My masterplan

Time for an update on my progress in the great quest to master every recipe the gamemakers can throw at us players.

I've discussed my method of mastery previously, but it's worth recapping. Rather than picking a dish and cooking it till those two gems drop out, and then moving on to the next recipe, I like to master all the dishes together. This allows me to bag a bucketful of gems in one go, while also keeping a nice variety of food on my counters.

Kitchen section of The Garlic Tree

Game update: 28/05/14

To round off May, there's a Rustic theme.

Notification for Rustic update

In all honesty it's one of those rather underwhelming updates in which there's only a small number of additions, but here's the usual list all the same:

Tables:

• Checker Table - 95,000 coins

Recipe ratings (3 hours)

Information in this post is correct as of Saturday 24th May 2014.

In the latest recipe ratings post, it's the 3 hour dishes which are going under the microscope, with the recipe garnering the best ratings being inducted into the Recipe Hall of Fame.

Unlike the 1 and 2 hour durations, the 3 hour recipes are few and far between, with only 23 dishes in the duration, 20 of which are currently available to cook if you have completed all the previous goals. However if we don't count recipes on goal or removed appliances, then this drops to just seven!

 Previous recipe rating posts

 10/05/14 2 hours
 26/04/14 1 hour

Why are there so much fewer 3 hour foods? It seems the game's developers prefer the neatness of even numbers since there are also only a sprinkling of 5, 7 and 9 hour recipes. Personally I'd have liked a more even spread of the dish durations, but that's a discussion for another day...

Game update: 21/05/14

With blue skies and a warm Spring sun, now is the perfect time to prune the garden!

Notification for latest Spring update

We hadn't had a box for Spring yet, so it was only inevitable we'd get one. The Gardener's Chest is a 24 gem investment which will result in the gain of any one of nine possible prizes. The biggest and best of the items are the most rare, so be warned!

There's nothing else new to report this week, so let's get on with it. From what Fat Bear and I have gathered thus far, this is the distribution of prizes:

Suggestions Box (May 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...

Game update 14/05/14

Spring is going nowhere! There's another Spring themed update on the go, with a hint at a wedding!

Notification for latest Spring update

Here's the array of new stuff available:

Tea party goals content report

This week's update was a tea party theme, and with it came a new set of goals. Some of the new content can only be unlocked by working through the goals, and here I'll attempt to persuade you that the goals are worth investing time and coins in with a look at the rewards.

But before that, I want to discuss the goals themselves. The first point of note is that the goals were actually a little late in appearing. The update went live at the usual sort of time on Wednesday but without the goals included. Only around half an hour later did the clipboard arrive, allowing us to commence the quest. Not a big problem, but this kind of thing never fills me with confidence in the gamemakers' ability to provide reliable and fault-free updates.

Within the goals, there are only four unlockables. This is very unusual and may even be a first. Usually five or six pieces are under lock and key, but that's not the case here. As a result the goals are structured slightly differently from normal - using my layout for them there are only two 'sidesteps' which actually feed into the main strand of goals (there's one other which gives a gem reward instead).

Recipe ratings (2 hours)

Information in this post is correct as of Saturday 10th May 2014.

It's recipe ratings time! We kicked off with the 1 hour dishes two weeks ago - today is the turn of the 2 hour foods.

There are 35 recipes of 2 hour length have featured in the game, of which two have been removed and a further nine are on removed appliances (but are still available if you have said appliances). At present this is the fourth largest band of dishes on offer, so competition for that Hall of Fame spot is fierce.

 Previous recipe rating posts

 26/04/14 1 hour

Profit is the most significant factor in determining a recipe rating, so let's start with it. Top of the charts is the NY Strip Steak (Basic Grill) with 2,130 coins of profit. If you truly want to maximise income then this is the ultimate dish - on a per hour basis only five recipes give more profit, and they are all very short so would require your attention far too regularly. However at 2 hour duration, you'd still need to take only short naps through the night to fully make use of the steak's profit quality. I urge you not to put off sleeping to cook food!

Tea party goals (in full)

Please note that this set of goals expired on Monday 9th June 2014.

At the centre of the latest update is a new set of goals revolving around a tea party.

You've got 34 days to complete the goals, so they're likely to vanish into the ether on Monday 9th June. There are four items to unlock via the goals, and this is how to get hold of them...

Here's the complete list of goals:

• Step 1: Tea Time with Gran Gran
• Step 2: Tea Party Treats
• Step 3: Tawny Tea Cake
• Step 4: It's Been Oolong Time
• Step 5: Time for Tea
• Step 6: Pinkies Up
• Sidestep A: A Steep Summoning
• Sidestep B: Dressed to the T
• Sidestep C: Tea Table Rules

Game update: 07/05/14

It's the first Wednesday of the month, and that means it's goal time!

Notification for Tea party update

The theme is a tea party, and there's plenty of new content all for coins which can be attained by completing the goal set. Here's a full list of the stuff added this week:

App update: 06/05/14

A rare app update is available to iOS players:

Restaurant Story app update
on iTunes store

We're now up to version 1.7.1 on iOS, and this one contains more than just the 'bug fixes' stated in the above description. There's a new feature that allows you to block irritating players from posting on your wall.

The changing parts landscape

Back in September last year, I provided some gifting advice on the basic parts. But since then, the parts landscape has been changing, so now is as good a time as any to investigate exactly how...

Parts are of course necessary to build the constructible appliances, and by sending and receiving gifts of them to and from neighbours, you can stock up in anticipation of the next set of goals.

In that previous study, I restricted my analysis to the traditional basic parts (the first 10 in the gift list after the food), but you'll have probably have noticed that of late some other parts have been becoming more common in being requirements for appliance building.

So now let's take into account the other components too. I'm still going to exclude those parts which are clearly seasonal such as Santa Hats and Romance Ribbons, but any parts which are 'generic' are included. Here's the result when we count from the Halloween appliances onward: