Adelantado Trilogy: Book One is an amazing resource planner game created by the developers of Roads of Rome. Its fun, if somewhat historically inaccurate, plotline, great graphics, and challenging race-against-the-clock levels make this an extremely entertaining experience for resource management lovers.

To say this has been a challenging week, is an understatement at best. Everything that could possibly go wrong has. It's like the world decided that it needed to throw every obstacle it could think of in my way just for the fun of it.

Let's see... I'm already feeling pain every time I move because I'm training for my 10 mile race, we're down to one car this week because mine is in the shop so I'm stuck in the house, my sister was rushed to the emergency room and now has to get surgery to remove the two kidney stones that are lodged somewhere in her system, which means that I need to help take care of her two little ones, 1 and 3 years of age, my mother isn't feeling super well and the doctor can't figure out what's wrong, I fell (gracefully) down the stairs last night rushing to go get the car seats from my sister and of course tweaked my ankle... a week before my big race... and oh yeah... Liz's guinea pig died. Just to top off the week...

My only source of any kind of happy thoughts this week has been the amazing games that have been released starting with Adelantado Trilogy: Book One. This game... is just too good for words. I never got around to playing the Roads of Rome games. I meant to, because I was sure I would love them, but the chance just hasn't presented itself yet... neither has my chance to sit and eat bon bons all day. I'd really like to know what that's like...

Anyhow... when I saw that Adelantado had been released... somewhere in between the car troubles and the phone call from my sister telling me she was experiencing a pain well beyond child birth... I quietly closed the door to my office, drew the curtains, and plopped myself down in my comfy chair with a bag of chips and a beer to enjoy a little me time before the world began smashing its fist on my door again.

The story is a very cleaned up and ahem... fairytale version of exploration by the Spanish conquistadors around the 16th century. I'm pretty sure they didn't kindly trade with the natives and repair all their homes for them like you do in the game. I'm pretty sure they actually enslaved or simply exterminated most of the native tribes... but if you get beyond the historical inaccuracies of Adelantado Trilogy: Book One, it's really quite entertaining. If you can't... best not open this one.

There's a reason I'm keeping Amy far far away from this game... she'd have a cow in the first 5 minutes, and I'd have to listen to her lecture me for the next hour or two... sometimes I just want to enjoy a game for the game's sake!

In Adelantado Trilogy: Book One, you are on a race for exploration against another Adelantado or expedition officer and the goal of each level is to complete all your tasks before he does.

Now there are several different play styles to this game. You can play hard, normal, easy, and relaxed. The most difficult level will give you less resources and less time in which to complete everything. With my week being what it has been... I chickened out and gave myself permission to play easy, since I hear from Ann who is busy working on the Adelantado Trilogy: Book One Walkthrough, that hard is really really hard. I'll save that for another week.

As you progress in levels, the boards get bigger and bigger. You must reveal the entire map in all the levels so the difficulty keeps growing as you move along. You can only reveal parts of the map if you build watch towers or repair old native totem poles. Once a section is revealed, you'll have access to the resources there.

Your workers do most of the dirty work. Just click on something, and they'll get to work. If you build something that requires a worker, one will automatically assign himself to that building so you have to keep an eye out for how many active workers you have available. If you start running low, you'll need to build workers houses pretty quickly to keep up with the growing demand as you progress through the level.

The graphics of Adelantado Trilogy: Book One are pretty darling. Obviously this kind of game doesn't really lend itself to beautiful artistry like a hidden object game does, but I thought the characters were well done. I loved the main character in his full suit of Conquistador armor moving around very macho like as I made him smash pots and whack a few weeds just for the fun of it.... good thing I was playing on easy because I was really enjoying having him smash things.

The music was charming and appropriate as you were treated to the tinkling of Spanish guitar playing softly in the background. It really helped tie the whole story together... although, again, I'm sure Amy couldn't help point out that the Spanish guitar didn't come around until the 17th century years after our little story here is taking place... but shhhhh just listen and enjoy the music!

Overall, Adelantado Trilogy: Book One is really a fantastic game. I really appreciated the different levels of gameplay so that I could enjoy this type of game even when I'm as frazzled as I am this week. It can be fun and relaxing or as fast-paced and challenging as you want it to be, and you can change the settings at any time. So this week, I'll keep it on easy... but you better bet that next week if no other obstacles throw themselves in my way, I'm hitting it on hard... well, maybe I'll wait until the Adelantado Trilogy: Book One Walkthrough is finished first...