I've been to some suburbs and also in New York for more than a week, serving snacks, meals, and even newspapers!
I certainly did mine a few gems and obsidian from a mine in an unknown location, it closed just yesterday. Although I only got bronze as a token, I should have gotten more active hitting rocks with my pickaxe.
DISCLAIMER: The content is not a paid promotion, but only a personal review of the general user-experience. All game assets and other copyrighted materials, shown as screenshots, that used in this article are the property of its publisher and/or developers. The screenshots are used for the sake of educational and review purposes only.
This was from the game EatVenture (Android | App Store) by Lessmore UG, that I downloaded last week. I was searching for a lightweight game that I could be hooked in and waste my day with it. This was the game I was looking for, but not that type that can be finished in a day. I'll share other games soon when I can.
It is a casual simulation game that contains advertisements and in-app purchases.
So, I started selling lemonades on a stand by the sidewalk. The premise of the game is to serve customers and earn coins for upgrades and buying your way to the next venture.
The Basic Gameplay
The game play is very easy to follow, but start with strategies as soon you get the gist of the game.
You start by having a single dish to serve and its accompanying preparation area. Once your customer is served, he'll pay and leave immediately. You can use the coins to strategically buy dishes to add to the menu and upgrade it all without any time limit.
Strategize your dish upgrades based on which becomes more profitable over the others at the given moment in time. A single upgrade will increase profit by a small percentage and a bonus gem, plus a pearl on certain events. After some incremental upgrades to 10, 25, 100, 150, and so on, you will earn a x2 profit bonus!
Depending on the level, after 10, 50, 100th upgrade of a dish, you get one more preparation area. More preparation areas means your cashiers, chefs, and helper can serve more customers at once.
Business Upgrades
The key strategy to upgrade only when it is needed at the moment, there's no need for panic-buying else you'll play longer than usual. When you already have at least three dishes, the second to the last is usually the most profitable based on the price and the duration of the preparation, but it's not always the case.
The dishes all have duration of preparation, with the next one always longer than the previous. Buy upgrades to make the preparation faster. Upgrading walking speeds is a priority, too!
Upgrades to staff, food multiplier, and customer multipliers should be strategized well, to make most of its value.
From time to time, the investor comes out with its glowy, *mission-y* sprites. He's not extravagant at all, but always take the opportunity to claim his investments through ads. Be sure you have a stable internet connection to successfully claim coins or gems.
Using Gems and the Vault
Gems are very helpful tokens to use in the game.
Open the vault to unlock boosts or multipliers. These are helpful to speed up the game play, but be wary that the next unlock will cost 30 gems more than the previous, while the next upgrade will need 20 more gems.
My personal favorites are the remote (ad boost), hourglass (offline income multiplier), and the cash register (ordering speed).
There are many other uses of gems, too, such as buying equipment boxes to have higher chances to get epic and legendary items.
As a tip, don't spend real money in-game. Play with fun and choose the benefit of ads instead.
If you've unlocked and upgraded the remote, be sure to use the ad boost, especially during the events, to rise up the leaderboard faster! You can play more ads to boost up to an hour of gameplay at 5 minutes per ad.
Depending on the tip jar upgrades via the vault, you can randomly get tips from the customers.
Equipment Upgrades
You will also have a chance to get help from various 'computer-players' as helpers, though you are allowed only to select one.
Each of the helpers has three items worn: a headdress, a clothing, and a trusty weapon—though the game is quirky enough to make the helpers wear funny attire. Each item's rarity varies, but the options are enough to have something very helpful.
Majority of the options may have rare, epic, and legendary items, but use the following as guide of your choice:
- Instant food over speed (faster preparation),
- Speed over perfect food, and
- Higher chances (%) over lower chances.
The profit is tied to the rarity, so if you choose legendary, then your income will also be higher.
Every time you complete a level, you will move to another place (or city) to manage another business. Each successful game will earn you one or more small equipment boxes where you can get two common, rare, or epic items per box.
Be sure to open the equipment boxes as soon you get it, then tap the player icon at the bottom of the screen to customize your main character. Equip the best item of your choice, and you'll have the option to upgrade your choice item by salvaging other items of lesser value.
It may be good to keep epic and legendary items at hand for better strategic upgrades later on.
By the way, you can also change the player name on that menu, very helpful when flaunting yourself on the leaderboard during the events.
Active Skills
Every 10 minutes, you'll get a chance to select the popular dish for 3 minutes, which means the customers will highly likely order that dish.
Bear in mind it is a 'touch-move' once you select the dish, you will not have a chance to change it. You can start it, then stop it, and wait again for another 10 minutes again. This feature should be strategically done. Make sure you have the highest return of investment based on the following computation:
ROI = (profit / duration) x number of preparation areas
You may also need to account to the distance of the dish from the customer, the number of staff, and the event.
Failing to strategize the popular dish will waste the chance to serve the most profitable dish or waste the valuable 3-minute time to serve more customers of the same dish, resulting in very low ROI.
You can compound your ROI by timing the use of the helper when starting one popular dish.
Events and Merchants
There will be weekly events that run around 3 days each, where you can complete it as fast as you can to climb the leaderboard. There are milestones per event where you can get event badges.
Recently, I played the Mine Event, but failed to strategize it better. I finished at 40% in the rank of 30 when the event closed. Better luck next time.
Merchants also come by temporarily, where you can trade pearls with gems and items. Make use of this opportunity to make better upgrades in-game.
Conclusion
So far, the game is very addicting and time-consuming, you may not want to download it ever!
But before moving to Miami, the starts to get harder. Upgrades don't do drastic boosts anymore, I might uninstall it when it get too boring.
| Criteria | Score (1-5, 5 = highest) | Description | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aesthetics | 3 | Satisfaction through GFX and SFX | Dishes looks great, but the characters are generic and ugly. |
| Compactness | 5 | No additional downloads or complex redirects | N/A |
| Gameplay | 4 | Entertainment based on genre | Very addicting during the first week. |
| Non-deceptiveness | 5 | No misleading promotional assets or advertisements | N/A |
| Usability | 4 | Satisfaction from interaction | Features and sprites that requires an internet connection are still visible even if the connection is turned off. |
SCORE: 4.2 / 5 Quite addicting, but can come off as another generic casual game.
In a few more upgrades, I'll be flying to Miami already.
Will I still get hooked with the game?
Rydeon ⟠
Sup frens, Rydeon here!
I do nerd-stuff to feed the wallet, relatable?
I live in Cebu City, but most of the time inside the computer. Frequently doing Python, Analytics, ML, and always coffee. I've been to blockchains and cryptocurrencies for some time already, but it would be dumb and risky to share unreliable financial advice. So, don't ask me.
Thinking of following? I'll gonna resume writing about time-waster games, awesome technology, and the cafés I went to connect to their Wi-Fi. g2g...