Cooking Madness-Kitchen Frenzy 12+

I enjoyed this game and it was entertaining. It was “technically” free. But it’s really very cheap when it comes to rewards. It gives you one or two diamonds at a time and yet the upgrades are costly so if you want to continue to higher stages, you will eventually have to invest. Naturally, it’s good revenue for the app developer. But it could get pricy for us players since the “tricks” or extra moves that will earn you the Boosters only get you 2 diamonds. After reaching my budget, it is no longer fun. I got to stage 364 and now I’m done. Also, they change currencies when you reach certain stages. So you’re back to $0 at that point, which is such a cheat. They let you keep the boosters but your cash changes? So all money earned in previous stages do not transfer to this “new restaurant”. In which case, you will have to pay if you want to move on because the upgrade cost is high but winning a level at these early stages only gets you 200 or so. Second, diamond rewards are low but you have to pay 67 diamonds to extend 30 seconds or add more customers. Who came up with this? Really? I am pretty sure I have already spent about $100 at this point. Now I’m done since what I spent money on before is now useless. I’ll just go back to the earlier stages if I want to play this game again. But I’m no longer interested in moving forward. Thanks for the time.

(*Update: I’m at level 519, and it’s officially too hard, haha. I’m finally out of free gems to buy boosters. I haven’t spent a penny on this game. Sad to throw in the towel. It was a nice little app to challenge my mind when I needed a break from the daily grind.)

I really like this one! I like that there are different challenges to pass the levels, like serving the most dishes before the time runs out or making the most tip money from a limited amount of customers. It makes things much more interesting. The use of combos and “likes” is a unique twist. Be strategic about the way you spend your gems! Some levels need the right upgrade in order to win, and if your gems are gone, you’re out of luck unless you buy or earn more. Fortunately, there are plenty of free ways to earn gems. I haven’t had a reason to spend money yet! I’ve played this for several weeks now as my go-to for blowing off steam. I wish there was a way to purchase the game to remove ads. You can pay for an allotted time of unlimited play. I haven’t tried it, so I’m not sure if it removes the ads for that time. I usually just play until my five lives run out. Sometimes I’ll watch an add for an extra life if I run out too quickly. It lets you watch for up to five extra lives in a 24hr period. Pretty good for a free app!

This game is great. It’s fun. But does it’s best to give you a run for your money. The purple jewels you need are needed to get any kind of booster. And of course the boosters cost 100 gems. And you barely win or earn enough to ever be able to purchase a booster. The time to get more energy to keep playing the game is too long in my opinion. And the amount of time you get to actually attempt to pass the level is nearly impossible if you don’t have the support of a booster. Running out of time or running out of customers is very irritating. Especially when you need to try and pass the level to win a key to unlock the next few levels to play. Understandably the game is meant to be more difficult the more you level up. But if you don’t purchase the expensive packages with boosters and gems. You barely get to go far in this game. And the packages only come with one booster each. And only 100 gems. Which is the lowest costing package at $2. Which is pricey when you barely get anything useful in return. I think they should take away the energy bar and just allow people unlimited play. And make boosters be available to buy with the coins you make or lower the cost of gems it takes to be able to purchase a booster. And it only allows you to join a group and ask for energy once. It won’t allow me to join another group to ask for energy.