Passport to Perfume
Action & Arcade Games, Time Management Games August 3rd, 2009
(4 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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I don’t know how current perfume manufacturers make their blends, but I assure you that perfumers during the early times have it hard trying to find the perfect scent. Passport to Perfume puts you in the shoes of a budding perfumer during those times, continuing the legacy of her long lost father. And what a legacy it is, as you get to travel all around the world in this time management game.
Your character in-game is named Sophia. During her younger years, she’s always beside her father trying to find rare perfume ingredients all around the world. Disaster strikes however, after her father fell during an expedition in Brazil. Ten years later and after retrieving her father’s journal, she starts her own perfume shop and her own adventure with it, while trying to continue her father’s dream – to blend “The Scent of Marie Antoinette”.
As expected from a PlayFirst exclusive, Passport to Perfume is a time management game. Your objective in each level is to fill elegant bottles with perfume and serve them to scent-loving customers. Other than your own blends, customers may also ask for fine or rare perfumes. And in some cases, if they are indecisive about what they want, just throw in anything and you’ll still profit in the end.
In this game though, you have to always keep in mind the customers you need to serve first. Not only because of the patience levels we are all used to in many other time management games, but also because of the indecisive customers with the habit of taking perfume intended for those who actually ordered them. Basic strategy is to serve indecisive ones last, but of course, you’ll still eventually make mistakes as the game gets more hectic.
Restocking prior each level starts is also an essential task in Passport to Perfume. In fact, most of the profits you acquired during the previous level goes into restock rather than upgrades like most time management games. While this may pose as a disappointment for some, I feel more like it’s an addition to the game’s planning management. For example, you may buy an upgrade to Sophia’s speed, but you’ll still lose customers if you have no stock of perfume to sell them.
Are there mini-games? Well yes, you get to play a hidden object mini-game whenever Sophia goes into adventure mode and visits other countries around the world in search of exotic perfume ingredients. In the mini-games, you also get to use tools like the brush and the shovel to uncover objects, but unlike conventional hidden object, don’t you fret too much since there’s no time limit in this one.
The best feature of Passport to Perfume is a mode where you can blend your own special perfume collection using ingredients Sophia found during her travels. In this mode, your objective is to blend the most profitable perfume with the least time to prepare during the actual time management game. More quantity and rareness of ingredients mean more time to prepare, so try to experiment before you set serving some customers.
Storyline is very rich in all parts of the game. The quest for the elusive Scent of Mary Antoinette seemed to go on forever in the many levels of the game. While visuals are not that impressive, it’s still enjoyable to watch the in-between cinematic as the story develops. Sophia’s father’s notebook adds a little education too, documenting facts on flowers and other ingredients that make a perfume much more pleasant to smell.
Gameplay is smooth, but I always had problems clicking on wrong items in the game field. For example, my aim is to add spritzer to the perfume, but if you don’t click the switch at the bottom part of the spritzer station, you’ll just place the perfume and not do the appropriate task. This is kind of annoying since the same is true on all the tools you use, wasting precious time when you already thought that the machine is working while you’re busy serving customers and you’ll backtrack just to flip a silly switch.
Passport to Perfume is a long and challenging game though, and very enjoyable too if you manage to get a good control on your clicks. Of course, you can always restart each level if you mess up too much so that isn’t a big problem.
An engaging storyline and a fun new way into fitting the shoes of a perfumer – makes this game as interesting as a time management game worth your try.
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