Cakes are great. Great big chocolate cakes, short fat sponge cakes, moist pert fairy cakes... Our love of sweet baked goods grows larger every day. As do our waistlines. If ever we'd worked in a cake shop, it would only have been a matter of time before we'd have scoffed so much merchandise, we'd have exploded over the customers like a sweet-toothed Mr Creosote from
Monty Python.
Thankfully,
Cake Mania provides a less dangerous way to indulge our patisserie fetish. It's a simulation that has you running a succession of cake shops, baking up tasty treats for a variety of customers, from nice old ladies and harassed businesspeople through to, erm, the Easter Bunny.
Keeping customers happy is, on the surface, a simple matter. When someone comes into the shop, you give them a menu and wait for them to choose a cake, which will be one of a combination of shapes and icing-colours. For example, a round cake with white icing, or a triangular cake with red icing.
You then bake the cake in the oven and when it's finished put the icing on, hand it to the customer and take their money. Except during this process, another customer or two will have walked in, so you have to juggle their orders, too.
All of this is handled by simply moving a cursor around the screen between the different elements – customer, oven, icing station and so on. The system works well, even if it's slightly fiddlier than similar games that assign individual keys for these actions.
Similar games? Well yes.
Cake Mania is the latest in an increasingly long line of 'casual job' games, following
Diner Dash (the same idea, but in a restaurant) and
Manic Medic (hospital). All these games are based on existing casual web games. In that sense,
Cake Mania is hardly original.
But who cares, when it tastes this good? The fun – and the challenge – comes from upgrading your cake shops as you progress through the game, such as getting faster ovens, more icing stations, or trays of treats to keep your waiting customers happy. You can even buy new shoes to help you scamper around the bakery faster.
However, the orders get more complex as you go along, with customers demanding swizzier decorations, while the pace ramps up to panic-stricken levels if you're not clever about managing your queues. Do it right, though, and you'll earn big tips, earning you enough money to buy new upgrades.
Meanwhile, the game is neatly structured by calendar month, with certain customers appearing at certain times of the year (that'll explain the Easter Bunnies, then). It all works smoothly, and the graphics are full of character – not that you'll have much time to notice them as you rush from task to task.
If you loved
Diner Dash, you should definitely buy
Cake Mania, as it's baked from the same cake mixture. But even if you haven't played Glu's waitress title,
Cake Mania is a delicious slice of mobile gaming goodness. Sweet.
Joined:
May 2008
Post count:
58
At some time or the other we have all dined in restaurants or fast food outlets where our hunger yearns in craving for appetizing junk food… It's the experience of dining out that makes us commend places of serving great food with excellent efficient service and it's by word of mouth that your business starts to blossom. It's Glu title Diner Dash that made us discover the everyday life of a waitress named Flo, whom being an aspiring entrepreneur and providing swift service in earning good tips and raising profits. It's a small taste of fast food reality on mobile. Diner Dash goal succeeds in an addictive educational insight to an underestimated job that most people think is simple. If you haven't played this gem of a game, you'll indeed be surprised when you fit yourself in Flo's shoes and accomplish the daunting task of keeping the abundance of customers satisfied.
The trend was inevitable to follow with the great success of Diner Dash, Sandlot Games have brought a new 'serving' game to mobile, Cake Mania. I thought the title itself was amusing and one of those games that would only appeal to old women with baking skills but I couldn't have been more wrong!!! This game compared to Diner Dash made me feel more hungry!!! Gosh, the types of deliciously irresistable, cakes that you can bake in this cake made my mouth water for hours on end…
The gameplay is fairly simple. Keep your customers happy and grow your baking skills to handle bigger shops and more customers. There are 4 basic shapes in your recipes which include: Circle, Square, Star, Triangle that come with a variety of decorating icing flavors colors (Brown, Yellow, Purple, Blue, Red, White etc.). Give your customers their menus in the queue and bake accordingly to their given desires. If you make your customers wait for too long their impatience grows in the 'speech bubbles'. If it fills up to capacity, they will regrettably leave your shop which jeopardizes your profit targets. Fulfill their needs and you'll gain good profits margins and progress through the calendar months. Once you have successfully managed your shop throughout the year, you will get to move to better shop locations.
The refreshing aspect of Cake Mania is that there is a bit of strategy to increase your profits besides just making the cakes and serving to customers. It's the accessories that you upgrade to, that will help you reach your target goals. From buying television sets to distract your customers from leaving or serving quick tasty cupcakes to keep their patience in check, and adding decoration choices to your cakes that will make your customers fork out bigger tips. There are frosting machines and much faster expensive baking ovens to
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