Curry in a Hurry
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| Curry in a Hurry

We in Britain love a good curry. Such has been our love of Indian food since imperial times that it has pretty much been adopted as our national dish. It has become as much a part of our multicultural fabric as fish and chips or pie and mash. And for Indian restauranteurs, business is as hot as a phaal.

And so it was that we tucked into Curry in a Hurry much as we would a Friday night lamb balti. With keema naan. And papadums. For here is a game that tasks you with running a restaurant, doling out chicken curry to ravenous customers and maintaining a constant supply of cold beer to sooth their chilli-scorched palates.

You achieve this by retrieving orders and serving food to the correct table, the number of which corresponds to the appropriate number on your phone. So if table 4, having been seated, indicates that they're ready to order, you press '4' on your keypad.

If you think this sounds familiar, by the way, you're wrong. It's very familiar, most recently from Glu's Diner Dash 2 and Beauty Centre.

Once the order is ready, you press '4' to collect the order and '4' again to take it to their table. A chilli gauge and the customer's facial expressions will tell you if they're in need of liquid refreshment, which can be obtained by pressing the '#' key followed by the table number.

Sounds simple? It is, until you start dealing with more than one customer. It soon becomes a juggling act of simultaneously managing multiple tables. The need to multitask soon becomes apparent – table 3 needs their order taking, but table 1 also needs a beer top-up and table 6's orders are ready and waiting on the counter. Meanwhile a new customer is waiting to be seated, so you need to get someone fed and out to free up a table. What do you do?

As much as you can simultaneously is the inevitable answer. Dally too long on any one task and the customers will up and walk out, costing you points. These points are vital in order to meet your quota and unlock the next restaurant (as well as one of the delicious looking curry recipes, which we intend to 'test' privately).

It becomes wholly absorbing, as you make and revise plans on the fly, trying to formulate the most efficient route around the tables. Another factor to consider is the varying needs and quirks of your customers. Chaps require more beer, are impatient and tip less (too true), whereas the ladies are far lower maintenance in general.

We loved the visual style of Curry in a Hurry, with its wonderfully expressive cartoon-like characters and the charming menu screens (and we mean 'menu' literally) fitting the bill perfectly.

Special mention should also be made of the tutorial section, which describes the key principles entertainingly and succinctly without overstaying its welcome. Other games should take note.

Curry in a Hurry is undoubtedly a light, casual experience, and as such may prove a little insubstantial for experienced gamers seeking a gaming tandoori mixed grill as opposed to this slender onion bhaji starter. It has undoubted novelty value, which will inevitably wear thin a little sooner than some of the deeper mobile experiences out there. But criticising the game for this would be churlish, for it achieves exactly what every mobile game should do – it's fun, accessible and a doddle to play in short bursts and while on the move.

It won't be to everyone's taste, but Curry in a Hurry has been cooked up with a real lightness of touch, and will delight those looking for an alternative to the blander offerings out there.

Curry in a Hurry

A delicious recipe comprising a little multi-tasking and lashings of fun. Tasty!
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.