Papa's Wingeria Game Review

Papa’s Wingeria Game Background

Papa Wingeria is the sixth game in the Papa Louie series of restaurant sim time management games from Flipline Studios. Play as Papa’s new protegees Chuck or Mandi or create a custom worker of your own as you deliver the hottest custom wing orders to the hungry diners at the Wingeria.

How to Play Papa’s Wingeria

Getting Started

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

Choose from any of the 3 available save slots to begin. Choosing an empty save slot starts a new session, while choosing an occupied one resumes a previously saved one. You can clear a save slot by selecting the x on its top right. Select Save a Backup to save a copy of your save file to your device. Select Load Backup to bring up an existing save file. Your web browser automatically saves your game progress.

To begin the game, choose from either Chuck or Mandi or create a custom worker. Unlike in previous games, you can only create a custom screen name when playing as a custom character. A cutscene plays explaining the game’s backstory will play before the game begins. Select Skip Intro to if you want to jump ahead and start the game.

Character Customization

Once you’ve selected the Create a Custom Worker option on the character selection screen, the game launches the character creator. This will allow you to create your own Papa Louie-style character to play as for this game. This is the first game in the Papa Louie restaurant sim series that allows you to make your own player characters. Have fun.

Pick from one of two available genders, then select 8 pre-built customization options. You can also use the six sliders on the right to make adjustments to various aspects of your character’s head and face. Once you’re done, type in your character’s name on the name space, then select the continue button on the bottom center of the screen. You can still physically alter your character at this point by selecting the customize button on the pause screen.

Later in the game, you can customize your character further by buying them new clothes to replace their uniform.

The Process

The game has 4 stations, representing the steps in the order fulfillment process.:

• The order station, in green, is where you take the customers’ orders as they arrive.
• The fry station, in orange, is where you cook the wings.
• The sauce station, in purple, is where you coat the wings in sauce.
• The build station, in blue, is where you arrange the order for presentation.

To navigate between stations, select their respective buttons on the bottom row of the game screen.

At the order station, select Take Order above the customer at the counter to prepare the customer’s order ticket. You can leave the ticket in the ticket hook on the top right corner or you can store it on the line on the top row.

On the fry station, select the wing container, then drag and drop it above an empty fryer. Move your cursor or fingers around the slider on the edge of the container to drop the correct number of wings into the fryer basket. Cook the wings until they reach the area marked by the green line on the gauge on the left. You can check their doneness by selecting the frying basket, but this will take them out of the oil and stop them from cooking. Don’t let the wings overcook. Select the finished wings to take them out of the oil and place them in the rack on the bottom right. You can dispose of overcooked wings by moving them to the bottom left.

We recommend cooking wings in batches based on their flavor. Once you’ve cooked a batch of wings, go to the sauce station and select a tube of sauce to coat the wings with. Select the tube when the number is close to the right number of wings (ideally at the exact number, but can be one more) to coat them adequately. Then, select the spinner when it is completely green to spin it with just the right amount of force to coat the wings. Once you’re finished, the wings are automatically sent over to the build station to plate them.

On the build station, select the wings from the bottom left corner, then drag and drop them to the plate. Do the same to the side dishes and condiments. If your order is good to go, select the green check button on the right to finish the dish; otherwise, select the red x button to toss the dish and start over. When you’re done, select the correct order ticket, then drag and drop it to the stand on the tray to serve the order.

The wing shop in the game also serves boneless wings, chicken strips, and shrimp. These become available later in the game. All of them, however, are cooked in much the same way the chicken wings are.

Basic Gameplay Advice

Summary

The backstory is identical regardless of which character you choose. It begins when your character of choice wins an all expenses paid trip to Starlight City. After playing a game of slots, the character wins a unique prize… employment to Papa Louie’s new venture in the city, the Wingeria.

Basics

Satisfying the customers is a matter of meeting their expectations. They expect a specific flavor of perfectly cooked wings and their choice of sides and dips to go with it. On top of that, they also expect some degree of neat, symmetrical presentation. Customers may also specify exactly which side they want each ingredient to be. Wings may not be haute cuisine, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have standards. To earn a high score, serve each meal exactly as the customer ordered and in as neat a presentation as possible.

The game has an assortment of ingredients and sides, most of which are unlocked over the course of the game. Each new ingredient makes customer orders progressively more complex.

• 4 types of meat
• 11 sauces
• 6 vegetable sides
• 6 dips

Each time you make a mistake, you have the option to serve it anyway or toss it. Serving it anyway risks irking the customer, while cooking a new batch will waste time. Serving a new order will yield a slightly higher score, which is often preferable.

The Work Week

The game is divided into a 7-day work week with labeled days. Each day, meanwhile, consists of the entire time you serve customers at the shop; the day officially ends when you serve the last customer. The work week determines the arrival of your weekly pay, the closer that arrives each day, and the minigame you play at the end.

At the end of each day, the game reviews your service quality based on the following metrics:

• Waiting: How fast you served the customers
• Frying: How well you cooked the wings
• Saucing: How well coated the wings were
• Building: How presentable you made the plate

These metrics appear at the end screen before your tips and customer ratings appear. Use this as a guide to improve your performance for the next day.

Customers

The game has a whopping 70 customers, each with their own personal preferences. While you can commit some of their interests to memory, you can instead check out the customers at the customer menu on the pause screen. Select the customer button to view the menu and select each of the customers to view their preferences.

You can also view the customers you’ve unlocked by selecting the parade button on the pause screen.

Once you take a customer’s order, they receive an order ticket. You must match each order ticket with the correct order to get a satisfactory rating from a customer. Customers don’t take well to mismatched orders.

The customers’ perception of your service affects your end of the day rating, which is represented by customer points. To level up, you must earn a sufficient amount of customer points.

Customers have star gauges, which measure their satisfaction with your service and mark the progress you have for earning a badge. You earn a badge each time the gauge reaches 5 stars. Customer badges come in 3 tiers: bronze, silver, and gold. You cannot lose the customer badges, but you will lose all progress toward the next badge if you disappoint a customer.

Closers

Closers are the last customers to arrive. They are more judgmental than regular customers and are difficult to please, let alone impress. They respond more negatively to imperfections in their orders. They also don’t take kindly to waiting too long, so it’s generally a bad idea to serve them last. Closers appear at a weekly cycle, so you only have a small window each week to impress them.

A special closer comes in at the end of each week, the food critic Jojo. The hardest closer to impress, Jojo will reward you if you manage to please him. His reward, the blue ribbon, provides a temporary boost to your tips for three days.

Earnings and Improvements

Over the course of the game, you earn money in the form of tips. In addition, you also receive a large sum of cash as payment at the end of each work week. You begin with a base pay of $100, which increases as you level up. On top of that, you can also receive a one-time cash reward for any of the 80 achievement badges you can receive over the course of the game.

The cash you earn can be used to buy improvements, which you can access on the opening screen. The items you can buy can be sorted according to the following categories:

• Upgrades
• Furniture
• Posters
• Walls and floors
• Clothing

Of these, only walls and floors and clothing are purely aesthetic in nature. Upgrades improve your workflow, furniture boosts customer patience, and posters increase the score value of certain ingredients. Buying improvements over time is the key to long-term success in the game.

Of these, the most important are upgrades. You gain the following perks from each of the upgrade categories:

• The doorbell ($30) alerts you to incoming customers
• Cook boosters ($120 apiece) allow you to speed up the cooking process if you hold them down for a short time.
• Fryer alarms ($90 apiece) let you know when the food is cooked.
• Plate guides ($90 and $350) help you plan out the arrangement of items on a plate.
• Napkin holders ($15 and $100) lets you clean out plates for maximum presentability.

To place in furniture and posters, select Decorate Lobby at the startup screen. See all the items you’ve bought or acquired from the inventory. Select an inventory item, then drag and drop them to either the floor (for floors and furniture) or walls (for wall covers and posters).

Advanced Playing Tips & Strategy

Customer Service Tips

You can save a lot of time by preparing a customer’s preferred order before they order it. Once you know what a customer wants, it’s merely a matter of getting started as soon as they arrive. The opening screen of each day hints at the customers you’ll be encountering throughout the day. The first customer cheers to the left of the Wingeria, while the second customer exits the magician’s truck next door.

A third, subtle clue for the first three orders appears on the background elements. The billboard above the Wingeria shows sauces, the “Lucky” sign shows the number of individual items to cook, and the sandwich board in front of the store shows the type of orders you’ll get.

On top of predicting customers, you can also speed up the process by earning customer badges. Customers with badges orders faster, allowing you to get into the action of preparing their order that much quicker.

Sorting Order Tickets

Keep your order tickets organized. It’s vitally important for customer satisfaction that the order ticket is paired with the correct dish. We recommend sorting them according to their preparation time, with orders already on the frier taking precedence over newer ones.

Improvement Strategies

Both utilitarian and cosmetic upgrades cost money, so it goes without saying that the more utilitarian upgrades take priority. While most upgrades have a flat upgrade cost, this isn’t the case with the plate guides and the napkins. For the plate guides, we recommend saving up for the more expensive one rather than buying the cheap one first. As the napkins are a consumable item rather than a true upgrade, we recommend buying the larger case to save by buying in bulk.

To save a little on decorating, you can try to decorate with items you win in the minigames.

Mini Games

You earn tickets each day by impressing customers with great service. You can earn a maximum of 3 tickets a day. At the end of each day, you can use these tickets to play one of the 7 minigames available. Each day has a different minigame.

Burgerzilla

Move the player character back and forth using the cursor or your fingers. Catch falling burger ingredients onto the bun. Stack ingredients until you reach the level of the dotted line onscreen, then catch the top bun to complete the burger. Each burger you complete wins you a prize.

Hotshot

Select anywhere onscreen to shoot mild sauce in that direction. Shoot sauce at the enemies as they appear. Defeat a specified number of enemies to win.

Freeze-Putt

This is a simple mini-golf game. Select and hold to aim, then release to strike the ball. Bring the ball into the hole within the specified number of strokes. You’ll receive a prize if you get the ball within this limit (par) or less. Any more, and you receive a tip up until 3 strokes above par. The game ends if you fail to bring the ball into the hole within 8 strokes.

Hallway Hunt

You must find a random character (shown on the top of the screen) will hide in one of the doors in a hallway alongside a few others. They will choose doors while the lights are off, and you can only keep track of them using their eyes. Follow the character’s eyes as best you can, and choose the correct door to win a prize.

Breakfast Blast

This is a Duck Hunt-inspired minigame where you must shoot five breakfast items that fly past. Every time you miss, you lose a shot. Lose all your shots and you fail the game.

Customer Cravings

A customer and a few orders appear onscreen. Select the order that reflects the customer’s actual preference. Answer correctly 5 times in a row to receive a random prize. Failing this, you’ll receive $0.25 in tips for every correct answer you make.

Pizza Pachinko

Select anywhere on the screen to drop the moving ball at the right time. Watch it fall down the food-themed pegs; you receive a prize based on where it lands. If it lands on the center hole, you’ll receive a random gift. If it lands on the side holes, you receive a tip of either $1 or $0.5

Educational Aspects

The game hones a player’s time management and task switching skills. To serve customers on the dot, players must remain attentive and organized even as they hop from one task to the next in rapid succession. The game’s focus on symmetrical orders will also challenge a player’s pattern recognition and visual mathematics skills.

Player Age Recommendations

This game is suited for older school-aged players. We recommend this for fans of restaurant sims and time management games.