The concept of this game isn’t new. If my understanding

is correct, the first "Lemonade Stand" type

game was available on the Apple ][, and was relatively

popular. With its monochrome graphics and cheesy music,

it was nothing to hoot about, but the concept was

a good one. Well, now it’s available on Pocket PC,

with over 60,000 colors. So pour yourself a glass

   The first thing I noticed about

Lemonade Inc. was its interface; the colors (a lot

of green) are well thought out, and the layout is

intuitive, which is always a plus. Also, you are presented

with a different quote when you start the game, such

The game features two modes: challenge, which tests

your lemonade selling skills over 30 days, or career,

which allows you to make in infinite amount of money

without time restrictions. You can then "compare

your market cap and other metrics with other players

The animation of the people walking by is smooth,

You can choose from five different locations, with

rent prices that vary according to the level of exposure

each provides for your business. I’ll show each of

Many upgrades are available to speed up the process

of lemonade selling, which you will again see later

Hexacto even worked with AI (Artificial Intelligence)

   The program setup was easy and

took just a few clicks. You run the installation program,

it copies some files to a directory on your desktop

system and then starts up the Add/Remove Programs

applet in ActiveSync. Lemonade Inc. requires 1.3 MB

takes a few seconds, depending on the speed of your

particular device. On my iPAQ 3650, I was waiting

you tap "Play", you can choose from two

modes. Challenge lasts only 30 days, and career has

no time limit. You may also load a game from one of

you can see, they pack a lot onto the screen. Weather

forecasts are always important to check, especially

if you are in an outdoor location. Be sure to check

the news flash as well. Above, in the "newsflash!"

area, you see that there will be "No Swimming

At The Beach!" So perhaps you may want to relocate

or adjust your price accordingly. Let’s go through

you tap "results", you see the following

screen with three tabs. The one to the right shows

your balance sheet, which includes a breakdown of

next tab to the left shows your Profits and Losses.

Lemonade Inc. even graphs four parameters, including

you tap "upgrades", you are presented with

each of the six upgrades available. Items that you

have already purchased are in yellow… I have them

recipe is very important. You may need to adjust this

several times during your game play, in response to

weather or customer responses. If your customers are

dissatisfied with the taste of their lemonade, they

will let you know, as you see above right. Tap on

their sad faced bubble to see what is wrong with the

game recommends lots of advertising. To view this

supplies are limited by the type of stand that you

have. The most expensive stand has no limits in what

it can hold, so start saving! Tap each tab to purchase

lemons, sugar, ice and cups. Be careful not to buy

too many lemons or too much sugar, since they are

Inc. has five levels, all which are available in the

"rent" menu. See below for screen shots

sales will differ depending on location. The suburbs

are free and familiar, the park has many kids, the

beach have families who need a cold drink, downtown

has numerous armies of people walking through, and

the mall offers dozens of shoppers who, most importantly,

    The game is very

well explained through the help section found in the

main menu. There are 25 different slides which explain

    Lemonade Inc. works on

both MIPS and ARM devices. It runs under Pocket PC

2002 or Windows CE 3.X and requires 1.3 MB of Storage

Memory and 6 MB of Program Memory. Lemonade Inc. works

on the following devices: @migo 600-C; Casio E-125,

E-200 & EM500; Compaq iPAQ 31XX, 36XX, 37XX and

38XX Series; HP Jornada 56X; Toshiba Genio-e, and

    First off, the music got

a little annoying. It was the same tune over and over

again, so naturally I turned this off, which was easy

I played this game for a good two hours, and got my

revenue up to almost $40,000. (I could have kept going

in an attempted to beat the high score of over $230,000

on the LSX, but I got very bored trying). However,

once I got to around $2,000, had EVERY upgrade, and

my popularity and satisfaction were almost perfect,

I found no point in playing the game thereafter. What

next? Sell more lemonade? I think it would be in Hexacto’s

best interest to release a follow-up to this game,

including many more upgrades and locations to choose

from, thus elongating the ladder that is available

How about having a work force? Even with all of the

upgrades, I found customers complaining about long

waiting times. How could this be? What could possibly

    Lemonade Inc. is available

at pocketnow’s

Store, and costs $19.95. A demo

   This game was flat-out fun,

or at least in the beginning. It was fun to watch

my popularity and satisfaction grow as I perfected

my recipe, and thus became satisfied with what I have

created. I think Hexacto

really has done a great thing here with this game.

However, as I have said earlier in this review, I

strongly urge Hexacto

to consider making a follow-up version of Lemonade

Inc., adding more upgrades and options, to further

insure that the user doesn’t get bored after accumulating