by Tim Peters

Created on: August 14, 2008   Last Updated: September 26, 2008

Tropical Mania is one of the latest offerings by Ovo Games, allowing you to take charge of a series of holiday resorts. Unfortunately, it's riddled with lazy and careless design flaws from start to finish. Worst of all, while games don't need to be difficult to be entertaining, Tropical Mania puts so little pressure on players that it would've been more practical to ask the player to watch paint dry.

There could be something to the premise, in which you play the manager of a tropical island resort, full of areas just waiting to be developed. Your goal in each level is to get your guests to love you by sending housekeepers and waitresses, as well as food and drinks. Upgrades are available periodically, and the one innovation in Tropical Mania is that you have a choice of where your new buildings go, allowing you a chance to more efficiently organize the resort. But this is the only part of Tropical Mania that shows any sign of life.

Guests never complain in Tropical Mania. In fact, you can completely ignore them until you're about to finish a level, and they'll still pay you in full for services rendered. Maybe no one at Ovo Games ever heard this, but guests on vacation don't generally pay to be ignored. This total disregard for one of the most important aspects of customer service - punctuality - means there's absolutely no incentive to work quickly. Anyone can get a decent score in this game by sitting on their hands for ten minutes before doing anything. Evidently, Tropical Mania's customer service model is based on the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The lack of effort extends to the visuals as well. While the scenery and buildings barely manage to look presentable, there are no people to be seen anywhere in the game. Your staff are represented by ugly-looking shields, icons represent guests' needs, and you are represented by a tray. That seems like an appropriate metaphor for what the developers think of their audience. Tropical Mania is so bad that its best asset is its drab audio. The music may sound like generic elevator fare and the sound effects are unmemorable, but they aren't any more obnoxious than the rest of the game.

Tropical Mania is a poor substitute for better games in this genre, such as Cake Mania or Diner Dash. And while these games may not always properly reward the player for making their clients happy, at least they try. Tropical Mania doesn't even show any guests. That's probably good, because I think I may have left the people in that one bungalow alone for three hours without getting them their drinks. At least they'll give me full credit for serving them if I ever get around to them. In the real world, on the other hand, it takes effort to please your customers. Tropical Mania fails completely at this, earning a 1 out of 5.

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