Jo's Dream Organic Coffee is an extremely challenging time management game with surprising details, beautiful graphics, and a demanding consumer base. Don't be fooled by it's relaxing premise. This game offers the player a caffeinated boost of adrenaline that's not for the faint of heart.
Every Sunday, my husband and I like to sit down on the couch, sip our steaming cups of coffee and enjoy a nice lazy morning playing whatever game has caught our attention at that moment in time. Inevitably he turns to some game like Modern Warfare, where he runs around shooting something, and I comment every now and then on how "great a shot that was honey." I, on the other hand, try to save these times for something a little less stressful to match my chill mood.
So, when I saw Jo's Dream Organic Coffee, I thought to myself, oh how perfect! That's just what I need to chill out this morning. It has the word "dream" right in it... and on top of that it's organic. This will be awesome. I'll spend my morning making lattes and cappuccinos for my adoring public. I should have known better.
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At first glance, Jo's Dream Organic Coffee is like any other traditional serving style time management game. The story is the same as a million others. Girl graduates and goes on a world trip (what girl doesn't right?), girl decides it's time to finally get a job, girl buys a run down building and starts a coffee shop... because we all have that kind of cash lying around after college and a world trip... eye roll please...
Anyhow... right off the bat, I knew something was a bit different about this game. Where was my person to order around? Guess what? There is none. That person is your hand clicking around making things yourself... I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, it brought the level of interaction up a notch. I actually felt like I was running around making things in the coffee shop. On the other, I like ordering people around and this experience was a little stressful for me, especially during my special quiet time.
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To add on to that level of stress... you actually had to memorize recipes... now you're probably thinking, Tracy, it's a coffee shop... you pour the coffee and go... No. Do you know how to make a spicy Americano coffee? Or a French Hot Chocolate? Well I don't. And I kept getting all the recipes mixed up! And unlike most time management games in this genre, they let you make recipes that don't exist and give them to your customers... and then you get unhappy customers who look at the garbage you just gave them as if you poured chocolate on worms and served it to them...
Want to get even more frazzled? You can give customers the wrong order... so if Joe on the bar ordered an espresso and a croissant and Jane at the table ordered chocolate ice cream, and I can't remember who ordered what and I accidentally switch them... they take the order, call you an idiot, and then you've lost that customer.
Needless to say, I was screaming and clicking my way through the levels and my quiet chill morning was shattered into a thousand splashes of hot coffee.
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Did I enjoy Jo's Dream Organic Coffee? Even now... I'm not quite sure. I was left with such a mix of emotions. I love time management games, but this one just ruffled me a bit. It was challenging in all the wrong ways. It made me work in ways I didn't want to. On the other hand, I'm sure it was one of those games that I could feel making my brain work with all that memorization.
I had this feeling with all aspects of the game, even the graphics, which were surprisingly detailed and much more thought out than most games in this genre. Truthfully the details were beautiful. The shop was skillfully drawn out, down to the last little golden edges of the croissants. The customers on the other hand... it took me awhile to put my finger on what was giving me the creep factor with them. They were very detailed and nicely drawn, but their heads were huge. And they moved around in a jerky fashion... except their heads. So it was like some weird zombie bobble-head that didn't bobble, lurching across the screen and ordering fancy drinks at my shop.
The music? It was OK. Nothing that made my eardrums bleed, but nothing that struck me as anything to write home about. They did add a nice feature where you could change the track, but maybe it's just my tone deaf ears, but I really couldn't tell the difference when I supposedly changed the music.
The sound effects? Yeah they got on my nerves a little. There were no voices really, just funny weird noises from the customers as they tried to get your attention or responded to you in some way. It was like talking to a bunch of ducks that squawked their displeasure at you if you didn't move fast enough.
Overall, I think that Jo's Dream Organic Coffee is perfect... for the hardcore time management serving fan who has the ability to memorize complicated recipes and can click through tons of demanding customers with ease. I on the other hand... just couldn't keep up with all the coffee, tea, and cocoa variations, and found that my stress levels were a bit too high for true enjoyment... maybe I need to look for Tracy's Dream Bar to calm down. It doesn't even have to be organic...
