Cafe World Review

Cafe World is yet another typical restaurant theme game which you as the player runs a restaurant business with your trusted friends and make it into a successful and number 1 restaurant in the world (Facebook anyway). This game is developed by Zynga has a few similar theme to Playfish Restaurant City and a few twist of its own.

Gameplay
As the name describes it Cafe World is all about restaurant and cafe and as the player you are in charge to run it as you see fit. We start the game off with the usual boy or girl gender customizing screen. From there the cafe world instructor Amelia will guide you on how the game works and what is needed to be done to get your cafe running. Cafe World is very straight forward and easy to follow for everyone.



For those who play Restaurant City might feel a bit out of place when playing Cafe World during the first few minutes. Instead of the usual upgrading dishes, this game has no such options. Instead the game allows you to prepare your own dishes yourself. For you the player themselves is you are your own boss and also the chef in your own Cafe.

The idea sound a bit interesting for those who wants to get into a bit realism in their game, but once you level up a bit higher, it might get a bit challenging just to click all 16 stove in your kitchen repeatedly trying to get your dishes to cook.



Alright we look into the cooking part. You as the chef will have your trusty recipe book with you and inside the book you will have a few recipes unlock during the start of the game. From there you choose the easiest and cheapest food you can produce. From there you will keep preparing your ingredients until your food is being cook on the stove. Some food takes a few minutes to cook while others depending on quantity produce and cost of making it can take hours till days to prepare. This game is focus on those who either wish to sit in front of the game for hours or just a few minutes.



Best part about this game is that if you are the type who hates waiting for the food to cook, then all you have to do is to collect food from your friends who has publish on their wall. This can save a lot of time if you are running out of food to serve your customer or in dying need of fast cash (Will be explained in the Walkthrough)



Once you have your food prepare then you can then served it to the guest. This is where your friends comes in. In Cafe world, you don’t really have to go look for your waiter/waitress. All you have to do is to click on your friend's list and just choose who you wish to work for you. Mainly there is rather limited stuff you can do with your friends as all they do is to serve the customer’s their food. You cannot even customize their clothing. I find this rather limited as I want my friends to look their best instead of wearing plain while waiter costume. However at times you do find some of your waiter or waitress dress a bit odd as this is how their owner customizes it and you cannot change it.

Now we also look at your Cafe. The game is very easy to move around and usually everything is automated. All you have to do is get your workers, prepare your food and the needed furniture to serve the food.



The stores and inventory in Cafe World allow players to customize how their Cafe to work and how to make it run the way they want it to. From tables to chair and from wall decorations to the floor the customers walk on, everything is customizable into a way you see fit. However there are bit limitations into the game engine. I do notice that after changing the floor tiles, selling the items that is still in your inventory is rather difficult. I can only sell one item at the time! It can be rather troublesome since I have 30 over tiles to sell and I have to do it 30 over times to get the stock out of my inventory.

However, I do like the loading feature in Cafe World. It used to take over 5 minutes just to load the game last time as it needs to load all the sprites and texture. Now the game loads faster, but in 3 phases. First the game will load the engineer; once you are in the game itself the game will load the rest of the textures and design into it. This cuts down on the load time. I very much appreciate how the developers manage to do that.


Once you spend some time playing this game, there are other features in the game that will keep player busy. Things like getting special spice, helping friends out with their mini-quest or build your special stove that can allow you to prepare your food faster.

Graphic
The game is very beautiful, mixing with 3D and 2D together. Your character models are 3D lively and the texture is well done. Furniture and Decorations is also carefully done as they look very detail even when zoom in close (Especially the food). Movement and animation is rather smooth, but there are times you will notice that the dishes will fly off the counter and hover its way to the table. This is somehow a small bug that I notice very little off.

Sound
Cafe World has cute and very nice music. Could not comment much on the sound system as it is just like any other simulators game which has the same old sound running in a loop.

Conclusion
I rather do enjoy playing this game as it is a change of taste compare to Restaurant City, however due to the slight changes in the game, it does take some getting used to. Nevertheless it is a game that is worth investing your time into it.

I give this game a 3.5 out of 5 rating.

Cafe World Links

1) Facebook- You must have a Facebook account to play Cafe World

2) Cafe World Application at Facebook- http://apps.facebook.com/cafeworld/

3) Also read Cafe World Walkthrough at- http://www.mabelgames.com/cafe-world-walkthrough