Review: Cooking Dash for iPhone and iPod Touch

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I am a big fan of time management games. They combine some of the most interesting elements of action and puzzle games into a single package.

Cooking Dash is a follow-up to the hugely successful Diner Dash game. Let’s see if it lives up to the expectations created by the original.

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Cooking Dash is a sequel to Diner Dash, and as such, it follows a similar theme to the original Diner Dash. The graphics are improved and the game play is a bit deeper, but the same basic elements are there – this time, with a focus on cooking.  The game description says there are 5 restaurants to work with and over 50 levels of game play.
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As with Diner Dash, you are operating the character of Flo, the overworked centerpiece of the game. You move Flo around from station to station requesting, cooking, preparing, delivering, and cleaning up food. And, of course, you have the usual assortment of customers with varying temperaments and degrees of patience to deal with.   Keep them happy (and from leaving) and you get big points.  If you don’t, then your score won’t be very high.

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As with similar games, you also have a variety of upgrades you can purchase to improve the overall experience.   You can purchase improvements to the restaurant, additional stoves, coffee pots (to improve customer happiness), entertainment items like jukeboxes, etc.  All of these contribute to overall customer satisfaction and increase (hopefully) your score.

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One interesting thing that was added in Cooking Dash is the option to allow you to listen to your own music during game play and even change songs from within the gam This seems to be a trend in games lately.  I don’t use it much, but it’s there if you wish to program a “dining mix” for the pleasure of your customers!

In general, I find the graphics on Cooking Dash are nicely done and on par with other offerings of this type. Game play is familiar with a reasonable easy learning curve.  Although it isn’t any kind of “breakthrough” in time management games, it is a nice upgrade to the Diner Dash series and should offer casual gaming players a reasonable value and enough improvements to keep game play fresh and entertaining.

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What I Liked: The game play is excellent, with more depth than the original Diner Dash.

What Could Be Improved: Although it’s a minor complaint, in the original Diner Dash and in this game I sometimes found it difficult to get the customer to position into the seat.  Additionally, if pared customers need to be swapped (for color matching to the seats), this can sometimes be difficult to do smoothly.

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Overall: Cooking Dash is a worthy successor to Diner Dash.  The graphics improvements and new elements added to the game will keep both new players and Diner Dash experts entertained.  It’s not revolutionary, but a nice, entertaining, continuation built on an already entertaining concept.

Cooking Dash is normally available at the AppStore for $2.99, but, for a short time, it is available for $0.99.  Definitely worth a look!

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About the Author

Christopher Gavula
Chris has been a COBOL programmer, a desktop support technician, network engineer, telecommunications manager, and even a professional musician. Currently, he is focused on deploying Voice over IP technologies in a large, corporate setting. He started working full-time at the tender age of 14, even before there were PCs, and will probably be working and trying to finish “just one more project” as he’s lowered into the grave.