Ski Resort Mogul. Winter Business

Ski Resort Mogul is the third in the “mogul” series following Hotel Mogul and Vacation Mogul. Like its predecessors, Ski Resort Mogul is a time management and simulation game. It successfully mingles the best features of the genres and tries to immerse the player into the plot.

You assume the role of Julie who is desperately in love with star skier Antonio who doesn't care about anyone or anything except skiing. Aunt Sue asks Julie to help her run the ski resort, so Julie heads to the snowy slopes in hope that her dreams will come true. The  storyline sounds a little naive, but still it's a nice way to start to the game.

The main task in Ski Resort Mogul is to keep your ski business thriving. This requires building modern hotels, creating attractions to entice vacationers and opening new facilities. Apart from this, you need to rescue skiers from avalanches with a click  that sends a helicopter out to save the skier and reward you with more money.

Ski Resort Mogul resembles the like Build-a-Lot series. Each level comes with a set number of tasks, usually three. You may need to attract X guests, construct a X buildings, earn X amount of money or reach a X weekly income. This means you need a strategy to build, upgrade, buy and sell the right things.

The game has three different building types with different purposes. Cabins, hotels and cottages accommodate guests, and your income climbs with every new guest. Line buildings attract people to your ski resort. Such buildings include barbecue stands and equipment rental pavilions. Shop buildings make the resort more profitable and these include tearooms and cafes. You can upgrade the buildings to attract more people and increase your earnings.

The storyline gradually unfolds. Dialogues appear between levels to reveal the drama of unanswered love and ways of expanding your ski resort business. Some levels offer you the opportunity to buy extra equipment and entertainment like a ski lift, a hot air balloon and more.

Each Ski Resort Mogul level has bonus points. You use these points to buy blueprints for newer and better buildings. Sometimes you need to have the blueprint to unlock the next level. Apart from blueprints, you can spend bonus points to buy a school for your workers so they work faster, or a new brick plant for better material at a lower price. Such upgrades help you reach your level goals faster.

The occasional random mini-game sneaks in. This may be a hidden object game or a logic-memory type of puzzle. These aren't hard, but they add variety and provide a break from fast and intense time management levels.

The scenes contain a soothing snowy landscape with great animations contribute to Ski Resort Mogul's elegant graphics. Snowflakes, random blizzards, birds flying over the cozy resort and vacationers walking down the streets all comprise of a calm and relaxing setting in between the fast-paced levels.

Ski Resort Mogul combines the best features of the genre and provides challenging game play for time management fans. The game's balanced level of difficulty and delightful visual appearance makes it a worth time management game to play.