Thinking About Opening a Pizzeria? Play This First
Having worked in a pizzeria through my High School career, I was curious to see how Pizza Shop Mania, created by Digital Chocolate Inc., compared to real life. I can tell you honestly that there were times when I never worked, and then there were times when I didn’t stop working. The lunch and dinner rushes were the times I didn’t stop working. After playing the game, here is what I think.
When you open this app you will start by having a year to pay off a large amount of debt. You are taking over your grandfather’s pizzeria since he became sick and can’t pay back this debt. The goal is to take care of the pizzeria for a year, January through December. Each month has four levels, making for a total of 48 levels of gameplay. Don’t think of it as just 48 levels. I did and I was sorely mistaken. When you get to the hard levels, you get to the HARD levels. It will take you time to get to the end.
The game starts off very easy. The first few months have you thinking how easy this game is. I was about to give up on the game since I blew through the first few months very fast. However, once I reached the 4th and 5th month, I started to change my mind. The game started to get challenging. The game went from starting out with a single pizza oven and a trash can to getting more ovens, a pasta maker, and a pizza topping station. As the levels go up, so do the appliances in the kitchen until you have a full kitchen.
Customers come in to your pizzeria and they are looking to be served. You start by tapping on them to hand them a menu. They will then tell you what they want to order. A bubble pops up by their head with a picture of what they want. Your job is to make whatever they ordered. You just go to the respective station to fill their order. As I mentioned earlier, you have pizza and pasta makers and their respective topping and sauce tables. You have to get the finished product to the right customer in the proper time allotted in order not to get the customer upset and they leave. If the customer does decide to leave, points will be deducted. A little trick to get the customers calmed down is to give them samples which you can find on the bottom left hand side of your screen. There is also a telephone located on the booth which will ring with takeout orders. Once the orders have been filled, they customers leave their money on the booth. Tap the money and it transfers into points.
This game really spoke to me. It reminded me a great deal of how to take care of customers and serve them in a timely fashion. Just like any job starts off slow while you learn and picks up after you know what you are doing, so too in this game the levels start off slow and easy but as months go by the challenges start to get more and more difficult. This game, as in real life, when customers don’t get served fast they become angry. All in all, this app is challenging and fun and I definitely think it is worth the download. Have you ever worked in a pizzeria? Let me know in the comments below and on Twitter @MitchSchneider. One last comment, if you know of someone who can learn time management, this is the game to help them out.
