Natsume is taking advantage of WiiWare this year with a number of different games, one of which is Harvest Moon: My Little Shop. This is a nice addition for any Harvest Moon fan, or someone who just enjoys silly little mini games that employ a nice design scheme and storyline. The game takes place in Clover Town, which is made up of paper-style art and filled with old friends, as well as the new Mayor Jarvis. Players can choose to be either a boy or a girl character that owns a new shop in Clover Town that makes fruit juices, ice cream cones, and decorated eggs.

When you enter your store, you have the option of selecting to open either Moo Moo Bar, Juice Bar, or Cluck Cluck Atelier. In Moo Moo Bar, customers enter the store and order a small or large ice cream cone and the mini-game begins. First, the cow gives you a song to play using combinations of pressing A and B, as well as shaking the Wii Remote. I felt a little silly doing this, but it ended up being pretty fun since the combinations were simple but not mundane. After doing this a few times, there is enough milk to begin filling the ice cream cone. This is done by moving the Wii Remote around in a circular fashion in order to get the ice cream to the desired height. But be careful, because if the ice cream gets lopsided it will tilt from side to side, and if you don’t straighten it out, it will fall over and you will have to start again. My first time doing this I must have dropped the ice cream at least two or three times. I found that the large cone was easier to fill, because the larger base allowed for better balancing, and there is only a height limit, not a width.

The Juice Bar is an easier mini game which is just as much fun. A customer orders a type of juice, and you have to make it by playing a shooter game. Two conveyer belts carry different fruits and vegetables, and the goal is to shoot a certain number of them. This is very easy, despite the fact that many of the plants have metal tops, making them bad. If you shoot one of these, all of the ones you have already collected disappear. Once you have the necessary ingredients, they are put in a juicer which you run by holding the remote sideways and moving it up and down. You do this until the meter goes up to the requested consistency: chunky, blend, or puree. This one is much easier than Moo Moo Bar, but still fun.

The Cluck Cluck Atelier caters to customers who want beautifully decorated eggs. The first part is the old trick with the ball under the cup. One of three chickens thinks of an egg, and they get all jumbled up and you have to guess which chicken it was. It started off slow and I didn’t expect it to speed up so fast; in the end, it was pretty hard and took me two tries. After you have the egg, you have to decorate it based on the customer’s request. I was asked to decorate a plain yellow egg, which meant that I did not get to use any of the really cool stickers, which included a mustache.

At the end of each customer, a final score is tallied which is comprised of factors like time and skill. The final score dictates how much money you will make. With your money, you can buy products like a brush to pet your cow with, or else it will run away.

Harvest Moon: My Little Shop is expected to hit WiiWare this fall, at a price point of around 1200 Nintendo Points ($12).