Info about TasteMaker: Official game description: **Build A Restaurant** ---------------------- Start with a small plot of land and build your restaurant from the ground up. Once you have made enough money, you can buy more land and expand. **Make It Beautiful** --------------------- Guests want more than just good food - they care about your restaurant decor too. Make sure your restaurant is well decorated to keep them happy. **Manage Your Employees** ------------------------- A good team is the core of every successful business. Hire the right employees and set their priorities wisely. **Keep It Clean** ----------------- It’s important to keep your restaurant clean. Guests will not be thrilled about the presence of rats. **Expand The Menu** ------------------- Creating a menu seems simple, but a poorly thought-out menu is the death of many restaurants. Pick your dishes carefully and make sure they are the right price. **Customer Is King** -------------------- Make sure customers are satisfied by meeting all their needs. Don’t leave them waiting too long, have plenty of restrooms, serve high quality food, and more. **Beat The Scenarios** ---------------------- TasteMaker contains six scenarios that offer unique challenges. Do you have what it takes to succeed? Release date: 21 Apr, 2023 Categories: Management Simulation, Base Building, Worker Management, Customization, Inventory Management, Sandbox Creation, Mission-based Gameplay - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: No data - Playtime Metrics: No data - Time-to-fun: No data - Player Archetypes: No data Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Enjoyable, Polished, High Potential (weight 0.99): Players find the game highly enjoyable, relaxing, and addictive, praising its core mechanics, art style, and overall polish, especially for an Early Access title. Many see significant potential for future growth and content, noting the developer's active engagement and quick bug fixes. - Satisfying Restaurant Management (weight 0.37): The game is praised as a satisfying and casual restaurant management simulator. Players enjoy the building, expansion, and detailed employee management, appreciating the ability to customize and optimize their restaurant without strict failure conditions. - Intuitive UI & Charming Aesthetics (weight 0.22): The game's user interface is intuitive and clean, contributing to a smooth experience. Players also appreciate the charming art style, low system requirements, and useful features like UI customization and time controls. - Expansion, Features & Simplicity (weight 0.14): Players enjoy the ability to expand their restaurant with new floors and decorations. The addition of cats is a popular feature, and the sandbox mode provides a fun, stress-free experience. The absence of complex bills and taxes simplifies gameplay, making it a pleasant time sink. Common complaints: - Game feels unfinished and shallow (weight 0.96): Players consistently report that the game feels incomplete, lacks depth, and offers very little content, leading to quick boredom. Many believe the game was abandoned by the developers, contributing to its unfinished state and poor value for money. - Significant bugs and glitches (weight 0.54): The game is plagued by bugs and glitches, such as stuck equipment, dishes breaking frequently, and staff stopping work for no apparent reason. These technical issues significantly detract from the gameplay experience and make it frustrating. - Inefficient and problematic staff AI (weight 0.29): Staff management is problematic due to inefficient AI, lack of detailed stats, and limited control over their tasks and work areas. Issues like staff ignoring dirty dishes, breaking items, and being overwhelmed despite high numbers contribute to a frustrating gameplay experience. - Tedious micromanagement and waiting (weight 0.21): Gameplay often devolves into tedious waiting and micromanagement, with players having limited impact on core aspects like dish quality or ingredients. Simple actions like moving items or staff carrying only one plate at a time contribute to a slow and frustrating pace. - Unsatisfying and unchallenging scenarios (weight 0.13): Scenarios are criticized for being unchallenging, repetitive, and sometimes unfairly rigged against the player. They offer little incentive for progression and do not provide a distinct experience from the sandbox mode. Gameplay feedback: - Comprehensive Restaurant Management Simulation (weight 0.17): The game is a restaurant management simulation where players build, decorate, expand, and manage all aspects of their establishment, including staff, inventory, and pricing. It offers a comprehensive tycoon experience within the restaurant theme. - Enhanced Employee Management & Diversity (weight 0.14): Players desire more depth and diversity in employee management, including varied personalities, specialized roles (cooks, servers, cleaners), and a more dynamic system where employees might quit or earn tips. There's also a specific request for more diverse character models, including female and minority employees. - More Decoration & Menu Options (weight 0.11): Players are looking for more decorative options, furniture, and menu items (food and drinks) to enhance customization and variety within their restaurants. Specific suggestions include more recipes, drink options, and decorative elements like flowers and half walls. - Varied Game Modes Available (weight 0.1): The game currently offers a tutorial, scenario mode with unlockable maps and clear goals, and a sandbox mode for free play. The existing content provides a decent amount of initial gameplay, with scenarios offering specific objectives. - Improved Building & Placement Tools (weight 0.08): Players suggest quality-of-life improvements for building and object placement, such as multi-object selection, click-and-drag movement, and applying textures to entire rooms, to streamline the construction process. - Detailed Inventory Management (weight 0.08): Players desire more granular control over inventory, including assigning specific items to storage, manual disposal of surplus, and better visibility into stock levels and storage capacity. - Easy & Self-Sufficient Gameplay (weight 0.07): The game is perceived as relatively easy, with an average grind level and a straightforward path to completion. Once initial setups are complete, the restaurant can run efficiently on its own. - Consequences of Neglect (weight 0.05): Neglecting essential facilities like bathrooms or cleaning leads to negative consequences, such as customers pooping on the floor and dirt accumulation, which impacts restaurant ratings. - Continuous Content & Mod Support (weight 0.04): Players express a strong desire for ongoing content updates and official mod support to ensure the game's longevity and expand its possibilities. - Granular Audio Controls (weight 0.03): Players request more detailed audio controls, specifically separate volume sliders for music, sound effects, and background noise, to customize their auditory experience. - Customizable Slot Machine Operations (weight 0.03): The game allows for the creation of slot machine areas, and players suggest the ability to set prices and payouts for these machines. - Inconsistent Diagonal Placement (weight 0.03): There is an inconsistency in object placement where cooking equipment can be placed diagonally, but cabinets cannot, suggesting a need for uniform placement rules. - Scenario Goal Variety (weight 0.03): Scenario goals often involve achieving specific financial targets per month and managing customer wait times effectively. - Employee Stuck Bug (weight 0.02): A bug exists where stuck employees require firing and rehiring to resolve their immobility. - Crisis Management Focus (weight 0.02): The game often puts players in situations where they need to react quickly to problems, acting as a crisis manager. - Advertising for Customer Traffic (weight 0.02): Players suggest the ability to implement advertising campaigns to increase customer traffic at a cost. - No Storyline Present (weight 0.01): The game currently lacks a narrative or story component. - Scaling Business Operations (weight 0.01): As the business grows, players must scale up their restaurant by increasing seating, equipment, and staff. - Decoration Impacts Rating (weight 0.01): Changing decorative elements like wallpaper and flooring directly impacts the restaurant's decoration rating. - Focus on Evaluation Graphs (weight 0.01): Players are advised to prioritize evaluation graphs over star reviews for a more accurate assessment of their restaurant's performance. - Jukebox vs. Phonograph Functionality (weight 0.01): There is a functional difference between jukeboxes and phonographs, with only phonographs playing music. - Multi-Floor Navigation (weight 0.01): Players can navigate between different floors of their restaurant using the PageUp/PageDown keys. - Early Development Version (weight 0.01): The game is currently in an early development version (0.1.0). - Basic Menu Structure (weight 0.01): The game currently features a basic menu structure. Performance notes: - Minimal game bugs (weight 0.07): Players report that the game generally has very few bugs, with most issues being minor and not significantly impacting gameplay. This suggests a relatively stable release. - Decent graphics and audio (weight 0.04): Feedback indicates that both the graphics and audio quality are acceptable, though not necessarily outstanding. They contribute adequately to the overall experience. - Low system requirements (weight 0.02): The game is noted for its low system requirements, allowing it to run smoothly even on older or less powerful computers. This broadens accessibility for players. Recommendations: - Buy on sale; await updates (weight 0.41): Many players suggest that the game's current state does not justify its full price. They recommend purchasing it only when it's on sale, or waiting for future updates and content additions to improve its value proposition. Some express optimism for its potential if developers continue to support it. - Simple, casual management game (weight 0.37): The game is recommended for players seeking a simple, relaxing, or casual restaurant management experience. It appeals to those who enjoy basic tycoon mechanics, a charming art style, or a nostalgic feel, especially if they are new to the genre or prefer less complex challenges. - Avoid; consider alternatives (weight 0.03): A small segment of feedback strongly advises against purchasing the game, with one suggestion to consider an alternative title, 'Recipe for Disaster,' which is perceived as having more depth and being superior. Other player notes: - Desire for more content (weight 0.69): Players consistently request more content, features, and general improvements, indicating a desire for deeper gameplay and a more complete experience. Many reviews suggest the game feels like an Early Access title that needs ongoing development. - Enhanced staff management (weight 0.65): There's a strong demand for more detailed and interactive staff management, including leveling systems, specializations, uniform options, and better AI for tasks like dish collection. - Improved building and decor (weight 0.64): Players want more options and flexibility in decorating and designing their restaurants, including more decor items, varied building materials, and improved tools for placing objects and tiles. - More customer variety (weight 0.59): Players are looking for more diverse customer interactions, including different customer types, reasons for customer behavior, and ways to attract more patrons. - Day/night cycle and closing (weight 0.56): Players suggest adding a day/night cycle and the ability to close the restaurant for renovations or other management tasks. - Better financial statistics (weight 0.12): Players desire more comprehensive financial and operational statistics, including detailed reports on income, expenses, and food sales to better manage their restaurant. - Improved ingredient storage (weight 0.06): Players want more control over ingredient storage, including assigning specific ingredients to shelves and better visibility of remaining stock. - Chinese language support (weight 0.05): There is a specific request for the addition of Chinese language support. - Decor item rebalancing (weight 0.04): Players note that certain decor items like windows and pictures can be exploited to maximize decor scores, suggesting a need for rebalancing. Emotions: - Disappointment (weight 0.21): Players are disappointed by the game's perceived lack of depth, content, and replayability, often feeling it's unfinished or abandoned by the developers. This leads to a sense of unfulfilled potential, especially when compared to early access expectations or the game's price point. Specific issues like removed features, limited customization, and repetitive gameplay also contribute to this feeling. - Frustration (weight 0.19): Frustration stems primarily from various bugs, AI issues (especially with staff pathfinding and efficiency), and unintuitive or unfair game mechanics. Players also express annoyance with slow progression, micromanagement, and quality-of-life issues, which make the gameplay experience feel rigged or unmanageable at times. - Satisfaction (weight 0.15): Players feel satisfied with the game's core concept, its ability to run smoothly, and its overall value. The relaxing nature of the gameplay, the enjoyment derived from building and managing a restaurant efficiently, and the game's aesthetic appeal contribute to a positive experience. Many appreciate the game's current polished state and the ease of learning its mechanics. - Hope (weight 0.12): Hope is driven by the game's potential for future growth, with players eagerly anticipating more content, updates, and features. The developer's active engagement and the possibility of improvements like modding support, new food options, and quality-of-life changes fuel this optimism for the game's long-term development. - Enjoyment (weight 0.12): Enjoyment comes from the game's overall fun, addictive, and chill gameplay experience, often highlighted by its appealing art style and music. Players enjoy the flexibility in restaurant design, the challenge of scenarios, and the satisfying feeling of scaling their restaurant, finding the game to be a pleasant and engaging management sim. - Excitement (weight 0.07): Excitement is generated by the game's addictive nature and its strong potential for future additions. Players are eager to see what new content and developments the developers will introduce, particularly appreciating the existing good scenarios and fun mechanics that make the game a standout in the genre. - Boredom (weight 0.03): Boredom quickly sets in for players due to the game's perceived lack of depth and variety, leading to a feeling that they've experienced all the game has to offer very quickly. The sandbox progression can become a 'waiting game,' and the limited player impact contributes to a lack of long-term engagement. - Anticipation (weight 0.02): Players express anticipation for future updates, the full release of the game, and the overall evolution of its gameplay. This indicates a desire for continued development and new content to keep the experience fresh and engaging. - Annoyance (weight 0.02): Annoyance arises from specific game design flaws, such as repetitive sound design, staff issues, and mechanics like fixed ingredient amounts or equipment getting stuck. These issues create minor but persistent irritations during gameplay. - Joy (weight 0.01): Joy is experienced through the game's fun and engaging elements, particularly the inclusion of cute cats and the absence of real-world management complexities. These aspects contribute to a lighthearted and enjoyable experience. - Desire (weight 0.01): Players express a desire for more content, including specific quality-of-life features and language options like Chinese. This indicates a wish for the game to expand and cater to a broader audience with improved usability. - Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement is derived from humorous elements within the game, such as a satirical intro or funny observations about game mechanics. These lighthearted touches add to the overall entertainment value. - Optimism (weight 0.01): Optimism is based on the game's solid foundational elements and the developers' promises for future improvements. Players see the potential for the game to evolve into a valuable and time-consuming experience. - Relaxation (weight 0): Relaxation is a key emotion, stemming from the game's chill and undemanding experience. This indicates that the game provides a calm and stress-free environment for players. - Sadness (weight 0): Sadness is felt when players perceive the game as unfinished and abandoned by its developers. This suggests a sense of loss over unfulfilled potential. - Nostalgia (weight 0): Nostalgia is triggered by the game's resemblance to classic cafe or restaurant management games, evoking fond memories for players who enjoyed similar titles in the past. - Anger (weight 0): Anger is specifically caused by the removal of player choice within the game. This indicates a strong negative reaction to perceived limitations on player agency. - Admiration (weight 0): Admiration is expressed for the game being the work of a single developer. This highlights appreciation for the effort and achievement of an individual creator. - Relief (weight 0): Relief is felt due to the absence of bugs in the game. This indicates that a smooth, bug-free experience is a significant positive for players. - Appreciation (weight 0): Appreciation is shown through players' willingness to support the game. This suggests a positive sentiment towards the game and its developers, leading to a desire to contribute to its success.}