Suggestions Box (Feb 2018)

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.

You can share your own suggestions too via the comments. If I like them, I may even include them in the next instalment!

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

 #266: Investigate item request task glitch

I mentioned this in yesterday's goals content report, and felt that it merited a Suggestions Box entry. Since the Christmas goals at the back end of last year every full length quest has included an item request in the opening step. This inevitably is a stumbling block straight from the off as we all wait (some more patiently than others!) for those requests to be accepted.

And pretty much with every goal set there is at least one report of those requests taking an abnormal amount of time to be accepted. Initially I thought this was a case of the player sending out far too many requests and clogging up their system, but having now experienced the same issue myself  having not done that I can categorically confirm that not to be the case.

The game's developers need to take a look at this apparent glitch and if necessary address it. And this is where some communication with the playing community would be greatly appreciated - even if they were to find no issue a quick line to let us know would be nice.

 #267: Bring all basic parts back together

This is something which has frustrated me for some time. A while back when some of the classic basic parts were utilised for new appliances they were given special dispensation to be placed at the start of the gift list. Problem is that they never got moved back and that now means they're located all over the place. The Screw and Spring are together, then there's the Fuse and Gear a little further on before the remaining six which have stayed in the same old location following the food gifts.

Position of Screw and Spring in gift list

I'm calling for Storm8 to group these basic parts together once again, preferably at the start of the gift list. I'm terrible at remembering which ones can be found where, and that was especially problematic during the five day Valentine's Day goals when the appliance at the focus of it - the Chocolate Maker - needed exclusively basic parts for construction. Unite the basics!

 #268: Make the game full screen on iPhone X

Given that I play primarily on an iPad Mini (and occasionally on an iPhone 6s) the credit for this one goes wholly to regular contributor Paul Orzechowski. He plays on an iPhone X and recently notified me that when doing so there are black bars displayed all around the edges of the screen, with the size of the bars not uniform all around.

It goes without saying that this is a really disappointing thing to hear. The gamemakers should look into amending this so that the app shows full screen if they can. It's possible this is an issue which needs to be looked at by Apple rather than Storm8, but again if that's the case then perhaps Storm8 should come out and tell us that.

 #269: State appliance for goal recipes

Here's a really simple one to address! I'm getting old and don't cook on the basic appliances very much these days, and consequently my knowledge of which dishes are on which cookers is not what it used to be. Therefore it would be really nice if the gamemakers could include a small sliver of text which states which appliance we should be looking up.

Part 1 of the Valentine's Day 2018 goals

As the above goal step shows the small print does exist, so squeezing in that key nugget of information wouldn't be difficult. Not everyone has an encyclopaedic knowledge of where the Chocolate Kisses, Heart Pizza and Heart Steak are found, so including their locations would be a big help.

 #270: Give choice of flash goal prizes

The last suggestion for this month is inspired by a post from Lilliepaddd over on the Storm8 Forum. The five day flash goals tend to include an existing decoration as their final prize, and that inevitably means that in some cases players may already have said item. Just take me as an example - I already had the Kissing Swans, New Year Party and Thanksgiving Feast which were the climactic rewards in each of the last three flash quests.

 Recent Suggestions Box posts

 27/01/18 January 2018
 16/12/17 December 2017
 18/11/17 November 2017
 28/10/17 October 2017
 23/09/17 September 2017

Consequently I've had little to no appetite for the final step of these goal sets. So I'm challenging the game's developers to be more flexible and offer players the opportunity to select from a small pool of items as their final prize. This would increase the odds that a particular player will be able to aim for something they haven't already got, and that can only be good news for Storm8 who are more likely to get some gem spending from players determined to make it to the end. Everyone's a winner!