Facebook Game Review: Baking Life

Baking Life Basics
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Running a restaurant on Facebook has become one of the popular game genres with titles such as Café World and Restaurant City. Baking Life takes the restaurant genre and puts it into a bakery setting. In the game you get to run your own bakery and create treats for your patrons. You have many different products to choose from such as pies, muffins, cakes, and even a customizable cupcake recipe. The game is simple enough use a countertop to make your recipe and pop it into the oven to bake. You need to be careful not to let the product go over the cooking time or it will burn. Once it is ready take it out of the oven and your workers will place it on the counters for sale to your patrons. As you sell your baked goods you can use that money to upgrade your bakery with tables, chairs, and decorations.

Your First Recipes
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One of the very first things you can make is cinnamon rolls. This item will take five minutes to bake so you can’t leave it for too long after its ready before serving it or it will burn and you will not make any coins. Rolls will provide you with thirteen servings and you will earn four coins for each serving. This isn’t much but it’s a good place to start in the game. Another great starter recipe is the lemon poppy seed muffins which will earn you ninety-five coins total. As you level up more recipes with higher profit margins will become available for your bakery.

Your Workers
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You start the game with some free workers and you can play the game with them for as long as you like. If you have Facebook friends you can hire them instead to work in your bakery which will reduce your overall wages you need to pay your employees. Having friends as workers can save you lots of money in the beginning stages of the game. You also need friends as workers to help your bakery expand past the first few levels. Your friends can get hired by clicking the “help wanted” in your Facebook feed. You should be able to hire friends from within the game and not through your Facebook game feed. This design choice is not the best option to get friends playing.

Decorating Your Store
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The game has limited decorative options at this point in the game. There are different colored stoves, cash registers and display cases that can be added to your shop. You have wall, floor, and other decorations but not a lot of options yet. The game has recently added tables and chairs so your quests have a place to sit in your shop. To add more ovens you need to be at the right level and add a gas line which can be purchased in the game store. Hopefully soon the developers will add more decorative options for your bakery.

Conclusion

Baking Life is a decent Facebook game but doesn’t add anything new to the restaurant genre. The game looks good but needs to add more decorative options. Making your Facebook friends click a link in your Facebook feed to get hired in your bakery is not the best design option. A player should be able to hire friends directly from the game and not spam people with hiring messages.