Cookard

if you love fast-paced management games with no specific end and minimal instructions, you'll probably like this game! i, however, do not, so my two gripes stuck out to me immediately: 1) the tutorials need WAY more polish & specificity in their instructions. not knowing how to do something integral while timers ticked ever-lower (can't click while timers are paused!) was my #1 cause of failure trying to play this. i couldnt figure out how to buy/sell stuff from the shop/market at first, couldnt figure out how to craft new items at first, and i never figured out how to upgrade my equipment before i finally decided to close the game. it even took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to reset my run because i got confused by the vague instructions in the text box that appeared when trying to click reset like it was a normal button, and kept trying with increasing desperation to drag something from inside/about the text box to the start button before finally realizing "this" referred to the reset button actually being a card that i needed to drag and place on top of the start button. this game may be simple, but i am clearly simpler, especially when it comes to how specific to be with tutorials and instructions. 2) no downtime phase makes the gameplay downright stressful and quickly devolves a run into a chaotic mess. the way the game starts out with timers ticking down doesnt even give you time to learn the mechanics before you have to start serving customers, which is doubly stressful due to the tutorials being inadequate, but then when i did finally figure it out, the constant stream of customers just led to me having absolutely no time to make any "extra" food (i.e. to feed my worker or to trade for necessary upgrades,) or manage my backlog of rewards, coins, and ingredients. within about 30 minutes my board was a mess, i couldnt find anything, and there still hadnt been a single moment to catch my breath except for completely pausing the game. i really wish there was some type of "day end" or "store closed" phase where i could have time to prep ingredients, do my shopping, open up my rewards, sort my cards, and set up my restaurant before customers start busting my door down for a baguette. when i saw that i needed 4 baguettes to trade for something else i needed, i literally said out loud to no one, "when am i supposed to have time to make those?" as i had three customers at tables and three waiting in the queue already plus a massive backlog of reward packs that probably would have automated some processes by that point if i'd ever had a moment to implement them/figure out how they work. it was at that point that i realized the stress was just going to keep mounting higher and decided to put the game down entirely. all that being said though, i would definitely come back to this game if it ever gets polished, because the concept seems really fun. but right now it's giving a bit too much "i made this as my final project for game dev class" abandonware for me to really enjoy playing it, and i imagine a lot of the polish that might have gone to this game will end up going to the dev's newer, bigger game The Chef's Shift (which is on my wishlist,) but Cookard still was absolutely worth picking up and at least trying out for a bit due to that irresistible lack of a price tag.