It’s Friday again and no doubt you’ve had just about enough of work for one week. Or maybe you’ve had enough of it period. Well, why not spend the weekend trying out a new profession? Just grab your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and go download one of these fun iOS strategy games. See which one you enjoy most, then go tell your boss on Monday that you’re off to pursue your true vocation. (OnSoftware cannot be held accountable for any lives ruined by following this advice. We hope.)
Chef
Reckon you could cut the mustard as a gourmet chef? Tiny Chef lets you try your hand at becoming the next Gordon Ramsey, challenging you to run your own restaurant. You start off as a small cafe and must grow your business by discovering tasty new recipes, upgrading your cooking equipment and decorating your restaurant to entice customers.
Train Conductor
If you’ve always fancied working on the railways, Train Conductor will give you a good idea of how stressful life as a signal operator can be. Your job is to make sure that trains don’t crash into each other, by re-routing them onto empty tracks. The game starts off very gently but soon becomes a nightmare as the number of tracks you have to control increases and ghost trains start to appear. That’s right, I said ghost trains!
Football Manager
Personally, my ideal job would be as a soccer coach. Getting paid to watch soccer games and shout at a bunch of bumbling jackasses sounds like the perfect profession. Play Football Manager Handheld on your iPhone, however, and you start to realize it isn’t as simple as that. In this comprehensive simulation you have to take control of transfers, training schedules, scouting new players, opposition analysis, and player contracts!
Video Game Developer
Reckon you could come up with the next Sonic or Mario? Then give Game Dev Story a try. This interesting sim gives you an insight into what happens in the office of a games studio. You’ll be responsible for hiring and firing the right programmers, designers and writers to produce the next hit video game. To succeed you need a good understanding of what the market wants, but also to be creative in your game concepts.
Supermarket Worker
OK, it’s not the most glamorous of professions, but after a few games of Supermarket Mania you’ll be hooked on the strange thrill of stacking supermarket shelves. The game has a nice story arc in which you play Nikki, who together with her pal, is trying to make it big in the supermarket world, despite the growing mechanization of the industry in their town.
Air Traffic Controller
Being an air traffic controller always comes near the top of any survey about stressful jobs. Install Airport Mania: First Flight on your iPhone and you’ll realize why. Your roles include guiding planes in safely for landing, sending them to the boarding gate, offloading passengers, loading new passengers, then sending them back to the runway for takeoff. You earn cash, which you can use to upgrade your airports.
Farmer
Working the land can be one of the most satisfying jobs you can take on. Just ask the five trillion people who play Farmville on Facebook. The iPhone version of the game allows you to connect to your Farmville farm via the web. Plant seeds, acquire machinery and manage your livestock in order to become a successful farmer. Be careful though, because all this gets very addictive.
