Cake Mania is the latest game from Astraware for the PalmOS and, after playing it for several hours, I think they have another winner.

You play the role of Jill in the game, and your goal is to grow your little cake shop until you have enough money to buy back the cake shop your grandparents lost when their property was taken over by MegaMart.

I have to admit, the storyline didn’t really attract me to the game because I don’t really consider myself a Betty Crocker type of person, and the idea of baking cakes isn’t exactly my idea of fun. I also wasn’t thrilled with the idea of playing the role of “Jill the Cake Lady.” I would have preferred to play “Lupo the Baker” (who hopefully fares better in his job than Lupo the Butcher), or the “Cake Nazi”, the lost brother of the Soup Nazi, where I could say “No cake for you!” to any customers who annoyed me. Yes, you can probably tell that I’m not the ideal person for customer service jobs. However, having enjoyed many other Astraware games I decided to give Cake Mania a shot and I’m glad I did.

Playing the Game

The game begins with a short comic-book style introduction to the main character, Jill, and why she is getting into the cake-making business. The graphics are of pretty good quality, showing that the creators have an eye for detail.

After getting the story background, the game the moves on to a short tutorial that teaches you how to take orders from customers, bake the appropriate cakes and get your money (as well as maximize the tips you receive). Once you have completed the tutorial you are ready to open your doors for business.

You start out with a BakePro 1000 oven that can bake cakes with four different shapes and a Frost-O-Matic frosting machine that can cover a cake with four different colors of frosting. The process then works like this:

1) Customer walks in
2) You give the customer a menu
3) Customer orders a cake (shown as a picture of what the completed cake should look like)
4) Walk over to the oven and press the button on the oven for the shape of cake that was ordered
5) After the cake is done baking, take it from the oven to the frosting machine and press the button for the frosting that was ordered.
6) When the frosting machine is done, you pick up the cake and give it to the customer
7) Pick up your money once the customer takes their cake and leaves the store.

In order to complete a level you need to make a certain amount of money before the store closes. If you are doing a good job you can hit your goal early and make even more money before the store closes.

Sounds simple, right? Well, it definitely gets more complicated once you have several customers come in at the same time, each ordering a different type of cake with a different color icing. You’ll quickly find yourself running back and forth trying to keep up with the orders. And if you aren’t on top of things, you may mistakenly start baking the wrong type of cake or put the wrong type of icing on top of the right kind of cake. If you do this, just throw it away or put it to the side because if you try to pass it off to the customer they won’t accept it.

As you start to earn money you can spend it on upgrading your equipment. You can upgrade your ovens so they bake cakes faster, your frosting machines so they can frost faster, or buy additional ovens or frosting machines that allow you to increase your ability to multi-task. You can also buy topping machines that let you add toppings to your cakes after they are frosted, earning you more money per cake. There are a variety of toppings such as roses, bride and grooms (for wedding cakes), and toppings for other special occasions that will earn you extra cash, but you have to buy each new topping feature.

There are several other types of upgrades including better shoes that allow you to move around the shop more quickly, as well as a TV or cupcake machine that allow you to keep your customers entertained while they wait (increasing the amount they will tip after they get their cake). Here’s an example of a bakery decked out with an extra oven, extra frosting machine as well as two topping machines that provide four different toppings (and I’m checking out the next show upgrade).

Each level in the game is tied to a month of the year, so you can expect to see an Easter Bunnies, Santa Claus or Vampire at different times of the year.

Once you think you are starting to master the game, they add some twists to keep it interesting. One twist is the addition of double-layer cakes. To create a double-layer cake you’ll need to bake the correct type of cake for each layer, frost each layer with the correct color, stack them in the correct order, and then add the appropriate topping if one was ordered. Unlike most cakes I’ve eaten where each all layers are the same shape and have the same color frosting, the customers in this game all seem to prefer cakes with layers that are all different sizes and colors (making me wish I could say “No cake for you!”). If you aren’t really paying attention, it is easy to bake the wrong type of cake or stack things up in the wrong order, resulting in a cake that must be thrown away (and reducing your profits).

Additionally, as you become more successful you open up additional stores in different locations (such as near the beach as show below).

Conclusion

Cake Mania is another addictive game from Astraware. In some ways it reminded me of another game from Astraware I would recommend called Insaniquarium, where you need to feed fish (instead of people) that poop coins (instead of paying for the food and leaving tips) that you can then use to buy fancier fish (instead of ovens and frosting machines). But Cake Mania is also unique, quite challenging, and very entertaining even if, like me, you don’t really care that much about baking cakes. The game has quite a bit of variety that keeps things interesting even after hours of play. I’ve probably completed about 20 levels (months) and I think there are still quite a few more. By the time I’m done I expect to have a fully-stocked and upgraded kitchen before that will be pumping out dozens of cakes and bringing in money faster than any other bakery in town.

Pros

• Easy to learn with enough variety to remain challenging as you move to the more advanced levels.

• Allows you to create multiple named users, so different people can play on the same Trēo without saving over another person’s saved games.
• Good support for the Trēo’s 5-way control as an alternative to the stylus

Cons

• The game takes up about 2.5 MB. This shouldn’t be a problem on a Trēo 700p, but may be harder to fit into internal memory on a Trēo 650.

• Some of the text and graphics can be pretty small and hard to see. This makes the text difficult to read or can cause you to create the wrong cake if your vision isn’t that great.

Tested using a Treo 700p.

Related Links

Cake Mania

Treo Games

Astraware Games

Filed under: Software reviews