Suggestions Box (Mar 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...

 #271: Give XP for throwing away spoilt food

Having been rather busy in recent weeks I have unfortunately been seeing a lot of those pesky flies hovering over rotting food. Spending gems to 'revive' those dishes is just not an option, and therefore I have thrown away a lot of cooks of late. It's a frustrating situation because you've put coins into it and receive nothing back.

Spoilt food

So how about we receive some compensatory XP for throwing away spoilt food? It wouldn't need to be much, just a recognition that we did at least have a go at doing some cooking. After all it's still an 'experience' so should be rewarded as such! It would certainly ease the resentment I have for those disgusting flies...

 #272: Provide in-game notice of maintenance

Two weeks ago the clocks went forward in the US for daylight saving, with the UK following suit today. As far as I'm concerned it's an exciting time - lighter evenings and signs that summer may just actually happen. But in Restaurant Story terms it means scheduled maintenance.

Maintenance message window

We have it every six months when the clocks change, with a spell of approximately two hours where none of the Storm8 titles are playable. For US players it's probably not a big problem since it occurs at around midnight, but elsewhere in the world it can disrupt gameplay. I've no idea of the technical reasons for the temporary shutdown, but I do think it could be better advertised.

Therefore I'm calling on the gamemakers to start providing an in-game notice of planned maintenance activities so that we can plan our cooking around it where possible. At present it only tends to get advertised on the Storm8 Forum and other usual social media outlets, which is all very well for those who are following these, but not so for those who are not.

 #273: Allow players to choose goal start times

This is an intriguing suggestion in the sense that the sequel game, Restaurant Story 2, already applies it. Rather than having a goal set start at a set time it would be nice to have a choice, thus allowing players to plan their game to their own personal benefit.

I think the positive reaction to this would be huge. Just as in the follow-up game, there could be a period of three or four days to manually activate the goals or else they do so automatically. That means being able to plan the game around your own personal schedule (and not the other way round!) There's plenty of things not right about Restaurant Story 2, but this is one area where it has excelled!

 #274: Do not spread items over extra space

When the New Year Family Meal was released as the final prize in the Chinese New Year quest last month I couldn't help but be a little put out by the amount of space it was taking up. A 4x4 sized area is occupied by this smart decoration, but in reality the item itself only really takes up a 3x3 space. The result is some emptiness which can - depending upon the surroundings - look a little queer.

New Year Meal with 4x4 space

This is not the first case of a piece of decor suffering with this issue, and is something that could really do with being addressed. There's no need to engineer a larger space than is really required as there are many examples of smaller items which are aesthetically supreme. Size isn't everything, so Storm8 should be scaling all content according to the content itself rather than according to some standard protocol.

 #275: Add part request accepts to news feed

Maybe my mind is addled or distracted, but when accepting a part request I'm becoming quite bad for forgetting either the player who I have just accepted a quest for or the item they requested. It leaves me feeling somewhat guilty as although I've helped my neighbour by accepting their request I've not been able to provide further assistance by sending them that same part as a gift.

 Recent Suggestions Box posts

 24/02/18 February 2018
 27/01/18 January 2018
 16/12/17 December 2017
 18/11/17 November 2017
 28/10/17 October 2017

My suggestion is that the game's developers introduce a new entry for the news feed which shows your part request acceptances. It would be along the lines of 'You have accepted The Garlic Tree's request for a Gear'. That would put it in writing and give us the opportunity to provide that personalised gift even when short memory loss is apparently an issue.