My Car Salon an enjoyable time-management game, run your own car repair garage!
by Paul Wilks
Nov 5, 2012 10:55 AM –
Install
My Car Salon is an enjoyable time-management game where you run your very own garage. Service cars as they enter the salon and make sure you meet their various needs. Upgrade stations, hire staff to help you and watch out for celebrity visitors in this exciting and often fast-paced game that requires a good sense of timing and strong organisational skills.
Price: Free, with In-app Purchases
Tested on: HTC One X
Content Rating: Low Maturity
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Challenging!
- Fast paced and fun!
- Lots of upgrades!
Cons
- A little on the ‘ad-tastic’ side.
- Graphics are very basic.
Features:
My Car Salon is a cool management game where you run your own car salon/garage. Before you get to your first customer you unfortunately have to negate at least three ads- such as they are packed into the game. If you are not immediately irked by this and plough on, you’re actually in for a nice surprise. My Car Salon is a rather complete, fun and rewarding little game that is brilliant for killing time.
You begin on your own, running between the various stations; such as diagnostics, gas refilling and car wash before making sure you hit the tills to take the cash for your efforts. As you progress you collect coins with which you can expand and even hire staff. Hiring staff saves a lot of stress as you can perform more tasks at the same time and keep customers happy who, if you don’t service them quick enough, will get upset and leave. The game requires a keen sense of timing and the ability to manage all the aspects of the car salon, prioritizing customers and making as much money as you can.
The intrusive use of ads aside, I enjoyed playing around with My Car Salon and found it highly immersive and fun. You can upgrade parts of your salon as you go along and, while the prices are quite high (and require either patience to save up, the willingness to make in-app purchases or engage with the Tapjoy system of downloading countless additional games in reward for coins), I thought the game had a nice learning curve and was extremely playable.
Controls are easy too; just tap on the area of the salon that has a waiting customer and either the main character or one of the employees will immediately attend. You can also drag cars to particular areas too, which helps things speed up nicely. I did wish there was a way to assign multiple tasks to people, but this aside gameplay is fluid and fun.
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My Car Salon – In-game view (1)
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My Car Salon – In-game view (2)
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My Car Salon – In-game view (3)
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My Car Salon – In-game view (4)
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My Car Salon – In-game view (5)
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My Car Salon – In-game view (6)
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My Car Salon – In-game view (7)
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My Car Salon – In-game view (8)
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My Car Salon – In-game view (9)
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My Car Salon – In-game view (10)
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My Car Salon – Daily report
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My Car Salon – Level up
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My Car Salon – Loading
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My Car Salon – Special customers
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My Car Salon – New day
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My Car Salon – Intrusive full-page ads
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My Car Salon – More ads
Fun Factor:
I would suggest My Car Salon is something you can enjoy on a casual basis. While it is fun, I’m not sure if it’s something you would play for hours on end as it can feel a little repetitive. That said, if you like playing games for 10-20 minutes at a time, this is a rewarding game that’s worth sticking with.
Addictive:
If you can stick with regular and frequent gameplay I think this is a game you might play for quite some time. It’s not addictive in an Angry Birds way, but there’s enough here to keep you coming back time and time again. The ads might reduce your willingness to play it, but if you have the patience to put up with them it’s not really an issue.
Graphics:
To be fair to other games in the Google Play Store, the graphics in My Car Salon aren’t great and I think we perhaps have a higher expectation these days. That said, those in My Car Salon are responsive and smooth- even if the animation and design feels a little dated.
Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:
The sound is relatively mild and not particular assaulting upon the ears. There are plenty of sound effect that represent the various actions and these work well with the gameplay.