Zooming Secretary (Shiru)

Playing the role of a secretary in her trial period at a new job, you have to work your way through an increasingly difficult week without being fired for failing to answer calls on time. Each single screen level (wrapping on both horizontal and vertical axes) consists of an arrangement of platforms and staircases upon which are placed a number of phones and filing cabinets. When a phone rings, the topic that the call is about is represented by a symbol above the handset - and your task is to run to the matching filing cabinet then answer the call before the phone rings off. It starts of simple enough, with day one based on a symmetrical level with only two phones and two cabinets, but the difficulty soon ramps up with devious platform placement and a variety of obstructive NPC's thrown into the mix. The boss slows you down with his unhelpful remarks (just like in real life) and chatting with the office gossip-girl can leave you confused and swap over the topic currently held in your single-track mind. Then there's the delivery guy knocking people over and the oh-so-essential and distracting office romance - although thankfully there is also a coffee machine to provide you with a caffeine-fuelled speed boost to help you overcome all these obstacles. It's a simple yet compulsive concept that would work equally well as a browser-based casual game or modern console indie title, so to see Zooming Secretary make it's debut on the original 'family computer' is particularly exciting.