Diner DASH Adventures 4+

Great game; requires patience

For fans of the classic Diner Dash, and for new fans, this is a great game. It has a nice story, albeit with some cheesy dialogue. It is a “freemium” game. It DOES NOT require you to pay to play. Every day, there are “daily deals” which allow you to collect gems, coins, power ups, or character hearts. There is always one free deal, usually a handful of gems. The other deals are paid for using the in-game currency. To play a level, you need “supplies.” Your supply meter is full at 50, and each level requires 10 supplies to play. It can be tedious to earn enough gems and coins for upgrades, but if you are patient, you don’t need to spend any actual money. This game simply does what every other freemium game does: prey on impatience. The gems can be earned through “ad offers.” They are sometimes buggy, but you will earn the gems 95% of the time. Be on the lookout for 2x gem promos on these ad offers. They pay dividends! For coins, find a level that earns a lot of coins, and just replay it. I’ve been playing this game for months, and I haven’t spent any money on it. I’ve also earned max stars on all levels. All the bad reviews appear to be written by impatient whiners. My hope is that people will see past those, give the game a chance, and be patient. If you’re short on time, it will take you a while to advance, but that doesn’t make the game any less fun.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for the love! We so appreciate this review!

Only Worth It You’re Willing to Pay Money

I’ve given this game a year. I actually love the concept of the game, but unless you willing to shell out a bit of money, you’ll never win a competition, you won’t get hardly any of the special characters, and what finally did it for me is that every time you play a new House of Thorns or boat event they start you over with new items that start at zero so all the coins and gems you pay out leveling up aren’t useful at any future event. I have spent cash on this game; probably more than my son pays on one video game that he gets to keep everything as he progresses. I even broke down for the current event and spent the money for the “Special Menu” and started with 100 gems (saved them for two weeks) and I’m still not going to get close to the top spots in the events. The other major issue I have is that in the Food Truck events you earn all this “cash” that you can’t do anything with other than upgrade stuff in the trucks. After awhile you have to pay so many gems for the updates that you are stuck so you don’t get to keep your earned money because you are “maxed out” (can you imagine if they did that in real life). The game has just become stagnant because it’s just starting over again and again. It’s fun for about six months so if that’s what you’re looking for you might enjoy this game. If you’re looking for a long-term enjoyable game that you can build on, this is not it.

Fun game, but buggy

As one reviewer put it, you don't need to drop any money in to play the game, you'll just be playing levels repeatedly until you get enough free gems to get the upgrades you need. Which I did for a few months, because the levels are well-designed, characters are unique, and the music is easy to listen to. But the bugs in the game test my patience on this.
glu mobile as partnered with Tapjoy to bring free gems through completing actions such as opening ads, completing surveys, or making outside purchases. This helps with f2p, but getting in and out of the Tapjoy menu is a hassle because it is slow and freezes often. Luckily, the gems you earned get mailed if you have to close the game. If you try to watch an ad within the game to earn free gems, coins, or 30 more seconds, the ads sometimes "load" infinitely and you're forced to close the game and lose all the progress on the level you played and the play-energy used.
Other quality of life issues include the clippy loading screen on launch and the slow or laggy camera movement when trying to scroll across the map (which only gets bigger and laggier as you advance in the game).
It's a good game that's easy to get into, but also one that gets repetitive and is easy to move on from.