In this hectic world we live in, many times work and appointments must come before the fun and joys in our lives, including that of getting to play videogames whenever we want. Gone are the days when we could fire up a game of our choice and spend hours toiling away – now we seem to game in stolen moments here and there. With that in mind, perhaps it is no wonder that casual games have become such a popular gaming choice (especially with women who make up the vast majority of casual game players), as casual games allow us to either jump in and get those quick fixes of gaming bliss or either play them for as long as we want when we do have the time. In honor of the casual game, we'll be bringing you a new Casual Game of the Week every Monday to help you find that fix you might be needing in your life. This week's game: Chocolatier.

When it comes to chocolate only one thing comes to mind – eating it. I've never really thought over the health benefits of eating it. I've never wondered over what must go into making fine, sweet chocolates. And I've never wondered if I could make millions in the chocolate industry. For that matter, I didn't even know chocolatier was even a word. So imagine my surprise when Chocolatier crossed my path, a chocolatier sim that has you jet setting around the world, trying to find the best ingredients, and selling off your product to make the highest profit you can.

The story of Chocolatier is that two sisters have been fighting over their family's chocolate business, but neither could decide on what the other wanted to do. So, the two sisters splintered off, becoming business rivals, though one wants to restore the honor to her family. To restore said honor, she is passing along what she knows to you, so that you may make the family business grow and prosper once more.

In the beginning you'll be given a factory and a recipe for simple, chocolate bars. With recipe in hand, the first things you'll need are ingredients. Ingredients can be found at every port city in the game that you can land at, though they won't all offer the same goods. Though sugar is constantly prevalent and can be sought everywhere, other ingredients like cocoa beans, coffee beans, cashews, almonds, mints, and others can only be found at certain specific spots. When at the markets, you can choose to pay the full price for what they are asking, or you can attempt to haggle with them; haggle too hard and they won't like doing business with you. Prices at the various markets are also determined by things such as shortages or too much supply; if a place is suffering from a shortage, expect to pay higher than usual prices. Some ports even have their own special cocoa beans, which you can use to make their special candy, which early on is some of the most precious and valuable candy bars you can make.

Once you've purchased enough ingredients, it's off to the factory, where you must practice to see how many chocolates of that type that factory will make each week. In order to do so, you'll have various revolving circles on a machine moving around, and you must fire the required ingredients into each circle to make one box of chocolate. Once your time limit is up, however many complete matches you make will be how many boxes of chocolate that factory will automatically make as long as you have all the required ingredients.

Once you've got your first factory producing chocolates, you need to head to the chocolate boutiques to sell them your supply. Now, there are several factors at play when selling your goods. For starters, sometimes people just get tired of eating your same chocolates over and over, so the longer you have one single chocolate bar going over and over, the lower and lower the cost you'll be able to sell them at. Also, though one port might still love a specific brand of your chocolate, another port like London might be tiring of them. If you're going for the maximum bang for your buck, you'll sell individual chocolate boxes at the ports they sell best at. However, if you want you can easily take whatever you can get and sell them wherever. Another factor is that throughout the game you'll be able to purchase the shops as your own, and there you'll always get better than usual prices.

Along the way as you go looking for ingredients and selling candy, you'll run across other factories, which if you have enough money you can buy and have them go into business for you. Beyond buying up factories and boutique shops, you'll also be taking on odd quests that you stumble upon, such as delivering a letter to someone or making X-amount of chocolate boxes for a person and delivering them to them. Completing quests will net you more money or things like newer and potentially more valuable recipes. Recipes come in four different flavors, such as bars, squares, etc., and though squares are generally more valuable than bars, you've got to spend $25,000 at each factory to upgrade it to allow the making of those specific candies.

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