Jane's Realty

Jane's Realty is terribly unbalanced for such a short game. You will start out with levels that can literally be won in seconds. Place a building or two and mission accomplished. At the end, you are given such absurdly difficult goals you will wonder if the game designers were trying to make the game unplayable (they certainly made it unenjoyable). There are very few levels to play, and time runs out quickly per level. The bulk of the game is actually spent replaying previous levels so that you will have resources you need to pass later levels. If you like repetition and being frustrated, here's your game. If not, spend your three dollars elsewhere.

First things first, this game will play on Windows 10 even though it was orginally released in 2008. This is a classic time management game that has the player completing various tasks before the timer runs out for the level. It has a bit of sim city vibe in the sense that the player has to make sure that each house is supported with water and power, but the levels seem fairly rigid in structure; you won't be building wondeours cities of your own design. No, at it's heart Jane's Reality is a time management, and one that demands a frenzy of clicking at that. There is no relaxed mode or carrying on with a level if the time runs out. The player has to complete various goals while keeping track of tenet happiness and random events that necessitate a clean up or repair order. It starts out slowly enough that learning the gameplay is easy enough, but I soon found out that this is a game that doesn't really like the concept of downtime or taking a moment to breath. Think and work fast! I didn't play more than an hour when I wrote this review, so I don't know about all the issues that might crop up. I did encounter a situation where I one of my goals was to upgrade a house, and getting the ability to do so was difficult. I finally figured out that you have to give enough presents to your tenents to get them to send the request, but it seemed kinds of overly random to me to get the option to full the requirement of the level. The graphics are pretty much what one would expect from a 2008 game. Servicable and not ugly, but hardly cutting edge either. The sound effects are fine, and the music is easily mutable, which is how I play all my games. It seems there are only 24 levels, but since the game only costs $2.99 that doesn't seem unreasonable. In short, if the idea of a fairly difficult, very fast paced time management game appeals to you, then for the price this one is a solid, if not perfect, investment. 6/10