Papa's Pizzeria
The genre of casual resource management games is a true hit or miss genre that either appeals to you or it doesn't. If it does, then you are one of the people who has contributed to the wild success of Diner Dash, Cake Mania, and the like. And if it doesn't... this may be the game to change your mind.
Papa's Pizzeria, by Flipline Studios in Ohio, is more than your average resource management game. While a typical entry in the vein of Diner Dash would require little more than clicking on various hot spots to make and deliver the food to customers, Papa's Pizzeria gives it a more personal touch. Rather than clicking on an order and then on a station for topping the pizza, only to watch the pizza top itself, you must actually top the pizza yourself.
The basics of the gameplay are simple: Just swap through four stations, each an important part of the pizza-making process.
- The Order Station: This is where you will take orders from when a customer approaches the counter.
- The Topping Station: Once you have an order (or two, or three) queued up, this is where you will go to prepare the pizza. Topping is easy--simply drag and drop various toppings onto the pizza, according to the customer's specifications. Here's where some tricky bits come in--the customer not only decides what toppings he wants, but also where they should be put. For the best pizza, the toppings will need to be roughly evenly distributed around the area of the pizza he wants the toppings on.
- The Baking station: Once you finish working on the toppings, you can send your pizza directly to the ovens, where it will cook. It's up to you to take the pizza out when it's been baking for the right amount of time.
- The Cutting Station: After taking the pizza out of the oven, it's sent straight here. By drawing lines from end to end of the pizza, you cut it into pieces, according to how the customer ordered it to be cut. Then, when you are satisfied, you can finish the pizza, sending it out to the customer.
Your performance at each of these stations directly determines what score--or rather, how much tip money--the customer awards you when you pass the pizza along to him.
There is also a major element of time management present in this game. From the moment you take the pizza off the oven, you will be virtually locked into cutting it and serving it--which takes time. Perhaps too much time, if any of the other pizzas in the oven are ready to come out.
To help balance the amount of time it takes to serve the pizza and the amount of time it takes to stick the pizzas in the ovens, after topping a pizza, you get the option of saving it for later--very useful for when you finish a pizza but can't put it on the oven yet due to bad timing.
Analysis: What makes this game stand out from Diner Dash, Cake Mania, Miss Management, and the other notables of the genre is the presence of skill-based challenges. Not only does your skill at handling the various stations affect your tip--it also determines how quickly you can get done with the pizza itself.
The presence of these skill-based challenges really fleshes out the game beyond a simple challenge of what to click and when. That, combined with the excellent graphics and pleasant (if repetitive) music makes this an excellent game, both for the resource-management buffs and those of us casual gamers just out for a good time.
Dude, someone tell the people who made this game to beware of copyright infringement lawsuits. There's a place not a mile from my house called Papa's Pizzeria, and they've existed for 30 years.
Leeksoup - there are no copyrights to buiness names, but you can trademark them. However, since the two are very different businesses, one a game and the other a real pizzeria, my guess is that there would be no problem.
well I like the idea, but I'm a bit stuck - i can't work out how to give the people who order 2 pizzas both of them? I keep ending up throwing one away because once one is on the cutting mat I'm not sure how to get the second one there?
And I couldn't get back a pizza I'd topped and 'saved for later' because the oven was full?
They don't order two pizzas, it's a pizza with two toppings.
I love this game!
Anyone else find the screenshot up there really HomestarRunner-esque?
Those ordering and delivering cutscenes get pretty old pretty fast. Also, the order slips aren't clear enough and when you're in a hurry it's too easy to get confused. Some color-coding would be nice.
Other then that, an amusing game, if pretty repetitive.
Just feels like it's lacking something. I need upgrades, something to use that hard-earned cash on. Without it it seems more like the toil of.. being a real pizza guy.
While this is certainly a great game, I feel the need to warn anyone who will begin to play this game. It is VERY tedious.
If you, like me, would like to unlock all the customers (which is one of the badges over at Kongregate), beware that this will take 100-150 game days, or about a day of total play time.
Also be aware, that you can ONLY unlock the 36th customers, once the other 35 ALL have a gold medal next to them. And be aware, that once you get the 35th customer unlocked, he will ALWAYS be first in line every single day, until you unlock the 36th customer. It is always the last unlocked customer, who is always first in line on every day. And you can easily get 30-50 days with the 35th customer being first, trying to upgrade your remaining few customers to gold, and also risk that they don't show up for ages.
These are some of the bitter experiences that I, and many other players have had to learn while trying to get the badges on Kongregate. I have personally got them, but many have quit long before. And don't get me wrong, I still think this is an amazing game, just a word of warning about just how long it takes.
Oh, and Jamus, I am sorry to say but there are NO upgrades in the game. All you do, is earn cash and upgrade your customers. No new ovens, or anything like in Diner Dash or Cake Mania.
ThemePark:
These two sentences "While this is certainly a great game, I feel the need to warn anyone who will begin to play this game. It is VERY tedious." seem to contradict each other, in my opinion. I have trouble imagining a game that can simultaneously be considered both "great" and "tedious" but I've only just begun to try this one, so maybe it fits the bill. :)
"From the moment you take the pizza off the oven, you will be virtually locked into cutting it and serving it-which takes time."
This isn't true, you can take multiple pizzas out of the oven and let them stack on the cutting table. Then, when you have time, you can cut and serve each at your leisure.
Also, I appreciate the warning, ThemePark. I'm now focusing almost only on the customers who don't have a star so that when I get towards the end, I'll hopefully be done with most of the characters.
One thing I'm doing is trying to stay on the newest customer for five days straight to get a star for them, then moving on. I started this around the 18th customer, and I currently only have one or two before the latest that's not a star customer. This means intentionally screwing up to get lower tips so I don't move to the next rank too quickly, which might be a stupid idea, but it's been working so far. Maybe I'll get to the end and realize it was an idiotic way to do it, but for now I'm okay with it. I mostly just want all the characters, not a high score.
I am totally addicted to this game. It's a ton of fun.
Tip:
I've noticed that certain customers give much larger tips, even over a perfect pizza given to a low-tipping customer. My memory just isn't good enough to keep up with most of them, but I'd bet you could score a lot more cash if you could remember which customers to prioritize getting good pizzas to, even if it means messing up the timing for the lower tippers.
Also, is it just me, or are you punished for waiting time even while the game is paused?
fnord, not at all. What I mean, is that it truely is a great game IMO, I love the graphics, the idea, and the gameplay.
The one bad thing about the game, and the one thing to watch out for, is how repetitive it gets very quickly, and unfortunately it's a big flaw in the game. But if it had that one problem fixed, I believe it would be a great game, and so it still is to me.
Linz, if I understand you right, you're trying to get just a bronze star for the person in front of the line at all times, which certainly sounds like an interesting idea, and might just work. I hope, it does.
Keith, there have been problems with the time not pausing when you paused the game, but that bug should've been fixed a while ago.
Also, I think that what you're seeing, is just customers with star vs. regular customers. The better star they have, the better tip they will give you. Except when they get a new star, where they will always give you $9.
I love this pizza game. But I am having problems getting my customers last in line to be happy with my service to them because by the time I have taken their order and delivered the pizza, they have waited too long. I have tried to have them wait in line until I was ready to make their pizza, but that didn't work. I have also went ahead and took like 4 orders at a time, made and delivered those orders before taking more orders, but the timing at the end still wasn't great. And yes, I have taken all the orders at once, made all the pizzas at once and delivered them all at once. Still got yucky scores on the timing thing. Any ideas on how to improve my timing? I am getting high scores for everything else for these last-in-line customers, just not on the timing thing.
Thanks for all your input.
I'm having the same problem as you, mamaplaysgames. It's frustrating, because I want the characters at the end to gain stars as well as the ones in the beginning of the day. I'm at a loss for what to do. I tried forcing the first customers to wait longer, since they don't have to wait in line at all. I think you have to have about 40% or higher timing level, and it can be hard to acheive in the end.
All of you that are addicted to this game, :) (I am too.) Do you have any suggestions?
I figured out that if you take 2 orders, then make those pizzas, while those pizzas are in the oven, take two more orders. Sometimes you have enough time to go ahead and make those pizzas before you have to take the first pizzas out. You just have to watch the times on the orders. Anyway, then I don't cut those first pizzas right away, I go ahead and take two more orders, then check on the pizzas in the oven, and if I have time then I deliver the two that is sitting on the cutting board. Then I take the two pizzas out of the oven and make the two pizzas I took orders for and while they are in the oven i either deliver the pizzas that are done or take and make 2 more orders and so on until I'm done. The last 4 customers still don't have a good rating for the time thing, but I think this is a better way of doing it. My average service score at the end overall is 85%. A lot better than I was doing! Hope this helps you out!
What I really don't like about this game is that when you deliver the pizza, you can't go to any other dtations which cause me to burn my pizzas.
This game is fun... until you actually try to beat it.
At Kongregate, this game has so many accomplishment badges assigned to it, and the general consensus is, "What were they thinking?!" The game becomes a brainless grind rather quickly.
If you like it and you want to beat it, go ahead, I guess!
Here's a tip I overheard once you get gold star customers, though:
If you give them a blank pizza without baking it or anything they will be very unhappy, but their gold star won't go down. It'll save a lot of time and give you more time to make the non-gold star customers happy.
Hey, I quite like this game. But I've started noticing a problem with it, I bake the pizza and cut it and click on finish order but when I give it to the customer I get 0% for baking no matter what the baking was like and the pizza is still on the cutting board, this is now happening for most of my customers.
Has anyone had this happen? If so how do you avoid it?
Thanks
This is one of my all time favorite games. I admit that I have a soft spot for cooking and customer service games, but this game is very interactive on many different levels. You get many different customers and have to move from screen to screen. I also love that you can save your game.
I am best on Kongregate and I love this game! I'm rank 9 and day 13 or 14.
The badges for this on Kongregate are:
Get one bronze customer
Get rank 10
Unlock the 36th customer
Make all 36 customers gold
this game is the best bcause you can autually make the pizza fun! im on leval 14
I've been playing this game for about 75 game days and I'm like rank 35. It's is an awesome game. I have like 12 more customers to get them all gold awards.
I've not played it yet but is this pizzaria in an apartment?
I'm having the same problem as spoon! I get 0% for baking no matter what! Does anyone know how to solve this?
I love this game! I've playing for a few weeks.
I'm in rank 34 and I have only 7 customers left without a gold badge!
i love this game but the costumers dont give good tips wen u keep them waiting too long. its hard wen u have so many pizzas to cook. any suggestions???????
Hey people when someone wants two pizzas in this game how do you get the two pizzas to the customers.
@Someone:
When someone asks for two different toppings on two different parts of the pizza, they want both on the same pizza. You don't have to make more than one pizza per customer.
So, is it a gold star on every customer or a gold medal on every customer to unlock the 36th customer? I'd just like some clarification.
Also, I am having the same problem with the timing. I will get an average of 100% on toppings every time around 98% on baking and 97% on cutting usually but I always get like 68% on waiting which is horrible. I need a suggestion, badly.
Ok...I've been playing and have found that you get a better percentage on waiting as long as you get the pizza to them as soon as you take it out of the oven and cut it.
I have been taking everyones order at once, making the pizzas but cutting them and serving them as soon as you take it out of the oven and the customer always gives me a star "thumbs up" which is better than nothing.
I hope this helps. I'd like some feedback too.
actually all characters tip the same, it depends on your percent points, and if you get 100's on all, you get 3.00 for every % point you lose, you also lose some pennies from the tip. whats left is what you get. Also screwing up intentionally will NOT help because those you screw up for can actually lose the stays in their star gauge and you'll have to start all over again. If you look closely at the cutting board, there are scratch marks approximately where you cut the pizza from. if you connect them, you'll get a perfect cutting score
you might also be getting 0% on baking because you're not baking it enough, seal. do you bake each separately for the specified amount of time?
For baking, watch the clock. it takes about fifteen to eighteen seconds for each eight of the clock. As soon as the clock hits a tick mark, watch the pizza. make sure you take it out when the color of the cheese changes. It starts our raw-looking, then melts and spreads out little each time. dont take it out before the cheese changes or too late after or you wont get 100% Was this and the one above helpful
The ads in the middle of the game are really messing things up for me. The ads freeze. Nothing shows up on the screen, and the Play Game button won't let me click on it. I'm fine with the ad before I start, but it's right after I click what save file I want to use. Isn't that a bit overkill? I can't play the game because of it.
[Inter-level ads should now be turned off when playing here at JIG. Hopefully this fixes your problem. Sorry for the inconvenience. -Jay]
Look, i'm on rank 16 and think it is a very enjoyable game, i play nearly every day.
this game is amazing! All of you who are addicted to this game, have you tried Papa's Freezeria and Taco Mia? These games get better every time, and I LOVE them!!!
I love this game.
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