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And autumn brings us football, great new TV shows, and falling leaves in every color of the sunset. Plus, of course, harvest-time pies in all their magnificent variety! Not to mention Oktoberfest. Oh, and turkey. Mmmm, turkey.
If it sounds like I may be just a bit obsessed with food at the moment, you may blame our lineup of recent games (I know I do). I have a hard enough time keeping my mind on work this time of year – one of my colleagues is actually over in Germany right now, doing the traditional brat-and-brau thing, lucky dog – without the discovery that half of our new games seem to be food-related! So you see, it’s not really my fault.
And if I’m going to sit here and think about tasty chow all day, by Jove, you’re coming along for the ride…
I like mine with almonds
Sweet!
For once, I mean that literally, since another one of my favorite download titles has just been released as a free web game: Chocolatier! This is a game that combines two of my youthful passions: trading games (does anyone else here remember Guns or Butter?) and candy. If you fancy traveling the world, shopping for ingredients, and making tasty, tasty chocolate… well, then off you go. Go on, the link is right up there. This Coffee Break will wait until you’re done building your empire; no worries.
For those who aren’t convinced yet, imagine a merchant game like Tradewinds 2, but with chocolate instead of pirates. Chocolatier also has adventure-game elements: in order to find and collect chocolate recipes, you need to complete quests for various people around the world. This may be as simple as delivering a package, or as complex as buying all the right ingredients and making thirty cases of special chocolate for somebody. There are also tantalizing elements of the download version’s storyline, giving you a taste – no pun intended – of life as a Master Chocolatier.
It’s all about chocolate. And it’s free. Chocolate + free = free chocolate, right? Seriously, what more can you want?
Protip: visit the tavern in each city to hear rumors of cheap ingredients or market trends!
Cooking up excitement
Okay, we all know that Flo can run a restaurant. After several of her own games, and cameo appearances in others, our favorite waitress has proven herself more than capable of handling any sort of shift the world can throw at her. But as one of my oldest friends – a veteran diner cook – would attest, “serving hash and slinging it are two different things.” So what happens when Flo’s cook is hired away by a reality TV show and she has to run the kitchen herself? Cooking Dash has the answer.
Apparently that answer involves putting Grandma on sandwich duty while Flo rushes around the other cooking stations, being as efficient as ever. It’s rather a shame that she doesn’t still have those extra two arms she got at the end of the first Diner Dash game.
As with other PlayFirst titles, Cooking Dash is well-designed and easy to pick up, but challenging enough to keep you hopping, particularly in the later levels. It’s a lot like Turbo Fiesta (which I just finished last week, finally!), but without the minigames between levels. Flo’s task – and by extension, yours – is to gather the right ingredients and cook the items your customers order, all while trying to keep them happy. The developers cleverly snuck in a few elements of Diner Dash as well: customers are color-coded and can be matched to the right spots at the counter for bonus points. Also, they’re the same customers that Flo dealt with in previous games, so Diner Dash fans will already know how each person behaves.
Frankly, it’s a lot of fun, and a nice addition to the kitchen assembly genre. On the downside, the steaks look a wee bit too tasty on the grill, and I’m salivating like Pavlov’s dog.
Protip: food will burn if you leave it on the grill or fryer for too long, so don’t stray too far away while cooking!
Desserted once again
Here’s a conundrum: let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you like the notion of Cooking Dash and other kitchen assembly games, but you really wish they had more cavemen, Egyptian gods, hungry dragons, merry men, and French nobles in froofy wigs.
Of course, I’m not sure if anyone out there has ever lost any sleep over this, but just in case you have, your moment is finally at hand. And even if you haven’t, Cake Mania 3 is so surreal that I’m recommending it anyway. Highly.
If you’ve played either of the previous Cake Mania titles, you’re well familiar with how this new one works: give your customer a menu, bake the cake, ice and decorate it, collect your payment, and send them off to their party. The real twist to this one is in where you’ll be baking up your sugary masterworks: at the start of the game, all your friends have been scattered through time, and of course they each end up somewhere with people who love cake.
You can start in any of the five time periods, but they’re all well-designed and downright silly, so pick whichever you like. None of them is actually “real” time – I’m fairly certain that medieval England didn’t have real wizards, ancient China was probably lacking in actual dragons, and dinosaurs rarely wore bowties – but then, this is a game in which you save your friends by baking cakes, so trying to make logical sense of it is already a silly idea.
If you like cooking games at all, you have got to check this one out. Trust me. And remember, whether you get paid in fish, shiny stones, or gold: it all spends the same.
Protip: It doesn’t matter how grumpy your other customers may be, serve the T-Rex first. He’s the only one who eats people when he gets angry!
Free gas!
Now that I have your attention, I’m proud to announce that MSN Games has discovered a way to power your car, SUV, or motorcycle on nothing more than your knowledge of free online web games! No, it’s not an energy breakthrough, but it is the Daily Game Teaser Sweepstakes.
Starting October 7 – which, unless I’ve fallen into another one of those pesky time warps, is tomorrow – you’ll be able to use that keen understanding of MSN Games’ online titles to answer trivia questions and enter the sweepstakes. We’ll be featuring a different game every week until November 17, and the grand prize is a whopping $1,500 gas card. If that’s not enough, we’ll also have weekly prizes ranging from shopping sprees to gift cards to, yes, more free gas.
So don’t forget to enter, and you might be the one telling your friends, “See this car? Yeah, it runs on games.”
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