Cooking Fever vs Pastry Party
The game I selected for comparison with our team’s concept was Cooking Fever: Restaurant Game, a popular mobile game developed by Nordcurrent. Cooking Fever has an age rating of 4+ on the App Store, and since it is available for free on all iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, I believe it’s target audience is casual mobile gamers of all ages who are interested in simple strategy challenges of increasing intensity. The age rating of just 4+ shows that even the youngest of mobile device users can easily download and play the game. Since it’s inception, it has gotten 271k ratings on the App Store and is #3 on the Apple game leaderboard for the Strategy category, so the game has been a massive success.
In this critical play analysis, I will compare the Cooking Fever and Pastry Party using both formal elements and the MDA framework wherever applicable. Through these comparisons, we will uncover major differences in social dynamics, goals, and the overall player emotion experience.
Overview and Rules
I never really play games, but I gave Cooking Fever a try years back because I am really passionate about cooking, and it was addicting up to a certain point. I spent hours on the Cooking Fever game starting from the basic burger joint just to unlock the “more cool” sushi bar. After that, I saw that there was Indian Diner, Chinese Restaurant, and other better restaurants available. But by the time I got to Sushi Restaurant, I had already gotten bored of the game format, so there was 0 chance I would ever make it to Tropical Hideout. The gameplay is preparing food orders within increasingly tight time constraints that force the player to invest in upgrades. The player drags ingredients through the screen, cook them on their specific appliances, and serve customers before their happiness ticker runs out, earning game tokens! The only way to get to better restaurants is to complete all of the levels in your current restaurant which consumes hours of time. Overall, the objective of Cooking Fever is to advance the levels of restauranteurs and own the best restaurants.
Our game, “Pastry Party,” is a baking-themed strategy game where players race to complete 5 recipe cards by placing ingredients on a shared 3×3 grid. At each turn, players draw ingredient tokens (for example: strawberry, honey, butter, milk, egg, etc.) and they can either place them on the board, play a power-up card, or gain one more ingredient. The goal is to earn the most points by completing recipes of different complexity and value. Unlike Cooking Fever’s solo time-management experience, Pastry Party creates tension because it involves plater-to-player interaction and the players compete against each other to complete their five-recipe hand first.
Boundaries
The physical boundaries in Cooking Fever are a couple of fixed screens with designated cooking stations. Each restaurant concept has a different fixed screen. On the other hand Pastry Party shares a 3×3 grid between all players and that is the contested territory.
Mechanics and Dynamics
The core mechanics of Cooking Fever involve players tapping and dragging ingredients to appliances, then to customers. The customers come in and out at unpredictable times and generally become faster and more dispersed as levels become higher. The game is also progression based and I believe uses a forced progression system—if you don’t upgrade your equipment using your income, there is no chance you can advance with not-the-latest equipment because you won’t be able to cook fast enough. So you have to cook, upgrade, cook, again and again until you can open new restaurants. And there is literally no surprise factor other than daily rewards and buying more coins than you earn.
In comparison with our game, Pastry Party engages players with each other in turn-based interactions. On their turn, players can choose to draw an ingredient token, play a power-up card, or place an ingredient on the shared 3×3 grid (there are examples of what these grids look like above). They observe other players moves, gather alpha, and then have to make a strategy that would allow them to complete their recipes while trying to make sure other players don’t succeed. The trading phase at the end of each rotation adds a social negotiation element, allowing players to swap ingredients.
The two games have different social dynamics. The difference between single PVG and multilateral competition shapes players experience in consecutive rounds and game longevity. Because Cooking Fever is PVG, players challenges all come from one source, the system-designed time constraints and resource limitations. Eventually, it becomes repetitive like it does with me and the game will churn its players. For me, as someone who is less prone to addiction than average, I was gone after one restaurant upgrade because I realized that it was going to be all the same. It was really sad to leave the game without ever seeing Indian Diner or Chinese Restaurant, but the time needed to get to those levels was just too much and would have been way too boring. This is where Pastry Party’s multilateral competition has an edge. Because it takes in complexity through direct competition between multiple players and randomness of recipe distribution, each consecutive game will be unique. The multilateral competition increases replay-ability because human opponents create unpredictable challenges that algorithmic difficulty scaling cannot replicate.
The different social dynamics also change how tension is created in each game. In Cooking Fever, pressure builds due to the very prominent time bar constantly ticking downwards. If the bar reaches the bottom, the player has lost that customer’s money. This creates a consistent flow that alternates between satisfaction and anxiety-inducing. In Pastry Party, tension builds through other players completing recipes and destroying your plans. As the competitors get closer to completing their recipes, you have to decide if you are going to focus on your own goals or on sabotaging others. This social tension is more personal and connected to the real world that the one in Cooking Fever.
Aesthetics
Due to the differences in the mechanics and dynamics of the games, Cooking Fever and Pastry Party cause players to feel completely different feelings. Because the Cooking Fever game is predictable and consistently challenging, it created a reliable feeling of accomplishment each time you complete a level. The climax, I presume, is the times you get to unlock a new restaurant concept. The stress is also mild and rather consistent. You know what to expect in each level because each next level will be slightly more challenging. Pastry Party creates a more social aesthetic focusing on multi-PVP competition. There are many points throughout the game (like moving other players ingredients on the board and the trading phase) where the players get to interact and negotiate. Each game will be different and could range in stress. Whereas Cooking Fever can start as addictive but eventually get exhausting, Pastry Party can be more long-lasting as a game because even though some game outcomes are upsetting for most of the players in that game, the varying in aesthetics makes it less likely to become emotionally boring for the player.
One improvement that would work for Cooking Fever is if they offer the player more restaurant options at each level rather than a strict positive progression. Most players won’t stick around til Tropical Hideout, but like me, they might be super interested in seeing what it is like. Perhaps Cooking Fever put all of the restaurants up for purchase, and I can use my profits from the Burger Joint and Sushi Restaurant to buy the better restaurants instead of having to do every single level in order to get there. This would allow the game to cater to more players’ potential attention spans.
