Ranch Rush
This game is cute as the Dickens. Like many such simulation games, cuteness is its greatest strength. Of course, when you get really into it, say, ten levels in, its adorability is mitigated by its hair-raising hectic pace. The theme for this game is farming. You're a young girl in charge of bringing a local farming concern back to full health, and the way to do that is manage the increasing needs of its customers.

You must buy all the items you need, which includes soil, in which to plant seeds (which you also buy), and various gardening management tools. You start off with a couple of plots of soil, and a seedbag or two. Crops grow at varying durations of time, and when they're ready to be harvested, you grab a few baskets to place the produce in and take them to the barn to be turned into money.

For those of you unfamiliar with this type of game, each action is broken down into a mouse click. To plant a seed, you click on the seedbag to grab a seed, then click on a plot of soil to do the planting. Click on a harvesting basket to grab it, and click again on the ripe produce to put it into the basket. Click on the barn one final time to put the basket in there, and you've made your money for that piece of produce. It's a very clicky kind of genre, and that's where the challenge enters.

Different sessions are spent trying to fill the orders of a particular customer. A typical order might consist of: 6 tomatoes, 12 flowers, and two jugs of milk. The strategy is all in managing how to collect these items, and when to drop them off at the barn. Flowers grow the fastest, and tomatoes grow more slowly. At the same time, flowers are used to feed to the cow, which she needs in order to produce the milk you need. It's a constant balancing act, trying to harvest items just as they mature, which will give you the maximum amount of time for new ones to grow. At the same time, you can only hold three baskets at once, so multiple trips are inevitable.

Things get more hectic with each new crop introduced, increasing the number of plots to visit. You must also contend with soil that dries out, necessitating a visit to the well; crops that die out, meaning replanting in that particular plot of soil; pests that destroy crops, requiring bug spray, and a whole host of other issues that need micromanagement. Fortunately, the game can be paused at any time, and the elements can be moved around, moving certain frequently-visited items closer to the barn, which speeds up the whole process. But later levels also require the combining of two or more crops, and buying special machines to combine them, thus complicating the process further.

If this sounds like your type of mayhem, Ranch Rush is definitely worth the download. You can pick it up here on Big Download for both Mac and PC.