Cooking Dash: DinerTown Studios – Developer Perspective

Vicki Resendez,game producer at PlayFirst on the upcoming release of Cooking Dash: DinerTown Studios:

While we’ve had tremendous success with the original Cooking Dash and amazing fan support for the game, as a development team we wanted to deliver an even more magical formula that kept players entertained while building on a great series with enhanced features and storyline.

Cooking Dash was the first title to find Flo in the TV world and for her follow up, we decided to cast her in a larger role and what better step up for her than to go Hollywood! We loved the idea of thrusting Flo into the exciting and challenging world of movie celebrity in her own starring role of sorts.

Flo’s connection to Hollywood comes through her old college roommate and TV producer, Gilda who calls on Flo to help feed a motley cast of demanding characters. Based around a series of Hollywood movie sets, Cooking Dash: DinerTown Studios sees Flo move between various TV themed movie sets as she caters to the demanding eating habits of the cast and crew. Not only does she have to deal with managing a series of restaurants but she now also has to take care of celebrity egos and these guys are not the most patient customers!

The restaurants are themed around the TV shows that they represent so it looks as though Flo is actually cooking on set e.g. The Salt Licks saloon is set in a Western saloon complete with cowboy themed decor which you can build on as you earn more money from your customers. Other set themes include The Safari Grill (Jungle theme), Buckingham Bistro (English tea house), Potsticker Palace (Chinese food), and Crater Café (Outer space).

Series fans will also be happy to see more of the really exciting gameplay evident in the original Cooking Dash and we’ve also introduced some brand new features like the celebrity power ups. The director and the actors in the game possess special power-ups that can help you to keep your customers happy, and speed up their eating when the line gets long. However the pesky director can also create havoc with his bullhorn while customers are waiting in line which will cause you to lose customers.

Hollywood isn’t complete without its heartthrobs so we’ve introduced Simon the actor to our Cooking Dash family. His celebrity factor can boost the happiness quotient in your customers - if you seat him next to somebody they will get a photo op with him that will boost their hearts rating. A female celebrity who exudes happiness and warmth also gives off bonus hearts after eating to those sitting next to her.

Check out Cooking Dash: DinerTown Studios when it releases later this month!