Stand O’Food serves up burger shack action that might make you think twice about complaining the next time you face a busy cashier!
Food and cooking have a special place in my heart so I’m always pleased to play any Android game which remotely touches upon these themes. Hence by default, Stand O’Food looked like a yummy prospect for me. The intrigue and wow factor lasted a fair amount of time for me, though it was a shame that there are some niggling technical issues which let it down.
Gameplay: Stand O’Food is an action queuing game where you control a cashier/chef/takeaway grunt and you give him multiple instructions in order to complete levels. It’s like cake mania or airport mania but you’re operating a fast food joint. Customers come in ordering burgers and you need to grab ingredients from the conveyor belts to serve them. Your shop has this miraculous ability to forecast all of the day’s orders so you have only just enough burger fillings for everyone. Make sure you assemble in the right order to fulfil their request though, otherwise you need to shove everything in a takeaway box to disguise the mess!
Sounds even simpler than a fast food joint right? Well… not quite. The initial levels are quite straightforward, with the burgers being simple. But you need to make the right purchasing decisions to kit out your joint so that you can keep up with your customers’ growing demands. You can pimp up your outlet with coffee machines, heating grills, air conditioning units and juke boxes… but your real money comes from hard manual pointing work and using special sauces.
We had a frantic time slapping burgers together to get them out onto the pass as quickly as possible… but having worked in a fast food establishment before, I think this game actually reflects elements of real life. It gave me this rather nostalgic feel of doing an actual service where you work flat out for the opening hours, and then sigh with relief when the shop is closed. Obviously it’s nowhere nearly as stressful as real life, but it’s great for improving your forward thinking and helps you train your snap decisions under pressure.
Gourmet elements: The cute dinky graphics cooked up with the music and sound effects make a great game. Their software engine seems to allow them to deliver quite a good playing environment and feel. When you see the interface you would think that the parts are too small but actually the touch input is really accurate and responsive.
Verdict: 3/5 This is a likable game which appeals to people who enjoy food themed games and like challenges which train their brain to do parallel and predictive thinking. If I’ve described you, then please do try out this game.
I usually tend not to review big hit games which are already being mentioned as top games on the Android Market, however I did feel the need to review this one since it occupied my phone memory for a good few days. Personally I like this game, but across the team there were more mixed feelings. Some rather big issues came out:
- The game installer is small, but the once you run the installer it downloads a lot of extra data which will fill up most old phones (~16MB).
- As you play the game and unlock features, the game continues to increase in size quite fast.
- You can’t move the game to the SD Card, otherwise the game becomes buggy and unplayable.
Stand O’Food’s Youtube Video
Stand O’Food Tips from Android Games Review:
- When you’re putting burgers together, try and think at least one burger ahead. Your next customer may not have come in, but you should scan to see where you have a burger base and top quickly available.
- Try not to have burger bases and tops doubled up in the same row, especially if there is a filling behind them – otherwise you’re forcing yourself to use the resting platters which are really slow.
- When doing your first upgrades focus on condiments only (Mayo first, then Ketchup, then Curry and Tartar (in that order)). You need to spend your money to make money, so buy the sauces and use them on the burgers to earn more cash (and get perfects) in your stages.
- Don’t bother with the Tabasco and special spice sauces initially. You want to try and get the grill and coffee machine first (in that order). The grill increases the value of your burger substantially, and the coffee machine makes your underling move faster so you can keep up with adding sauces to the burgers so they bring in more cash.
- Some of the items like the grill, coffee machine and air conditioners have multiple upgrades to them. So keep a mental note of which level they are (it’s implicit in the price of the items). You should generally only improve it if you’ve got everything upgraded to that level first. Otherwise you’ll feel an imbalance which will make you work a lot harder.
- Don’t forget to use your jukebox in the game. Even if you breezed through the round you can still use the jukebox at the end to make your customers that little bit happier and it may help to bring in a trickle more cash.
(Click on the image or scan the barcode to goto the Android Market)
Developers: G5 Entertainment
