Papa's Scooperia Game Review

Papa’s Scooperia Game Background

Papa’s Scooperia is a time management game the fourteenth game in Flipline Studios’ Papa Louie restaurant sim series. As Carlo, Koilee, or a custom worker of your making, serve up ice cream and cookie orders to the exacting demands of Papa’s big city customers.

How to Play Papa’s Scooperia

A Quick Warning

One WARNING about this game is there is an error in the rendering when you go into the DECORATE LOBBY section of the game, causing layers to pile atop each other, so avoid that area if you do not want the game to crash!

If you go into the Decorate Lobby section and the game keeps working, power on to you! In some web browsers the lobby decoration aspect causes a crash. If that happens to you, then refresh your web browser to reload the game, and resume your game while skipping the lobby decoration area.

Getting Started

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

Select one of the game’s 3 save slots to get started. Choosing an empty slot starts a new game while choosing an occupied slot lets you resume a previously saved game. You can clear a slot by selecting the X button on the top right corner. Save a copy of your game data to your device by selecting Save a Backup; select Load Backup to put a copy of your old save file onto an empty save slot. Your web browser automatically saves your game progress.

Select a character. You can choose between Carlo Romano, Koilee, or a character you designed yourself for the role. Once you’ve chosen who to play as, the game plays an opening cutscene explaining the game’s premise. Select Skip Intro to get past the cutscene and dive right into the game’s tutorial.

Character Creation

Selecting Create a Custom Worker opens the character creator, which will allow you to create a Papa Louie-styled figure to serve as your player character.

Begin by choosing a gender aesthetic, then type in a name for your character on the namespace provided. Choose from a broad array of hairs, facial hairs, hair colors, skin tones, facial features, and accessories to choose from. You can also use the sliders at the bottom of the screen to further refine your characters appearance.

Once you’re finished, select Continue to proceed to the game. You can make further edits to your character by selecting Customize on the pause screen. You can also purchase or win new articles of clothing to wear instead of your default uniform.

The Process

The game has 4 stations, representing each stage of order fulfillment.

• The order station, in green, is where you receive customers and write order tickets.
• The dough station, in purple, is where you assemble the cookies.
• The bake station, in orange, is where you bake the cookies.
• The build station, in blue, is where you scoop ice cream and create the finished sundae.

Select the respective colored buttons to move from one station to the next.

At the order station, select the Take Order button above the customer once they reach the counter to write down the order ticket. You can leave the order ticket on the hook on the top right corner or place it on the line on the top row.

At the dough station, select a dough to begin. Move the scooper slowly above the dough tub to get the right amount of dough. Dip the dough onto the mixable of choice. The finished dough automatically moves to the bake station.

At the bake station, place the finished dough onto any of the plates on the oven. An indicator to the left of the plate will show when the cookie is finished baking. Once it’s done, take the cookie out of the oven quickly to avoid it overcooking. Place the finished cookies onto a plate. Orders that require multiple cookies should be placed on the same plate.

At the build station, select an ice cream tub to get started. Move the ice cream scoop in a circular pattern to take out a scoop. Then, drop the ice cream onto the cookie. Select any of the toppings to finish it off. The toppings can be drizzled (like syrup), sprinkled (like nuts), or dragged and dropped into place (like fruits and cones). Drag and drop the correct order slip into the stand to serve the finished sundae.

You can dispose of any incorrectly created sundae components at any point in production. While it will waste time, correcting your order usually yields a higher score than submitting an incorrect order.

Basic Gameplay Advice

Summary

The game’s premise is identical for any of the players chosen. A sightseeing trip and shopping spree to the big city goes wrong after the player character rents a fly-by-night “hotel room” after seeing that all legit hotels are fully booked. Their personal items are stolen by the mysterious “hotel worker” in the dead of the night and the “room” they booked turned out to be a commercial space being turned into an ice cream shop.

With no money for the return trip home, the player character explains their situation to the proprietor, Papa Louie. Papa offers to help them in the interim by granting them employment in the new Scooperia.

Basics

Your goal is to satisfy customers by giving them the sundae they asked for as quickly as possible. Your finished sundae must closely match their specified order. You must also pay attention to the aesthetic of the sundae. Try to center each ice cream scoop and distribute the toppings evenly.

By the 4th day, you’ll need to hire a second employee. You can choose from either of the default employees or create one. This new coworker will arrive with order tickets from customers seated in the dining area.

The game has a wide range of ingredients, most of which would need to be unlocked as the game progresses. The year-round items are as follows:

• 8 cookie doughs
• 19 dough mixables
• 19 ice creams
• 2 whipped creams
• 3 syrups
• 7 shaker ingredients
• 9 placeable ingredients.

On top of that, you gain access to 5 extra ingredients unique to each holiday.

The Work Week

The game is composed of days, which are arranged in groups of 7 known as a work week. Each day of the work week determines the closer who arrives and the mini game you play at the end. At the end of each week, you also receive your weekly pay.

You receive your performance review at the end of each work day. Your service quality per day is measured by the following metrics:

• Wait times
• Dough preparation
• Baking
• Sundae building

Use the ratings to track your areas for improvement across the game.

Seasons and Holidays

The in-game year is defined by 4 seasons comprising 3 months each. Each month has a corresponding holiday:

• New Year (January)
• Valentine’s Day (February)
• Holi (March)
• Cherry Blossom Festival (April)
• OnionFest (May)
• Summer Luau (June)
• Starlight Jubilee (July)
• Baseball Season (August)
• Big Top Carnival (September)
• Halloween (October)
• Thanksgiving (November)
• Christmas (December)

The game’s calendar begins in March.

Customers have a favorite holiday and a preferred order unique to the holiday. Many customers and all closers have variations to their outfits unique to a holiday.

Customers

The game has 116 customers, most of whom are unlocked over the course of the game. Customers have a specific preferred order they choose in most days of the year. On top of that, they may also have a special order they prefer to have on a specific holiday. See their profiles to know what they want; you can access the profiles of every customer you’ve unlocked so far by selecting the customer button on the pause screen and startup screen.

Select View Parade to see all the customers you’ve unlocked so far go on parade.

Each customer has a star gauge. Earn 5 stars by receiving an 80% customer satisfaction rating. Earning 5 stars grants the customer a star customer badge, which comes in 3 ranks: bronze, silver, and gold. Star customers order faster than others, helping you save time. Although star customer rankings cannot be lost, you can lose progress toward your next star badge if you fail to adequately satisfy a customer even once.

You’ll also receive customer points based on their satisfaction with your service. The customer points you earn add up over time. You must reach a specific number of customer points to level up.

Closers and Envelope Holders

Closers are the last customers to appear in each work day. They, alongside gold envelope holders, are more demanding than regular customers and are harder to please. Closers appear once a week. Meanwhile, golden envelope holders come sporadically and are otherwise normal customers when not holding the envelopes.

Pleasing golden envelope holders will grant you the recipe for a new special. Only the last closer, however, yields a reward when impressed. This is Jojo, the food critic. Impressing the food critic will grant you a blue ribbon, which increases the value of all your tips for 3 days.

Specials

A special is a standard sundae recipe you receive from golden envelope holders. You offer specials on a per-day basis, which you can set before the day begins. Customers will have a small chance of ordering specials instead of their usual, more so when you add the special sign in front of the store.

Specials come with bonus, which vary from one special to the next. Among the bonuses you can receive include higher tips, extra mini game tickets, and more customer points. You also receive a special prize when you serve the same special 5 times.

Income and Improvements

You get money from the following income streams:

• Tips. Satisfying a customer grants you a tip; the happier the customer, the higher their tip.
• Your weekly pay. You begin with a starting pay of $100 that increases as you level up.
• Consolation prizes. You sometimes get some money instead of a prize if you don’t quite win a mini game.

You can use the money you’ve earned to make improvements to your business. These include upgrades to your work process to largely cosmetic upgrades like decorations and outfits.

We recommend buying upgrades first. These become essential as you get busier.

• The doorbell ($4.50) alerts you when a new customer comes in,.
• Bake boosters ($120 each) lets you speed up the baking process.
• Oven alarms ($90 each) alert you to when the cookies are finished.
• Customer coupons ($25) allow you to invite a specific customer to visit again.
• The special sign ($250) entices more customers to buy the day’s special.

Interior Decorating

Dressing up the shop’s interiors becomes important as more customers arrive. Decor not only makes the place look nice; it also keeps customers patient as they fall in line. Get started by selecting Decorate Lobby at the startup screen. Retrieve items by selecting the inventory button. Select inventory items, then drag and drop them onto the wall or floor to place them. Select items, then drag and drop them back to the inventory to store them.

Your lobby has a score that determines its effectiveness in improving customer patience. The more items you place, the higher your lobby’s score and maximum score becomes. Items come in holiday- and aesthetic-based themes, marked by a letter shown on the top right of each item’s icon in the inventory. You’ll need at least 3 items from the same theme to get the maximum score.

The lobby has a freshness rating that indicates how new it feels to the customers. Over time, the freshness rating declines. To raise the lobby’s freshness, swap out items for new ones every so often.

Some items, such as posters, increase the value of specific ingredients when placed. Place these as soon as you can.

Stickers

Stickers replace the achievement badge system used in previous game. Each in-game accomplishment wins you a sticker. Instead of giving you a cash reward, however, a sticker puts you one step closer to unlocking an alternative outfit for your customers.

You can equip alternative outfits for your customers in their profiles on the customer menu.

Advanced Playing Tips & Strategy

General Tips

Periodically check on the items you’re cooking. Take advantage of the staggered nature of the other stations when baking. Don’t do too many tasks at once and be prepared to interrupt yourself to get back to baking station, even after you’ve gotten the alarms. This game is less forgiving than the other restaurant sims in the Papa Louie series, and you’ll need to get to the baking station to get cookies out quickly.

Immediately do all time-consuming tasks (e.g. taking order tickets, serving orders) at the start of the baking process. When the cookies are nearly done, wait at the baking station rather than doing anything else.

Stay Organized

Keep your order tickets well sorted. Place the most recent orders to the left and the orders you’re working on to the right. Double check to make sure that the ticket on the hook is the one you’ll be finishing. Mismatching the order tickets and orders have disastrous consequences.

Specials

Try to promote the specials aggressively as soon as you are able to. Commit as many of them as you can to memory to streamline the preparation process.

Mini Games

The game has 7 mini games, one for every day of the week. You can play a mini game as many times as you can as long as you have tickets. Winning a mini game grants you a prize, which is either furnishings or an article of clothing.

You win tickets by impressing customers. In normal circumstances, you can win up to 3 tickets in a day. Choosing a specific special like the Chocoholic will grant you extra tickets.

Fashion Flambe

You are given a few minutes to memorize the getup worn by your character at the center of the screen. After the timer expires, select the correct articles of clothing (shirt, bottoms, and shoes) from the right side of the screen, then select Done before the timer on the bottom right expires. You win a prize if you get it right.

Slider Escape

This is a sliding escape puzzle game. Select to move the burger slider in the direction the arrow is pointing; the burger can only move from edge to edge. Use the blocks as stoppers; cracker blocks can only be used as stoppers twice before they crumble. Move the burger to the star bumper to win a prize. Don’t let the burger slide offscreen.

Rico’s Chiliworks

This is a simple pipe logic game. Select the pipes to twist them around so they form a complete path to the chili pot. Finish the pipeworks before the timer runs out to win a prize. If you finish early, select the valve at the left to speed up the process.

Mitch’s Mess

This is a simple hidden object game. To win a prize, find all the items listed on the bottom left in the jumble of Mitch’s workstation before the timer runs out. Avoid selecting anything other than the items you need to find; select incorrectly 3 times and you fail.

Strike Out

Your job is to have the hitter strike out. A grid representing the location of the bat is shown near the hitter. Select when the ball is away from the bat to guarantee that the hitter will miss. Make the hitter strike out 3 times to win a prize.

Cool Shot

In this arcade-inspired shooting game, your job is to shoot down the enemies that appear onscreen. Shoot down the target number of enemies before they all escape.

Blender Ball

This is a simple arcade toss game. Select when the power meter is at the right level to lock in your throw’s power and then select at the right moment to toss the ball at the desired direction. Toss the ball into any of the pots to win. Get a prize for tossing the ball into the star pot and a cash prize for tossing it into any of the numbered pots.

Educational Aspects

This game challenges players to hone their time management and task switching skills. Players must remain attentive to every detail that goes on in their ice cream shop even as they rush to fill orders.

Player Age Recommendations

This game is suited for older school-aged players and above; it may be too complex for younger gamers. We recommend this game for fans of restaurant sims and time management games.