Joe’s Farm
Score: 80% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Alawar Developer: Ferocious Hamsters Team Media: Download/1 Players: 1 Genre: Puzzle
Graphics & Sound: Joe’s Farm puts you in the blue overalls of a farmer (Joe) who apparently spends his day moving stuff around his farm. He moves boxes, barrels, hay bales... pretty much anything you would expect to see lying around. The graphics of Joe’s Farm aren’t spectacular, but they get the job done. The large, colorful (though somewhat blocky) models definitely help to get the game’s cartoony feel across. Once you’ve placed a box/bale/barrel in the correct place (easily identified by the large markings on the ground), a green “OK” appears over the object -- this easy-to-see visual clue is a nice way to let the player know he’s on the right track. Also helping out the somewhat comic atmosphere are the lighthearted music and sound effects. Though there isn’t a lot of variety in the audio aspect of this game, what it has is enough to keep your ears busy as you ponder exactly how to arrange the boxes in front of you.
Gameplay: Each level of Joe’s Farm consists of a fenced-in area, something for Joe to push, marked locations (to know where the objects need to end up), and, of course, Joe. The game is a remake of the classic logic game Sokoban (a game that had you move jewels around a room), but the new look and 3D levels go a long way into making it a game that stands on its own. As you play through the dozens of levels, you’re scored on the number of times you move Joe, the number of times you push the objects, how many times you undo your last move, and how long it takes you to get all of the boxes in the right places. Eventually you will unlock bonus levels. These start off on a higher difficulty level (with bigger fields and more boxes to maneuver). Joe’s Farm also features the ability to download additional level packs, making this game one that you can go back and play over and over again (at least as often as they come out with new levels).
Difficulty: Joe’s Farm has levels of varying difficulty. There are some that appear simple, but will actually take a lot of walking and time to get done, while there are others that can be done quickly, though there doesn’t seem to be any kind of gradient. I never got the impression that each level was slightly more difficult than the previous -- so no matter how many levels I went through, I didn’t feel like I was making any progress. No matter how difficult a level seemed at first, once it was done -- it was done. There isn’t any need or desire to go back and try the levels again since I had seen the trick and could duplicate the action a lot quicker than originally. So even though initially, a level might be difficult, once you find the trick in how to start moving the objects, they all pretty much become a simple matter of moving the boxes and stuff before the time runs out.
Game Mechanics: Joe’s Farm is a simple game that you can easily pour time into while you try and figure out exactly how to move the objects around. The only major problem I have with it is the somewhat slippery point-and-click interface. It seems like the line between “push the box” and “walk next to the box” is a little thin most of the time. Because of this, there were several occasions when I would try to move Joe and end up pushing a box (and vice versa), costing me precious time, moves, and steps. Most of the time, I just restarted the level and kept going, but it got to be more frustrating the more it happened. Joe’s Farm is a good logic game that is worth (at least) the trial download. You can find the game here.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Minimum System Requirements: Pentium-600, 64M RAM, 3M Video 3D This Minimum System Requirement listing is straight off of Alawar’s site   Test System: Toshiba Satellite series laptop, Windows XP Home Ed., 2.0 GHz Celeron, 1 GB RAM, 24X DVD/CD ROM, 32 MB 3D accelerator
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