The Rodeo

Phil Steinmeyer sent me a copy (well, I downloaded it) of his game Bonnie’s Bookstore to review. Very nice of him

While installing, I skimmed through the EULA and spotted this little gem:

“If the Software is configured for loading onto a hard drive,
you may load the Software only onto the hard drive of up to
five machines that you own and run the Software from only
those hard drives.”

I think this is fantastic - I have multiple computers at home, and I know many other people do too, allowing installing the game on multiple computers without forcing the customer to resort to piracy is a very polite thing to do. And people do notice :). This means I can stick a copy on my laptop as well as having one on the desktop at home. Handy.

Bonnie’s Bookstore is a word game, where you get a whole bunch of letters on a grid, and you have to make words out of those letters while trying to cover every tile before you run out of turns.

It’s actually simpler to play than to describe

As you can see in that screenshot, there are a few different types of tiles:

1. Coloured letters don’t get removed when you create a word
2. Stars count as a wildcard - use it as whatever letter you want
3. Padlocks cover tiles, and are removed when you use a letter next to them.

There are a few other types as well, but that’s pretty much it. It’s a pretty fun game to play - good when you want to kill a few minutes here and there as it doesn’t take 10 minutes to startup, unlike some other games out there *cough*Half-Life 2*cough*. I discovered (by accident - it wasn’t announced anywhere), that when I quit, it would save my position, so next time I fired it up I was exactly where I left it - I like this alot, and thought that I’d have to start from the beginning of that level again. Another handy little bit of polish that helps make the game good.

There were only a few things that bugged me about the game:

1. It feels very ‘girly’ - I think it would do better with a more asexual theme. Not that it really matters in the long run, but men who aren’t as secure in their manliness as I am (I’ve got TWO boys, heh!) might not want to play something like this on the train (what with the big pictures of princesses and the like).
2. The story felt extremely ‘tacked on’, it could be removed with no loss at all and a possible benefit, as it would mean you could jump to the next level much more quickly.
3. “Dogs” is not considered a valid word… but “dog” is.

All in all, they are pretty minor quibbles, the game is pretty good, nothing to rave on about, but it feels very polished and is relaxing to play as there is no time pressure (unless you choose to add it).

It costs $19.95 US, but when you go to buy it online, it will automagically give you the Australian price (assuming you are in Australia…), which at this time is $27.20, so it won’t break the bank. I think it’s a worthwhile buy if you are looking for a new time-killer, it’ll be sitting on my desktop for a long while to come I’d imagine.

RodeoClown: is cool with playing a ‘girly’ game.

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