WWG Casual PC Gamer

Nostalgia runs rampant in Build-in-Time, the newest time management game, where you play as “Mark Retro”… a high school student who’s scored highly on the construction aptitude tests. Your first task is to go through a tutorial training so that you can learn the ropes of the construction business, as well as the function of the casual pc game. You start out with one construction crew, and one painting crew. You soon learn that it really pays off to have both crews working at the same time, one builds a house, while the other paints the prior building project. This is, afterall, a time management game.

After a few short lessons, you find out that your long lost (never spoken of) Uncle is the trainer you’ve been working with. You have no idea why his brother, your father, has never mentioned him before. There are hints that this is all a part of the mystery of the story line as you progress through the levels. Your Uncle sees promise in your talent for construction, and offers to finance your own construction business, while he helps you. You’re responsible for the day to day operation, while he helps you with the business end.

Each level brings new customers that want a specific model of house built, in a specific color. Each customer has heart indicators that represent their level of happiness with the building of their homes. You have to make sure your customers don’t wait too long for their house to be built and painted, or they will loose hearts, resulting in a lower price paid. If your customers become too unhappy, you will wind up earning less than it cost you to build the house. To help avoid this, you can purchase bonus upgrades to help you keep your customers happy, such as a free appliance package.

I haven’t yet finished the one hour of free trial, and I can already see that this game includes elements of both Build-A-Lot, and the Diner Dash or Cake Mania type of time management games. Each level represents one year as you progress through the decades. You start in 1950, with rock and roll music playing, and customers that sound like Fonzie declaring “Aaaayyy!” once you’ve completed their house.

While this game seems to be an interesting combination of other extremely popular games, the graphics are very sub standard. Blurry text and broken line drawings make the story line much less interesting. You eventually find out that each year (or level), you must meet a sales amount requirement in order to proceed. Bonus points are available by completing specific tasks, but these are optional… you don’t have to complete the “star” bonus if you don’t want to. I assume, however, that doing so becomes necessary later on in the game.

As you finish one year and move on to the next, you’re able to buy upgrades to help your construction move along more efficiently. The profits you earn determine how much you can spend, adding to the strategic advantage of keeping your customers happy, and going for those bonus “stars”.

It’s not a bad game… I think it was a great idea to combine the detailed customer satisfaction aspect of the Diner games to the strategy of the Build-A-Lot game structure… it could just look a LOT better. Playing this game for less than an hour just makes me want to open up Build-A-Lot2, since I haven’t completed that one yet lol. I don’t see myself purchasing this one, so please share any tips and tricks you might have for “Build In Time” since I won’t have much more to offer here.