I was skeptic to try Restaurant City on Facebook because I'm not the type who likes "commitment games" - that's what I call games that go on forever, the kind that you have to check every hour or so. You know? Like Tamagotchi. I really wanted one when I was a kid, I'm glad I didn't pester my mom to buying me, I was completely disappointed when I actually saw a friend playing it,
What? They don't get fat when you feed them more?So yesterday, boredom got me bad. I was willing to go back to Neopets but went ahead and tried Restaurant City to humor my friends.
Bummer.
How did I like it? I swiftly, obsessively reached level five in four hours. It wasn't that hard to achieve it since I already had a number of friends who joined in before I did - that matters, and I'll tell you why.
Goal:
To get as much Gourmet Points as you can. The money doesn't matter because the game expects you to spend it. Actually, you get more Gourmet Points when you spend, you may also get awards for it.
How to get as much Gourmet Points as you can:
Leave the game open. That literally means open Restaurant City then
Tips:
1. You get a free ingredient on your first (ever) visit to another restaurant. So make sure that you go around the block when you signed up, then check the on your newly joined friends once in a while. Most of the first timers are on the left most side of the street because the restaurants are arranged from lowest to highest levels.
~ Now I know why I get friend requests from strangers. The darn addicts want new restaurants to visit for a free ingredient.
2.Place waiting chairs away from the door. The farther it is from the door, the longer the walk, the longer the customer queue ~ this is good only if you have more incoming customers that you can handle.
3. Create a maze. You can take this literally - as I have when I started (see above images). The longer it takes for the customer to enter your restaurant, the higher the probability that the table has been cleared by the time he/she gets there. This is advisable for levels 5-7 when your popularity significantly increased. However, once you reached level 8, those dividers would have to go to make room for more tables (at least I thought it wise to get rid of them, some prefer to keep the number of tables small to keep the customers happy).
[Update 29 Dec 2009] Due to the November 2009 update, creating a maze no longer helps you increase your popularity. Actually, it's helping you the other way around! As of now, it is better to make sure that customers have an easy access to the tables and chairs.
4. Focus on leveling up only ONE starter dish, ONE main dish, and ONE dessert. This is very important, else you'd end up consuming your ingredients carelessly (like I did). The higher the level of that one dish, the higher the Gourmet Points per order. Forget about variety because you only serve one of each.
Update: you can now serve multiple started dish, main dish, dessert, and (another Restaurant City addition) drinks! However, keep in mind that YOU DON'T HAVE TO SERVE MORE THAN ONE DISH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO.
You may opt to server only one dish even though you can serve two. This is important to note because if you have 2 started dishes and one is level 10, while the other is only level 5 then just serve the level 10 for now. Remove the second dish from your menu by clicking on it when it is selected. The selection will disappear.
5. Try to focus on a "unique" dish. If you and your friends are after the same ingredients, trading would be hell.
6. Keep the tables tight. The smaller the space your waiter navigates in, the quicker the service, the quicker the money. This can be achieved by enclosing your waiter inside tables and stoves. Don't worry, he doesn't have to sit or to get out for anything (except cleaning the toilet, for level 8 and even then you waiter/waitress magically gets out of the space when you reassign him a different job).
7. No, more expensive stoves DON'T cook faster. I even timed this and found out it takes 30 seconds in average for a happy cook to finish (happy cook = green smiley). I didn't check the speed on all levels, I just wanted to find out if spending additional 300 on a pink stove was worth it.
8. Selling items gets you 1/3 of the original price. You may want to just hold on to them by dragging them back to the item for storage.
Oak Room Divider originally costs 180 but you can only sell it for 60.9. Click on the trees surrounding your restaurant or surrounding your friends' restaurants for bonus coins.
Click trees to get free money.
10. Feed your employees instead of letting them rest to get more things done. Resting takes too much time and even though you might save some by not spending 110 on an apple, you're giving up Gourmet Points. You earn money to spend it on your restaurant (or on your avatar's outfits) so do spend.
11. Don't split your tables into two sets, e.g., put a set of cook and waiter in a cluster of tables and another set of cook and table in a different cluster. I GUARANTEE you'd lose popularity. I tried this because some dumb "Restaurant City Guide" suggested it. You know what happened? One waiter in one cluster refused to serve two tables. My thumbs up went from 29.9 to 19.0 in 3 hours. THANKS. I hate you.
12. You don't have to assign a Cleaner (required in level 8) if you're checking on your game all the time anyway. Just make one of your cooks clean up the toilet once he's done with his dish, then make him go back to cooking. I know that sounds disgusting.
[2010 Jan 07 Post Update]
Here's an example of how a one-island layout looks like at level 42
And here's a less effective layout that I'm currently sporting. I do not recommend it --it keeps me above 40+ popularity, which is enough for me. I wanted to try a more restaurant-ish feel. But I figured that putting the chefs and the fridges in a separate room (with a door!) would crash my earnings. This is as "realistic" as I can get. The one-island layout above will help you keep your 50.0 popularity.
82 comments: