Cooking Fever

Pros

• Pretty fun gameplay
• A lot of upgrades and content
• Challenge increases fairly

Cons

• Mouse control is not precise enough
• Very grindy
• Micro-transactions

If You Can’t Handle The Heat, Stay Out of the Kitchen

I love cooking. Although I don’t haven’t worked in a restaurant in years, I sometimes find myself nostalgic for the bustle and hustle of the kitchen. When I get that particular itch, I often find myself playing cooking games.

My wife played Cooking Fever a lot, so I decided to try it myself. It starts off simple enough. You’re the proud owner of a classic American diner. You have a single prep station, a single skillet for frying burgers, and a very slow fountain drink dispenser. As you progress through the levels, the game automatically adds new foods and ingredients to your repertoire.

First comes hot dogs; then you get ketchup, tomatoes, lettuce and French fries. With so much going on, you’ll soon find yourself struggling to pass levels if you don’t regularly upgrade your equipment. You can use the coins you earn from selling food to buy more frying pans, serving stations, etc.

You can also upgrade your food and equipment. For example, the first fountain drink upgrade reduces the pour time from 13 seconds to 8 seconds. The second upgrade adds a second fountain dispenser. Upgrading your food means you earn more coins every time you sell an item.

The game also lets you improve the interior of each restaurant. By adding various items, such as barstools, televisions and plants, you can improve your customer’s patience and even earn greater tips, making the game progress a lot more smoothly.

As the game progresses, you’ll have opportunities to buy new restaurants as well. These include a bakery, a Hard Rock Cafe, a Mexican restaurant and many others.

The Hustle is Real

Each level, you have to serve a certain number of customers within a certain time frame – it seems to be about three minutes, though that number might increase with higher levels. This quickly becomes quite challenging, as you’ll need to keep up with both cooking and serving the food, as well as prepping the burgers and hot dogs as they come.

As an added challenge, you also have to grab the customer’s money after they pay, as new orders won’t come in until you’ve cleared the tables.

The restaurant has 40 levels. By the time you get to around level 20, you’re probably going to start replaying levels quite a bit, both to earn money for upgrades as well as to get three star ratings on the levels.

In addition, you’re going to want to earn money in order to buy new restaurants. The first new restaurant you can buy is the bakery, which is 5000 coins and 10 or fifteen gems, which is the premium currency all of these casual games seem to have,

Unfortunately, every new restaurant you buy is just like starting over. Your equipment is painfully slow, and by the time you’ve waited 16 seconds for the espresso to brew, your customers will be pretty upset. Unlike with your diner, new restaurants you buy don’t start you off easy; there’s a brief tutorial but then you’re thrown right into the mix.

Sadly, I can’t really recommend this game. Everything is controlled by the mouse, but with everything happening so fast, the mouse isn’t the most responsive tool. If you don’t move the burger exactly to the right spot, for example, it’ll go right back on the grill, and it’s frustrating to have to move items two or three times because the mouse is sticking.

If the game had some kind of keyboard support, I would probably find it a lot more enjoyable. As it is, the mouse is just too clunky.

Pros

• Pretty fun gameplay
• A lot of upgrades and content
• Challenge increases fairly

Cons

• Mouse control is not precise enough
• Very grindy
• Micro-transactions