The problems arise with the addition to Miriel's shop of the stove. With the stove, Miriel can then cook items for her customers. What this means is grabbing two or more items and combining them by dropping them into the oven in the stove. For example: one bag of flour and one bucket of water makes one loaf of bread. Baking these items in the oven takes about ten seconds, during which time, other customers are demanding items, like more bread. Of course, the oven can only bake one loaf at a time. This is where your burgeoning management skills factor in.

Here's a typical scenario: three customers enter the store. One of them wants two bags of flour, and two buckets of water. The second wants three buckets of water, and one loaf of bread. The third wants a loaf of bread and two eggs. How best to juggle generating these items, when Miriel can only carry two things at a time, the table can only hold six items at a time, and the oven can only back one loaf of bread at a time? What hasn't been mentioned yet is that each customer has a happiness gauge above their heads, representing their impatience at having to wait for their items. The longer they have to wait, the less happy they'll be, which has an impact on your end-of-level total.

There is help to be had. As you complete more levels, Miriel gains the ability to carry more items at a time. Making more money means that your store's units can be upgraded -- the item table can hold more items, the stove can cook recipes faster, etc. Some customers will enter the store with a winged icon upon their persons. This indicates that if you can fulfil their order before this icon vanishes, it will go towards filling the Haste gauge in the lower right corner of the playing field. When the gauge is full, Miriel moves at twice her speed, items are generated twice as fast as normal, and the oven cooks recipes in half the duration of time it normally takes.

Upgrading units also happens as a function of winning a minigame that occurs between levels. This minigame is akin to Qbeez, where groups of similar objects are removed from a growing mountain of objects. Playing long enough without losing the level grants you the upgrade.

As the game goes on, the customers requests become more elaborate; more items are added to your store's inventory; new recipies requiring more combined items appear; and things get complex. Miriel will work her way through the countryside, plying her wares through many different towns on her way to the kingdom's castle, presumably to culminate in some sort of climactic event. Miriel the Magical Merchant is a game that will sharpen both your mousing skills and your ability to multitask -- that is, if it doesn't leave you a nervous wreck first. Download the game's demo right here on Big Download in both Mac and PC format.