Suggestions Box (Sep 2014)

Every month I list five things I'd like to see added, altered or abolished from the game. Because even though my long time of playing Restaurant Story clearly shows I love it, that doesn't mean it's perfect. Some of the ideas I'll air will be significant game changers while others will be low-key and irrelevant in the eyes of many of you readers.

In no particular order, here are this month's entries...

 #61: Add new recipes

I never thought that I'd be writing this suggestion.

Restaurant Story tradition dictates that the monthly goal update includes two appliances, each with three new recipes. Then there's also the box updates, which generally don't have any new dishes attached. But the other two or three updates in the month do tend to include a new food on a Basic appliance, sometimes two.

 Previous Suggestion Box posts

 23/08/14 August 2014
 26/07/14 July 2014
 14/06/14 June 2014
 17/05/14 May 2014
 19/04/14 April 2014

However, over the last month this custom has fallen by the wayside, with no new recipe on any of the Basic appliances. We have to travel back to the end of July for the last dish added. This is deeply concerning, not least because Bakery Story saw a similar famine of food which lasted for an entire year. Yes, a year.

I strongly advise TeamLava to return to their traditional release of recipes. I have seen many players dropping out of Bakery Story out of boredom, and the same could happen in this game too. It is in the gamemakers' interests to keep their loyal following engaged, otherwise gem sales are likely to fall through the floor.

 #62: Restructure the market

In last month's Suggestions Box I called for the market to be scrollable, that is possible to scroll through like the recipe lists rather than requiring frantic taps of the arrows. Now I'm going a step further - take a look at the artist's impression below:

Artist's impression of alternative design for market

Here we have the market expanded to fill more of the screen. It could continue to default with the small window across the bottom, but a little arrow can give players the opportunity to enlarge the market. This change would allow much more content to be viewed at one time, and at least reduce the amount of tapping necessary to reach the end of a tab. The floor decorations tab in particular is becoming a real pain to tap through as it's so highly populated!

 #63: Make placing of floor tiles easier

It's another tapping complaint! Presently, to buy or place a floor tile requires you to tap every individual tile you wish to overwrite. This is not a problem when done in small measures, but when you're looking at redecorating large expanses this leads to a rather sore finger. At the greatest extreme of placing a new flooring across an entire restaurant at full expansion, this requires 598 taps!

So a mechanism needs to be implemented which allows floor tiles to be placed more easily. Maybe a certain action such as holding down your finger could allow the tiles to be 'painted' across a stretch of floor in one go.

 #64: Swap Messages and Social buttons

This is a small niggle, but one which has caught me out more times than I'd care to think about. For some bizarre reason, the 'Messages' and 'Social' buttons on the Main Menu are not in the same place on both Restaurant Story and Bakery Story. I have no idea why.

Main menus in Restaurant Story
and Bakery Story

Let's get this sorted out. The game's developers need to swap the two buttons on one of the games. I have no preference as to which they do the swap in, just don't do it for both!

While we're on this subject, the photo and phone icons in the top right corner are similarly messed up. Too often I've attempted to move from one neighbour to another and instead found myself lining up a photo. Get these two icons swapped as well!

 #65: More realistic updates

This one is as much a compliment as a suggestion. Of late there have been some fantastic updates, culminating in the Classic Kitchen box which offered a load of realistic decorations involving cooks hard at work with their many pieces of equipment. The Italian goal theme for this month is also worth flagging up as it was also a hit.

The common denominator in these updates is their relevance to real world restaurants. And I'd like TeamLava to try and replicate this, by producing more realistic updates in the future. Some of the 'out there' themes are fine enough (hence my Ancient Egyptian section!) but the sure way to please the players is with additions which fit naturally into a diner.

And I'm not talking solely about kitchen stuff here. There's scope for waiters and waitresses, in-house entertainment, a bar and foyer items. Heck, let's even get a bathroom added!