The gem count

Recently there was a rather intriguing question came to my mind: how many gems have I spent in Restaurant Story?

It's a compelling question, and one which is pretty much impossible to give an answer to immediately with any degree of certainty. I've been playing the game since August 2012, so there's over three years of investments have collected in my armoury, enough to make even a prediction futile.

The only way to get any sort of insight into just how many gems have exchanged hands over the years was by counting up those gem items in my arsenal. I'm fortunate that - unlike in Bakery Story - I've never fallen into any major gem traps (such as gem expansions and extra appliance slots) so the number of accidental buys isn't enough to really impact the results.

So, after totalling up all that premium décor in my inventory, I can declare that I have spent 1,761 gems in the game! That's the equivalent of 139 gems per month, or a little over 1.5 gems per day. I didn't realise I was quite so gem hungry!

An alternative statistical comparison is with the gem packs that can be purchased in-game. My total gem expenditure is equivalent to three of the 580-gem packs, which in the UK version amounts to £240. Or if you want to use the 275-gem pack (which would need to be bought seven times) it would work out at £280. I've really put a lot into The Garlic Tree!

I should point out that 275 gems of that spend was actually made possible via a gem purchase. I splurged on the 275-gem pack at Christmas in 2012 when there was a special sale on, but that means there's still almost 1,500 gems I've used up which have been earned through recipe mastery and game downloads. It really is staggering how many gems can be amassed without parting with a penny!

Getting a little deeper on my gem count, here's a breakdown of what I've spent my premium currency on:

Pie chart showing breakdown of my gem spend

As you would expect given that it is the largest and most costly category, the majority of my investments have been in floor decorations. Just over 1,000 gems have gone into floor décor in all.

What I found more surprising was the prominence of floor tiles in the breakdown. They rank third and well ahead of some of the other categories. There have been plenty of occasions when I have said how much importance I place on a good choice of flooring - get that right and it can really pull a themed section together. That's clearly reflected here, with the likes of the Zen Sand, Red and White, Astro Turf and Red Carpet tiles all having eaten up their fair share of gems over time.

In contrast to my alarming flooring rate, I've only ever bought one style of counter for gems. That was the Steampunk counter at 6 gems a time. I have no regrets over that since they are a cool looking counter and help complete by Steampunk area whenever it is given an airing.

The other category I'd like to discuss is the box items. I like to think of myself as someone who isn't a box opener. They're too much of a gamble. They're not a good use of hard-earned gems. And yet I have opened a crate on 14 occasions in my Restaurant Story career! It seems my words and my actions are very much mismatched!

More generally, the most expensive single purchase I've ever made was the Classic Bundle. At 80 gems it really emptied out my gem bag at the time, but it was excellent value when you consider the quality of the decorations within. As far as standard items are concerned, it's the now unavailable Ping Pong Table which is my most costly buy. Weighing in at 55 gems, it was one of the goodies I treated myself to when I made that gem purchase with real money. And it has spent enough time on show in the three years since to merit the extortionate fee.

So there you have it! It just goes to show that if you dedicate yourself to a game in the way I have to Restaurant Story over the last few years you can really accumulate a lot of valuable content, even without many injections of real money. No doubt my total spend will continue to grow, particularly as we head into the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas season. Plus there's the allure of Black Friday, which may (if all goes to plan!) be the day when my total investment breaks the 2,000 gem mark!