Boredworkers.com

Boy what a week. Time does fly when you’re having fun. With the PIKOM PC fair, and various other developments, I almost didn’t have time to play any games. But rest assured, I did and here’s the Game of the Week to prove it. Gem Shop by HipSoft and published by Reflexive Arcades GameHouse.

The game puts you in the shoes of a gem shop owner. Customers come through the door and you try to sell them jewelery for the highest possible profits. Every customer will want a certain type of jewelery. This is represented by an image of the jewelery at the side of the game screen. The customer’s satisfaction level is also shown along with how much the customer is willing to pay for the gems based on his current level of happiness. You need to fill up the jewelery meter by matching coloured gems (match-three style of game play) in order to complete a sale. Make the customer wait too long and he’ll start to grumble. As they become disgruntled, the price they are willing to pay for the item drops. To keep customers happy, you have a selection of treats to give them (sweets, coffee, and gifts). More on acquiring these treats later.

The game mechanics are simple and based on the classic match-three game play (similar to Chuzzle). Drag rows or columns along its path to match the coloured gems. Clear multiple sets of different colours or chain together a combo to rack up the score. But watch out for cracked gems and blocks of coal as they’ll hinder your game plan. Cracked gems lock the row and column they are in while coal is just plain unusable. Match the colour of the cracked gem to remove them from the playing field. However, once a chunk of coal appears, it can’t be removed. You’ll just have to live with it and work around it.

Each level has a target sale value. You need to make the target value in order to pass the stage and move to the next level. To make things a little more complicated, each level will only have a set number of customers. At the later stages, you’ll need to keep all your customers happy in order to make the sales target. If you fail to meet the goal, you’ll be given the option to retry. However, fail more than three times and the shop is closed permanently.

After passing each stage, you’ll be awarded a number of special tokens. You can also collect these tokens in the game by matching them. Use these tokens to upgrade your shop with better and more expensive jewelery. These will be required as the game progresses and the target sales value becomes harder to achieve. In addition to jewelery, you can also stock up on treats (as mentioned above) to keep your customers happy. Decide carefully your upgrades because it will affect your chances of beating the game.

There are two game difficulties, casual and expert. The sole difference between the two is the pace of the game. In expert mode, customers become unhappy at a faster rate.

Once a game is over, your score will be submitted to an online database. From there, you’ll be able to see how you match up against players around the globe. Can you top the scoresheets and become the best gem shop owner in the gaming world? There’s only one way to find out.

Can’t get enough of the game? Refer to Boredworkers.com’s Game of the Week for the recommended download files. Here’s how to squeeze a little more play time out of it.

Note:
There are no valid keygens for this game at the moment.
Recommended files are available for GameHouse downloads. However, please do purchase the game. Trust me, it is well worth the money.

• Download both the recommended game and crack files
• Install the game file.
• Uncompress the contents of the crack archive to the installation folder (replace ‘gemshopres.dll’).
• Start the game and have fun.

Disclaimer:
The author does not condone piracy. If you find that you enjoy the game after playing it for a bit, do purchase the license. Good work should be given its due.