Papa's Cupcakeria Game Review

Papa’s Cupcakeria Game Background

Papa’s Cupcakeria is a restaurant time management game and the eighth entry in Flipline’s Papa Louie restaurant sim games. As either James, Willow, or a custom worker of your making, run Papa’s new cupcake bakery and add a distinct frosted flair to every custom cupcake you make.

How to Play Papa’s Cupcakeria

Getting Started

To select, left click with your mouse or tap on the touchscreen with your fingers. Select Continue on the bottom right corner of the loading screen to bring up the welcome screen. On the welcome screen, select Play at the center to begin.

Select one of the 3 save slots to get started. Choosing an empty slot to start a new game or pick an occupied slot to load a previous save file. You can clear an old save file by selecting the X button on the top right of the save slot. You can also backup your saves on your device by selecting the Save a Backup button; select Load Backup to load the save file onto an empty slot. Your web browser automatically saves your game progress.

Choose between the two available player characters or make your own. Once you’ve made your choice, a cutscene explaining the game’s premise plays. Select Skip Intro to move past the cutscene and begin the game in earnest.

Character Creation

You enter the character creator screen after selecting Create a Custom Worker at the character selection screen. Here, you can build a custom worker in a Papa Louie style. You can spend as much time as you need creating your new character.

The game has 2 gender presets and a plethora of pre-built customization options sorted in 8 categories on the left, including hair styles, hair color, and skin tone. You can also use the 6 sliders on the right to make slight adjustments to your character’s head, neck, and facial features. Type in your character’s name on the namespace, then select Continue if you’re satisfied with your work. Don’t worry; you can make further edits to your character later by selecting the customize button on the pause screen.

Later in the game, you can also swap out your character’s uniform for various clothes. You can buy these clothing items using in-game money or win them in the mini games.

The Process

The game is divided into 4 stations, which represent the steps in making a cupcake order:

• The order station, in green, where you take order tickets from customers.
• The batter station, in pink, where you prepare the cupcakes.
• The bake station, in orange, where you bake the cupcakes.
• The build station, in blue, where you place the toppings.

To move from one station to the next, select their respective colored buttons on the bottom row of the screen.

At the order station, select Take Order above the customer at the counter to begin writing down their order ticket. You can leave their order at the order hook or drag and drop it to the line at the top row of the screen for easy storage. Orders in this game are much faster than in previous Papa Louie restaurant games. Customers always order two cupcakes at a time, and they may not always have the same toppings on them.

Once you receive the order ticket, begin assembly by moving to the batter station. Pick out the customer’s preferred cupcake liner, then pour in the batter. Make sure to pour just enough batter on the liners to ensure the cupcakes are of the appropriate size. Once both liners have batter, they will automatically move to the oven queue at the baking station.

Select the baking tins containing the batter on the lower left of the baking station, then drag and drop it to any of the shelves in the oven. A timer to the left of the oven indicates how done the cupcakes are. The cupcakes must only remain in the oven until they are fully baked. Customers don’t appreciate overbaked cupcakes and will refuse to eat burnt ones. Put the finished cupcakes on the shelf on the right to put them in the decorating queue.

At the build station, you must first put in the toppings. First, choose an icing, then move your mouse or fingers in a circular pattern while selecting to create swirl on top of the cupcake. Select a topping to add it on the swirl of icing. Some toppings such as sprinkles and syrups must be drizzled on, while others like cherries must be dragged and dropped into place. Try to place them all as evenly as you possibly can. When you’re done, select the order ticket, then drag and drop it to the stand beside the cupcakes to serve.

Basic Gameplay Advice

Summary

The game’s backstory remains the same regardless of which character you choose. Papa Louie and his nephew Roy have just concluded a deal to open a business with the mayor of the city of Frostfield when they get involved in a traffic accident. Although both are unharmed, Roy’s car is severely damaged, leading his outrage at the driver… who is unable to pay for the damages. Papa Louie diffuses the situation by paying for Roy’s repair bills and putting the unfortunate driver to work of their debt as the first employee of the Cupcakeria.

Basics

As a rule, you must make the cupcakes exactly as the customer wants them. Make sure to use to match the order precisely and ensure that the cupcakes themselves are cooked to perfection. On top of that, presentation matters. You must keep the toppings evenly distributed on the cupcake itself as you can.

You don’t need to make the cupcakes match their relative locations on the order ticket as long as their bases are identical. If you have two identical cupcake bases with different toppings, you can swap out the toppings of the left and right cupcakes and still get a high rating from the customer.

Each time you make a mistake, you can toss out your failed concoctions by selecting the appropriate option on each of the stations. We recommend starting over even if it causes a score decrease by making the customer wait too long. A mismatched or poor-quality order usually doesn’t score very high with the customers at all.

As the game progresses, you gain access to more ingredients and options. These are the toppings available year-round.

• 10 cake batters
• 14 frostings
• 3 drizzle syrups
• 6 shaker toppings
• 4 placeable toppings.

With the introduction of holidays, the game also introduces new seasonal ingredients. Each holiday has 5 each, or 60 in total. You also get 4 extra cupcake liners for every holiday, for a total of 52 different liners.

The Work Week

The work week is the seven-day period that defines the passage of time in the game. Each day in the week has a unique closer or last customer, and the end of the week marks the arrival of your pay.

Your performance in each day of the week is defined by the following metrics:

• Battering
• Baking
• Building
• Waiting

These and your total performance briefly come up before your earnings and customer points at the end screen. Use them as a guide to improve your performance later in the game.

Customers and Customer Points

The game has 81 customers, of which only a few are available at the start of the game. As you play, you unlock more customers. Each customer has a unique set of preferences. The sheer number of them makes it challenging to remember all but a few of these preferences; instead, we recommend cross-referencing their profiles on the customer menu. This can be accessed by opening the pause screen and selecting the Customers button.

You can also view most of the customers you’ve unlocked so far by selecting View Parade on the startup screen.

Customers have a star gauge consisting of 5 stars. Each time you impress your customer enough (about 80 points or so), you earn a star for the gauge. Earn 5 stars and the customer gains a badge. Customer badges come in 3 tiers—bronze, silver, and gold—which must be earned individually. Be careful; while you won’t lose badges you’ve already earned, your star progress toward the next badge will be erased if you displease a customer.

Customers give you customer points based on how well you satisfied their orders. The customer points are tallied at the end of the day and are added to your total. To level up, you must reach a specific amount of customer points.

Closers

Closers are the last customers to arrive in a day. They are far more judgmental compared to regular customers and will be especially harsh toward mediocre or poor service. Despite their name, they aren’t really the kind of customers you should keep waiting till the end to serve. Impressing closers enough to win badges can be very difficult, as they only come once a week.

A special closer is the food critic, Jojo. He is the harshest when it comes to criticism and it takes truly exemplary service to impress him. Win his approval and you earn a blue badge, which increases the value of all tips your customers give for 3 days.

Holidays

The game year is divided into seasons. These last for 3 months each. There are 12 holidays in the game, corresponding to one holiday per month. The game’s holidays are as follows:

• New Year in January
• Valentine’s Day in February
• St. Paddy’s Day in March
• Easter in April
• Onionfest in May
• Summer Luau in June
• Starlight Jubilee in July
• Baseball Season in August
• Pirate Bash in September
• Halloween in October
• Thanksgiving in November
• Christmas in December

Customers have preferred holidays and, subsequently, have unique order preferences during holidays. Some customers (and all closers) also appear in different outfits during a holiday. Unique customers make their debuts during a specific holiday, too.

Holidays introduce a new set of ingredients and themed items, most of which must be unlocked over the course of the game.

Earnings and Improvements

You earn money in the game through the following means:

• Tips, which you receive from customers. The better your service, the higher your tips.
• Your weekly pay. You begin with a base pay of $100, which gradually increases as you level up.
• Achievement badges. You receive a one-time sum for every one of the 90 achievement badges you can get in the game.
• Consolation prizes. A small amount of cash is rewarded to you as one possible low-value prize in a mini game.

You can spend your in-game money on improvements. These include upgrades and cosmetic enhancements for yourself and your lobby. Cosmetic enhancements for your lobby improve customer patience, while upgrades improve your work flow.

Upgrades are the most important things you can spend on the game and we recommend buying them first. The upgrades are as follows:

• The doorbell ($30) alerts you to the arrival of new customers.
• Oven boosters ($120 apiece) let you speed up the baking process.
• Oven alarms ($150 apiece) alert you to when the cupcakes are done.
• Double batter squirters ($300) allow you to pour batter in two spaces at once.
• Fill guides ($100) adds a line to the batter cups indicating when it is full.
• Frosting copiers ($400) let you copy the frosting swirl of the first cupcake onto the second one.

Interior Design

To open the lobby decorating screen, select Decorate Lobby on the startup screen. The furnishing items you’ve bought over time appear on the inventory. Select inventory items, then drag and drop them into the walls or floor of the lobby to place them. You can also select items from the lobby and drag and drop them back into the inventory to store them.

Your lobby has a score that is based on the number of items placed in it. The closer the score is to the maximum, the better the lobby is at keeping customers patient. The maximum score increases over time, incentivizing you to keep adding things to your lobby.

The game rewards you not only for decorating the lobby but also for keeping it thematically unified and fresh. Each of the items in your lobby are part of a theme, which is designated by a letter on the top right corner of its icon on the inventory. Items from mismatched themes will not contribute as much to the overall score of the area.

Freshness is defined as how new a place looks. Customers gradually tire of seeing the same furnishings in the store each day. Over time, the lobby’s freshness drops. To keep the lobby fresh, you must swap out the furnishings and wall and floor covers as needed.

Advanced Playing Tips & Strategy

General Tips

There is no upgrade that allows you to auto fill batter, so overfilling and underfilling are a constant risk. You can avoid overfilling by deselecting the button just as you see the batter from the top of the cup. Don’t wait any longer. You can also buy the fill lines upgrade to make it easier to estimate.

Stagger the cupcakes as you bake them. When one cupcake is in the oven, wait a little while before putting in the second one. This will give you a time buffer between the two. While one bakes, you can add frosting and toppings on the other.

To create acceptable swirls, move your fingers or cursor in a zigzag or circle motion, being careful to make it smaller as you move upward. We recommend moving slowly to get the shapes right.

Stay Ahead of Your Customers

Knowing what your customers want will help you save time by letting you prepare their orders in advance before they order it. This is especially important in the early part of the day. The first customer you encounter appear just outside your store.

Remember, though that customers have different holiday preferences. This can complicate things when their favorite holiday rolls in.

Mini Games

You get the chance to play optional mini games in between each work day. Mini games cost a ticket to play each. You earn tickets by gaining stars, which you earn by impressing customers. You can earn a maximum of 3 tickets in a day. As long as you have enough tickets, you can play each mini game as many times as you want. There’s a different mini game for every day of the week.

Each mini game rewards you with either a random decoration or item of clothing as a prize. As a consolation prize, you would also receive a small tip.

Pizza Pachinko

Select anywhere to drop a moving ball from the top of the screen. The ball will move down the pegs and land on any of the boxes at the bottom. You will win a prize if it lands in the center and a consolation tip if it lands on the sides.

Saucy Shot

This is an arcade-style shooting game. Select the enemies that appear onscreen to shoot them. Shoot the target number of enemies shown to win.

Strike Out

This is a baseball-themed game where you play as a pitcher. Adjacent to the hitter is a box representing the space next to the bat. Select when the red ball inside the box isn’t near the bat to get the actual ball past the hitter. Get 3 balls past the hitter to win.

Hallway Hunt

Your goal is to find the door the customer indicated is hiding. The customer will be hiding among a group. Follow the lights of the customer’s eyes when the lights go out to see where they’re going.

Spin N’ Sauce

This is a Wheel of Fortune-inspired mini game. A meter at the right determines the strength of your spin. Select the right time to spin the wheel with the appropriate amount of force.

Blender Ball

Your goal is to toss a ball into any of the holes. Select once to determine the power of your toss, then select again to determine where you toss the ball. One hole, with a star, gives a prize, while the others yield tips. The position of the holes vary each time you load the game.

Mitch’s Mess

This is a hidden object game where you must select the 3 objects listed on the bottom row. Each wrong selection consists of a strike; you lose if you earn 3 strikes.

Educational Aspects

The game challenges a player’s time management and task switching skills. Players must remain attentive to the demands of their customers even as they move from one task to another in rapid succession.

Player Age Recommendations

This game is suited for players school-aged and above, though its game mechanics mean that it appeals mainly to older children and adults.