Cooking Games Round Up

Outside of Ore-no Ryouri, there weren't many cooking games played. Even though I was aware of their existence, there just wasn't any that captured my attention and held it. So, some years later I signed up for Facebook as a means, at the time, of keeping up with this scholarship site.

After that, I took interest in the games that were present that of course started with the original FarmVille. Farming was something that intrigued me since I did experimental farming myself. Later came FarmVille 2 and this version had an interesting addition of cooking.

I wasn't at a high enough level for FarmVille to access that feature but did find it enjoyable to prepare dishes of various origins while utilizing a variety of ingredients. Was still learning the ins and outs of the platform when I received an invite to play another FB game.

ChefVille (Zynga)

At the time, this became a major go to in terms of cooking. It had the right mix of ingredients and based on the game neighbors I had, many of which were friended from another game, ChefVille showed a lot of promise. After reaching a particular point in game, things started to slow.

Despite this, there were loads to do but bulk of the amazing activities required you to have loads of neighbors that needed to send you all this stuff just to complete something that at first glance looked simple.

Kitchen Scramble (Rock You)

A promising game of which I still play on occasion. All the recipes are easy to make and there are always tutorials presented beforehand so that you can get a feel for how to go about the steps. The only and main issue with this game: running out of supplies.

Even when you are over the minimum limit of supplies they tend to run out rather quickly. Either I'm playing too much or aren't paying enough attention to the dishes.

Dessert Shop (Shinezone Games)

Couldn't find the link and had to revisit the app page. My crops are up front.

This was a short-lived game for me. Its great at the start but things got repetitive almost instantly. A big plus was how, instead of purchasing the needed ingredients, you could make them yourself.

It's a balancing act of farming and cooking. Plant and harvest wheat so that you can make flour is an example of how you make your ingredients from scratch. Another way to get flour is the flour stand but you'll quickly see that you will need both to keep up with demand.

Was trying to figure out why it disappeared till I checked in to a snapshot of my shop. Once you're in, you immediately start preparing dishes. Though the customers wait patiently outside for food to be delivered to the counter, they quickly become obsessed with your place.

It doesn't matter if they treated themselves when they came, they will want seconds and after seconds they will want a hot drink; can't remember if its tea of coffee that they ask for. Compared to Fashionista, this is easier to play; and they're by the same company.

Cafeland (Gamegos)

A follow up that I'm still playing. There's no need for ingredients with this game because everything is laid out for you. All you need to get started after completing the tutorial are some stoves, serving tables and dinner furniture for guests.

The rewards for this game are a lot better when
compared to Marketland and Fashland;
i.e. special currency.

The objective of running your restaurant/cafe is pretty straight forward. Some have plowed through all the available missions and are looking for more to do. Depending on your schedule, you can cook quick dishes to be served immediately or cook long dishes which you can pick out to be completed later the following day.

As an example, I will usually have 10-hour plus dishes cooking over night so that when I sign on the following day, they will either be finished or close to finish. This pretty much helps as it keeps them from spoiling which can be costly if you don't have any Savior Carrot on hand. Which reminds me...

Should you pick up this game for a test drive, try to participate in the Weekly Cooking Challenge as it rewards you with items that are difficult to come by. Like said Savior Carrot along with a couple other Special Sauces.

Funny Accomplishment: I've finally succeeded in getting the "Cheer Factor" of my cafe to 100 - see above pic. It was at 98 for the longest. After a decision was made purchase an extra drink machine it shot up to 100.

Bakery Blitz (Rock You)

The latest addition to the cooking game round up of which has a lot of promise. I've been using that term a lot, but it's fairly true for this game. Like Dessert Shop above, this game focuses exclusively on preparing sugary treats for customers.

Not sure why but I started to get cravings for those chocolate cake rolls filled with sweet cream and covered in a thin layer of fondant. It's a really great game that follows an up and coming young cook who discovers a journal belonging to her grandmother that was filled with loads of sweet-tooth inducing recipes.

The mechanics are similar to Kitchen Scramble, but the process of completing dishes after a certain level becomes more complicated than it needs to. With KS, you could multi-task with little issue. Plus there was a bonus of having predictable orders (not necessarily customers) after certain levels.

Not only that but you had the ability to calm impatient customers quickly and easily. With Blitz there's a couple of components; however, you have to be on top of everything in order for this crowd silencer to activate. The game started off simply enough but its like the difficulty arrived a lot sooner than expected.

It's like every other level required a much needed equipment upgrade of which couldn't be purchased yet due to low funds.

December 2020 UPDATE

All of the cooking games that were sampled over the years were highly engaging. One of the drawbacks for some is the lack of customization for personal avatars. In order to customize an avatar you would need access to special currency.

Kitchen Scramble and Bakery Blitz didn't have the character customization option. However, they did have equipment and their accompanying upgrades. With that said, the upgrades didn't come cheap which hindered progress quite a bit.

Cafeland is a favorite as everything you could possibly need and want is within reach at the start. Things only increase in difficult at higher levels and even then, they're still within the reach with careful planning.