multiple times with each of the opposing forces. You’ll be entertained for months.

Free Download: http://www.deprice.com/paxgalaxia.htm

John Deprice loves weird games. His collection is publically available for free download at http://www.deprice.com/games.htm

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