Well… I’m back here at school. Vacation was awesome… if a bit frigid. At least I got to see some snow for Christmas! Mom was great of course… cooked all of my favorite meals. She tried to get me to take some back with me, but I told her it would be a little hard to smuggle lasagna on the plane.
The semester’s going well so far. Taking some interesting courses… we’ll see how they turn out. I think my favorite is going to be British Literature… I get to learn all about the age of epic poems and Chaucer.
Since I was in the poetic, creative mood, I decided to give Artist Colony a try. Oh man… this is definitely one of those addicting games that get me in trouble. Before I knew it, I had played past dinner and had to eat some ramen raw… which is not as bad as it sounds!
The basis of the story is you play Ben, the son of the artist who started this artist colony years ago with his best friend. Everything was going great until a girl came into the story… Think Shakespeare’s Two Gentleman of Verona… one of my favorites. Anyhow, they began to fight over her and things went downhill with the colony. It eventually burned down and was left in ruins.
Now present day, Ben has come to the artist colony with his friend Dylan to rebuild. Jack, Ben’s half brother also surfaces, and we see that there is a conflict between the two brothers that is surprise surprise… just like their fathers years ago.
Other artists come to the colony throughout the game as well and you get to tell them what to do… which is appealing to me I admit. You can get them to train as painters, musicians, dancers, sculptors, or photographers. You can also get them to do yard work and clean debris up off the ground. Clean yards help inspire your artists, which is important if you want them to create masterpieces. And masterpieces equals money in this game!
You can also upgrade your buildings, making it possible for your artists to keep growing in levels. The better the artist, the better the masterpiece, the more money you make. Get it?
Overall, this game was very fun and exciting! Especially if you like sim games. The nice part about this game though, was that it wasn’t something that you had to wait for like Virtual Villagers. You have the option of speeding up time, but I found I never had to do that… there was always someone who needed me to tell them what to do!! Too bad real life isn’t like that...
