Antique Shop

OS: Windows XP/Vista
CPU: 1.0 GHz or faster Processor
RAM: 256 MB
Hard Drive: 49 MB

Antique Shop review

The game plot revolves around a recent graduate girl, who has a map to an ancient Greek treasure. However, nobody wants to sponsor an expedition for her, so she decides to raise the money herself. She opens up an Antique Shop, and you will have to manage it.

The first part of the game is done in the time management genre. This means that you will have to serve up the customers to your Antique Shop. You will have to move the customers from the entry door to your counter, ask them what they want to buy, serve them coffee, find the item for them and take the cash. It might seem easy, but once a queue of impatient customers lines up and you will be running out of time to serve all of them, you’ll see the challenge. Each customer has a happy face when he comes to your shop, but if you take too long to serve him, he will turn more and more angry. The more happy your customers are, the more reputation and money you gain.

Luckily, you won’t have to serve the customers all game long. After all, the main goal of the game is to find the treasure, not to earn the money. So once you have enough money and reputation from your customers, you will be able to travel to different historic locations to find the treasure. But before that, you’ll have to solve four riddles by buying the correct items from a big list you will have.

Once the riddles are solved and you’ve traveled to some location, you will finally see the hidden object game. You will have a list of items to find, and you will also have to use those clue items you’ve bought from the riddles. Your final goal at this hidden object gameplay is to find the hidden treasures. You can use your money to buy you hints, so time management and hidden object genres are cleverly intermixed with each other. Once you found your treasure, a new shop location will open up for sale.

Between days you will be able to upgrade your shop, or buy a shop in the new location (after solving each new hidden object puzzle). Upgrades will let you earn more money for the customers.

Conclusions: Antique Shop is very well made game with great production value. The graphics are top notch, the gameplay is well thought-out and addictive, and the genres mix works just right. While it is not exactly hidden object game, seek and find genre fans might find it interesting to try out the other genres, while being sure they will still get their share of hidden objects fun in the game. If you’re not sure if you’ll like the game, try out the demo first, which lets you play the game for 60 minutes.