TasteMaker: Restaurant Simulator

In this game you: -- buy land -- build your restaurant (not always, depends on scenario) -- decorate it -- add restaurant/cafe/bar equipment -- order tableware and food/drink ingredients -- hire staff -- add recipes to your menu -- manage reviews -- other bits and bobs All of the above are fun. The inital experience of the game is very positive, and indeed reminiscent of Theme Hospital. The managing part of the game is well done, I think. It's cool how you can switch your fries and nuggets restaurant to a coffee and icecream cafe no problem. The issue with the game is that it needed more time in the oven. There is only a handful of recipes to choose from, for example. Some things just look unfinished - the customers have the animation of eating fries but they don't have one for drinking coffee or eating icecream. Things clip all the time, staff and customers walk through objects. One customer may still be washing their hands when another walks into the toilet and starts 'unloading'. Lol. To me there is a feeling of the game having been rushed to the market. It would help if the game slowly unfolded as you play it, unlocking more recipes and other items with time and scenarios. You have access, or at least can see, all the recipes and items of decor straight away, which impacts the need to progress. Overcooked did this well.

The game is quite casual, not punishing if you make any error. Enough content to decorate your restaurant, but some weird things, like wall don't really matter, for instance for the toilets, which works very fine in the open. You can do very small things like Izakaya with 3 seats or massive restaurant with >100 customers. Lack of content, not that much scenario, employee have 3 stats. Nice to relax an evening where no reflexion is needed, just making things beautiful for self, not for the game.

While I wasn't too sure about this game due to the mixed reviews, I decided to give this a go, and I'm glad I did. If you enjoy simulators (especially farming and food related ones) and aren't looking for anything groundbreaking, then you may just enjoy this too. You'll spend most of your time balancing the needs of customers, working out your seating plan, calculating the optimal ratio of monthly food purchase versus consumption and deciding menus, all while expanding your little diner to its maximum potential. There is no official tutorial, but you will receive handy hints at crucial moments in the game, which are usually enough to point you in the right direction. The game mechanics are simple enough as to be figured out without too much hair-pulling, while the scenario goals keep you engaged enough to go for gold. There is also a freeplay mode, which I've not tried yet, but I'm sure will keep me entertained enough when I just want to wing it without any pressure. While there aren't a whole lot of options to decorate, personalise or take over the world, the graphics are cute and appealing. Its vidual appeal makes up for the lack of diversity. Again, simple but sweet. When all is said and done, this game is not going to set your heart on fire, but it will keep you engaged enough to want to keep expanding your little empire for just a few more minutes. It doesn't promise to be anything more that it is, instead it solidly delivers what it has to offer, and for this I gave it five stars. If you're looking for something that will give you a short respite from reality now and then, just like I was, then I recommend adding this to your rotation.

Love the game. The music is great--saxophone, piano :) Game play at max fast forward is quite good; bug free--that's quite an achievement. Would consider this one of the best sim and a very good price. Would give it a perfect score except i do not like the scene of the cat pouncing on the mouse--wish that would be fixed. Maybe the cat could just be around and the mouse wouldn't come around instead? Or maybe they could be friends. In any case, love mouses and do not like that and love cats as well. Actually, I didn't hire the cat at all; it was just one of the scene i saw in the preview of the game. If that would be fixed, this game is worth 5 thumbs up!