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| Introduction to New York Broadway goals |
The general feeling around the community with regards to this update seems to have been pretty positive, and that may be in large part down to a great choice of theme. I've never been fortunate enough to visit New York, but it certainly seems to be a vibrant and fascinating place which is more than capable of providing enough inspiration to forge a Restaurant Story quest.
This was a 16 day batch of goals, so they are still active at the time of writing for those players yet to reach the end. With nine steps in all, there were lots of reasons to be impressed. Firstly the usual counter purchase requirement came in only the second step which is earlier than is typical. This doesn't really impact me very much, but a lot of players do like to serve up the new food on the accompanying counters but don't want to risk needing to buy a batch of counters twice due to the requirement rearing its head late in the quest. This way that dilemma is removed from the equation.
Then there's the streamlined format to the goals. The so-called 'sidesteps' can often be confusing, but Storm8 appear to be cutting back on those these days. In this edition there was just the one, with it coming in tandem with the final step. This is cleaner and clearer, saving on any potential confusion.
There was a tricky inclusion in this quest though - two item request steps. This isn't the first time, but it is often considered the greatest obstacle, so the sight of both Programs and Metro Cards being requested in separate steps will have caused consternation for some.
Previous New York themed update
05/05/17 Goals (2017)
05/05/17 Update (2017)
15/09/15 Goals content report (2015)
09/09/15 Goals (2015)
09/09/15 Update (2015)
05/05/17 Update (2017)
15/09/15 Goals content report (2015)
09/09/15 Goals (2015)
09/09/15 Update (2015)
To make up for that there was a generous gift from the gamemakers for completing the fifth step. The Lady Liberty was given for free, which in itself is unusual - with the exception of the final prize we generally have to make the purchase ourselves. But what makes this a unique situation is that the Lady Liberty is not a new item. Instead she is a prize from the previous New York goals. It's fantastic that players were given another opportunity to get hold of this decoration, even if it's not a very good one (in my opinion at least).
As far as the new prizes unearthed in these goals are concerned, it's a story of two spellings. There's the Minature Empire State which is a 2x2 shout out to the Empire State Building which makes the existing Empire Statue decoration look like an inferior half-brother. The blue and grey colour scheme of the new version is far superior to the bland grey of the old, and it also does a better job of conveying the height of this famous building. Which begs the question of why bother calling it 'minature'? (ahem).
The Mini Brooklyn Bridge was originally titled the Miniature Brookly Bridge, but was soon changed to deal with the misspelling. The funny thing is that there's nothing mini about this 4x4 sized cracker. A segment of the famous bridge, this is a huge piece which has a wide scope. I'm among the many who has had a go at creating a bridge through clever use of dividers, but now it can be done smoothly with this dedicated decoration.
Only including a segment is a good call as players can decide themselves how long to make their bridge. And since further copies can be bought for 80,000 coins, this is certainly feasible. This is one of the best final prizes of recent times in my view.
Now we shift our focus to the appliances and recipes. The first new cooker unlocked is the Manhattan Oven, which requires 6 Heart Knobs, 7 Big Apple Gears and 7 McIntosh Knobs.
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| Big Apple Gear and Piece of Foil |
The Big Apple Gear is the first of two new parts featured in these goals. Calling for 20 parts in total is quite a lot, but as was the case last time round as well, I'm pleased to see some long lost parts from yesteryear reused. Indeed both the Heart Knob and McIntosh Knob had each only been utilised once before (for the Granny's Stove in released in November 2015 and Romantic Stove released in February 2015 respectively).
Here come the three dishes located on the Manhattan Oven:
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| Manhattan Stove recipes |
I believe the NY Cupcakes bring the cupcake count in the game to 22. It's so unimaginative and really should be shipped out to Bakery Story. I like my cupcakes, but not in a restaurant I'm afraid!
The same could be said of the Peach Croissant Donut, but at least this is a quirky and innovative effort. Apparently this is a New York speciality (also known as a cronut) and following a quick search it appears that the fact I'd never heard of these before indicates I need to sort my life out. They look delicious. Like, really delicious.
Let's have some ratings:
| NY Cupcakes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profit | XP gain | Portions | Profit per plate | Availability | Rating |
| 6 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 5 | 4.9 |
| Peach Croissant Donut | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profit | XP gain | Portions | Profit per plate | Availability | Rating |
| 4 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 5 | 4.0 |
| Bacon Waffles | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profit | XP gain | Portions | Profit per plate | Availability | Rating |
| 6 | 3 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 4.7 |
Well this is promising! You may recall that the space goals brought us a very rare case of recipes with a coins per plate value above the norm. This trio have repeated the feat (hence the profit per plate going purple), but have managed to raise the bar in the process. Each of these dishes provide 6 coins per plate which is higher than the 5 coins per plate afforded by the Starry Oven's foods.
The only recipes in the game which can match this are the Bacon and Eggs (6 coins per plate), Apple Pies and Roast Chicken (both 8 coins per plate). As I mentioned in the space goals content report, the big benefit here comes when you've already got enough food stocked to reach your diner's maximum number of customers per day. Since you can't raise your income by increasing your volume of plates sold, you need to increase the amount being earned for each of those plates. Six coins per plate will certainly achieve that!
Despite having the lowest score of the three for profit, the Peach Croissant Donut yields the 7th highest profit in its duration, with the BBQ Bats (Witch's Stove) the only goal dish ranking above it. Unfortunately all three recipes tank when it comes to XP, and that costs them any chance of a competitive overall rating, but we can certainly hold on to the 6 coins per plate.
On we go, with the Food Cart Grill the last item requiring an appraisal. The second appliance to lose its padlock in the goals, this is a superb cooker. It's one of those which you wish could be converted into a floor decoration - a classic cart with grill and umbrella, I reckon this is one of the great appliances from an aesthetics perspective.
To build it, you'll need 7 Pieces of Foil, 7 Broiler Pans and 6 Sauce Bottles. As seen above, the Pieces of Foil is a new part, and one which I suspect may be revisited in the future given its generic style.
So will the dishes within live up to the exterior of the Food Cart Grill?
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| Food Cart Stove recipes |
Given that there are hot dogs being prepared on the actual appliance I can't help but feel that we've been shortchanged. Nevertheless we do have three tasty looking candidates, with the Halal Kabobs looking especially appealing.
Over to the ratings:
| Halal Kabobs | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profit | XP gain | Portions | Profit per plate | Availability | Rating |
| 7 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 5 | 5.2 |
| Tamales | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profit | XP gain | Portions | Profit per plate | Availability | Rating |
| 6 | 3 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 4.7 |
| NY Slice | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profit | XP gain | Portions | Profit per plate | Availability | Rating |
| 5 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 5 | 4.5 |
One again we have 6 coins per plate! So that makes it 16 recipes in the game which provide more than the standard 4 coins per plate, with nine of them having been introduced in the past few weeks!
The kabobs land 10th spot in the profit category for the 2 hour duration, which helps it to an overall rating over five. That's not all that common, and allows it to break the top 10 overall for recipes of 2 hour length. Otherwise there's not a lot to celebrate. Just imagine if we one day get a dish which combines a high coins per plate with strong XP and portion numbers - then we'll be looking at some monsters!
It's worth mentioning that while these six new recipes may not have quite enough oomph to join the Recipe Hall of Fame, they do have the power to affect it. Because they are the runaway leaders in their respective durations for profit per plate, that means that the ratings for this particular category require a refresh. However since the profit per plate factor carries only 10% weight in the overall scoring, the impact won't ever be too significant. And indeed in this case the current Hall of Famers can rest easy. But they'll be on edge with every recipe release over the next while...
That does it for now. New York has well and truly delivered. This update of course benefits from being supplemented by the original New York themed update, but it very much stands on its own thanks to the solid foundations of the not so mini Mini Brooklyn Bridge. Not for the first time of late, Storm8 have done a fine job with these goals!
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