Supermarket Management 2 for the iPad Brings More Time Management Fun!

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Despite initial reservations I have come to love games like SuperMarket Management 2 in the time management genre. As you make progress things get more difficult and you need to balance more tasks, difficult customers, shifting priorities, combined items, and more – all while timing gets more critical! One great thing – if you like the demo you’ll love the game!

Type of app: Time Management game

Platform/where to buy: iPad (iPhone version available here; available in the iTunes App Store

Developer: Playful Age / G5 Entertainment

Description:
Supermarket Management 2 has loads of content, including:
? 49 challenging levels
? 22 achievements to earn
? Nine whimsical characters
? Eight exciting mini-games
? Five fascinating locations
? Game Center Support
? New iPad retina display support

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Major features:

I have always found it ironic calling games like Supermarket Management ‘casual’, because they are some of the more frantically paced games I have played!

Supermarket Management 2 is more or less about enabling all of your customers to buy what they want without too much delay.

That makes it sound simple … but it really isn’t! You have a dozen or so shelves of product to keep stocked while customers are constantly coming in and out of your market. You also need to run the register, keep the floors clean, move the shopping baskets back to the entry, handle customer issues, deal with suppliers, and make customer multi-step items.

The goal for each level is to gain an ‘Expert’ rating. This is based on the money gained, which isn’t just about sales but also about whether you keep your shelves stocked, the store clean, how many customers you served and how many you lost, and so on. Customers can be happy (green), annoyed (yellow), or angry (red). After they are angry you have a limited time before they simply leave the store and lower your score. You can get lower ratings and pass the level or fail and need to try again.

When you start the game you play through what amounts to the demo levels. Here your customers are predominantly little old ladies and college kids. The old ladies move slowly around and buy a few different items and have loads of patience. The college kids tend to get distracted by their phones and will hang around for a while giving your precious extra time to restock shelves and clean the floor. Sometimes people get lost and need help finding a specific item, requiring you to move them to the required place.

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And once you get past the ‘demo’ section of the game things get really interesting! You have already been shown more challenging customers and the ability to buy upgrades. One upgrade will completely clean the store, which is an absolute boon later on! You can also upgrade your shelves for more capacity and your mop for more efficient cleaning, and so on. Planning your upgrades and spending everything you can as soon as possible definitely makes your life easier.

As you get more customers coming in of a variety of types you will discover that it is the mix that causes the challenge more than any one specific customer type. You will have someone who buys large amounts of food as well as someone with little patience and a destructive child and a drive-through customer requiring multiple items FAST and someone at one of the combo items … all at once!

The combination items are a real challenge. For example, to build a milkshake you need to gather up milk and ice cream, take it to the shake machine, and then wait for time to elapse until your shake is done. During this time loads of other things are happening around the store, so you really have to map out a plan and not simply react to what is going on at that moment. It is better to have two customers annoyed (yellow) than one customer angry, for example.

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Ease of use/Overall performance: If you have ever played a time management game in the past you know what you are in for. And Supermarket Management 2 plays exactly as you would expect for this type of game – your eyes are all over the screen and you are busy tapping and waiting for actions to complete and hoping to be fast and strategic enough to get to Expert ranking!

Technically Supermarket Management 2 is wonderful. The touch controls work perfectly with no issues even as the action really gets cranking. The music is cheery and well suited with the game – you won’t want it on your iPod but will find yourself humming the tunes after playing. The graphics are detailed and colorful and distinct enough to never lose sight of anything even as the shop gets crazy busy. Since the story is told through comic book styled pages you don’t have to worry about the voice acting.

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Would use again/recommend?: Definitely! As I said, I enjoyed the fast paced and addictive gameplay, the bright and cheery graphics. I found it was Worth retrying levels to get Expert rating, and overall had many hours of fun playing!

Suggested changes/wish list for updates: Some levels get so frantic it is hard to finish at all, let alone get to ‘expert’!

Source: Publisher provided review code

Price: Free download – (in-app purchase for full game is $4.99 for iPhone, $6.99 for iPad)

Here is the trailer:

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About the Author

Michael Anderson
I have loved technology for as long as I can remember - and have been a computer gamer since the PDP-10! Mobile Technology has played a major role in my life - I have used an electronic companion since the HP95LX more than 20 years ago, and have been a 'Laptop First' person since my Compaq LTE Lite 3/20 and Powerbook 170 back in 1991! As an avid gamer and gadget-junkie I was constantly asked for my opinions on new technology, which led to writing small blurbs ... and eventually becoming a reviewer many years ago. My family is my biggest priority in life, and they alternate between loving and tolerating my gaming and gadget hobbies ... but ultimately benefits from the addition of technology to our lives!