Game review: Miss Management

Where I got mine: Bigfishgames.com
Developer: Game Lab
To own: $19.95 (free trial for 60 mins available)
Size: 32MB
Score: 8 red staplers out of 10

Game Lab’s rather innovative, if not entirely original, casual game about running an office is another time management-cum-strategy, do what where first game with a rather colorful cast of characters and a storyline that will resonate with those of us who have worked – or are still working – in an office.

With obvious throwbacks to the popular TV series, The Office, Miss Management is Denise, the new office manager to a motley crew of office workers; each with their own sets of likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses in four skills: technical, financial, art and writing. Your job is to match the workers based on their skills to the jobs piling up on your desk. And as every office manager worth his or her salt knows, ultimate success lies in color-coding!

As in real life, the delegating is the easy part – it’s the workers’ personalities and behavioral quirks and the office politics that mess you up. For instance, you will first meet Mahavir, the self-proclaimed Harvard-grad lady’s man from India, who is able to perform all skills acceptably well, but would rather spend his time napping or chatting up the lay-dies.

And then there’s Pearl, the middle-aged know-and-do-it-all company fixture who was passed over when you were hired, so no prizes for guessing who her ‘favourite’ pet will be. She will try to overstep her authority whenever possible, maybe even stage a few coups when you’re not looking, while filling the office with her cancerous smoke.

And then there’s Luke, your hippie writer friend with the overactive bowel.

These are but three of ten such characters that you will soon meet throughout your life as Miss Management. So instead of just delegating work, your REAL job is in making sure that not only are these clowns keeping productivity up, but also that their morale is maintained by meeting their individual needs, without pissing their colleagues off.

For instance, you have to make sure Mahavir gets his 100 second a day nap, without stressing out the stickler for productivity Miss Pearl, whose need to chain smoke must be kept at a manageable level or risk sending eco-sensitive Luke home sick. And that’s just what stressed out employees will do – turn around and head on home. Risk stressing yourself out from not churning the task treadmill fast enough, and the stage ends, because you are, after all, Miss Management.

To aid you at your task, you are given cash to purchase a number of items to appease your colleagues or to help them work faster or better improve their skills at a particular task. From chocolate-covered doughnuts to tech manuals to big red staplers, these items greatly help even the most organized multitaskers keep things under control.

As mentioned, this is a rather new premise for a game. These days, we have games about being a waitress to a cook to a gardener and even a nanny, so why not an office manager? Kudos to Game Lab for having come up with a fun and playable (or should I say workable?) approach to even the most boring of environments.

The graphics in Miss Management are cute and fun, although it does seem a little dated compared to some of the art out there for casual games. Gameplay is medium-paced point and click, although one may find it a little annoying having to click exactly on the character or his/her desk and not two pixels to the left. Playing it full screen rather than windowed might help.

One other complaint I have are the looooooong dialogue sequences. Miss Management has a much more interesting story to it than your usual casual game, but man, these little cartoons have a lot to say. You can skip them, but I feel that it defeats the point of the game since there isn’t really another mode you can play. I say stick to the comic panels other games employ, or make them move a little if you like – just tighten it all up a little as to move things along at a more brisk pace.

All in all, an interesting game, very fun – and funny at times. I give it eight red staplers out of ten.