This is my favorite type of TM game! Becoming a mogul of organic beauty products is a different take on things. You get to travel the world to discover new locations, buy ingredients, develop products, and then sell for profit! I like the way that the "laptop" keeps track of the recipes and products so that you don't have to write things down. The mini games styled in a match 3 mode are a great way to develop the product lines. Filling the orders and setting up your factories get increasingly more difficult as the game goes on, but it never gets so hard that you can't be successful. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes games of setting up factories, developing products, and trading goods. The only drawback to the game, if it really is one, is that the graphics are not as highy defined as in some other games. Overall, it's a great game that you can spend hours on and then play over and over again!

This game is an updated version of Chocolatier, except that the product is moisturizer's, lotions etc. All products, recipes, ingredients etc. are stored on your laptop. You are given quests and the more recipes you get, the more ports open up. You travel around the world collecting new products, along with recipes. For the right price and quest you can purchase new factories. If you loved Choclatier, you will like this game as well. Try the hour, it goes by fast.

This is a Strategy game with no TM elements (unless you count flying from city to city). If you're looking for a new tycoon-type game then give the trial a go, but don't expect the sophisticated gameplay of the 'Chocolatier' series. The storyline of building a cosmetics empire is fine, but the game's let down by its clumsy handling. The biggest drawback is that you don't have all the necessary info to hand on different tabs. Instead you have to load up a 'laptop' to look at recipes and ingredients and then close that down to study your inventory's stock levels. You also need to calculate how many extra ingredients to buy to keep your factories going whilst you're on your travels, as the game doesn't do it for you (no kidding!). Since mental arithmetic and memory challenges aren't my strongest suits I found all this palaver rather aggravating. (It didn't help that the integral scroll bar on the inventory didn't work, so I couldn't see all the necessary info.) The mini matching games that are part of the manufacturing process are diverting, although they add to the slightly childish presentation. The story's quite slow to develop as you wait for people to offer you quests and open up new cities for you, and there needs to be more incentive to change your factories' output to keep product lines fresh. By 'Day 312' - about 4-5 hours gameplay - I still only had 2 factories and couldn't muster much enthusiasm for dropping a lucrative product line in favour of making a new, cheaper offering when its recipe came my way. Because of the slow & awkward gameplay I only dive into this for 30-40 minutes at a stretch - it hasn't grabbed me enough to want to keep playing for longer.

If I wanted to play Phlinix, I would have chosen that game. This isn't a time management game as people are looking for... you will spend more time shooting at the ingredients to "make" the products than you will actually moving through the story selling products, etc. Good concept, need to eliminate the extra game inside the storyline.