Overview
Chocolate Shop Frenzy is a cute game with surprising depth. Players control Emma, an ex-marketing specialist who promptly quit her job upon seeing a chocolate shop for sale. The gameplay will likely remind you of games like Diner Dash - customers come in and order something, and you must fill the order in a timely manner. Chocolate Shop has a lot going for it, but it’s got a pretty high price tag.
Features
I love it when a game and its controls cater to the strengths of the iPhone rather than struggling against them. Every action in this game is accomplished by touch controls that simply work.
There’s a fair amount of charm oozing from this game. It’s hard to be in a bad mood when you’re serving chocolate bunnies to little old ladies.
- This Ain’t No Kiddie Coaster
While at first this game seemed like a kid-oriented breeze, a story began developing, the levels got far more challenging, and the features kept piling on. This is a well-designed video game that would, at the very least, stand on its own two feet next to “real” video games.
Breakdown
The Good:
Chocolate Shop Frenzy is a fairly delightful little game. I quickly found myself drawn in and fussing about making sure to never let a customer get fed up and leave the store. The combination of the graphical style, the tightly paced gameplay, and the story (though it was small) added up to a certain kind of charm that I just couldn’t resist. To perk yourself up, you drink hot cocoa. Little old ladies can’t tip much but don’t mind waiting longer. Young kids are impatient for their chocolate. Adorable.
I also liked that there’s a target and expert score for each level. Repeatable trials like this give you something to shoot for, and if you don’t pull it off you can always go back. The pacing of the game is broken up nicely by a matching/tetris style minigame at the end of each month. Completing this minigame unlocks a new specialty chocolate you can make for customers in the main game.
There was also a nice range of different things that'd happen on any given day. Maybe it's laid back with lots of moms, old women, and hippies. Maybe it's all businessmen and you're rushing around, gulping down hot chocolate to keep yourself afloat. Maybe a thief shows up and snags your tips. The different kinds of customers and ways you can interact with them definitely added a lot to this game.
The Bad:
The price is pretty high. It’s currently on sale for $5, but is normally $10. While this game has clearly been lovingly crafted, I just don’t think I’d be able to justify spending $10 on it. Luckily, there is a pretty robust trial version that’ll help you determine if this app is sweet enough for your tastes. There were a couple little audio bugs - the game’s audio seemed to interact pretty poorly with the lock feature on the iPhone, resulting in no sound every now and then. I wasn’t able to reproduce it consistently, but it did happen more than once.
Verdict
This game is great. It was fun, somewhat challenging, and kept me entertained the whole way. Though it doesn’t expand much on the genre of food-delivering games, it delivers enough original style and quality that it’s okay. I highly recommend checking out the trial version before jumping right in, just because the price tag is so high. If you like it, act while it’s on sale. Though I’m not sure this is a $10 app, it’s probably worth $5.
