Cookie Shop DS

Josie Campbell's review of Cookie Shop. Subscribe to this column via RSS or Newsletter.

---

Buy: US UK
Our Shop

Column:
Domestic Gamer

Format:
DS

Genre:
Minigames

Written on:
11/03/2009

This game should come with a health warning: Sickly sweet and endlessly irritating! It needs perseverance to navigate, and the care of a good dentist, but once you get the hang of what you need to do there are some fun mini games and the reward of creating the best shop in Sweets Department store. Oh and by the way, it has absolutely nothing to do with cooking!

Sweet City is home to the chocolate cats and dogs and at Sweets Department store Rose the choco dog is sad because her cake shop is very small; your task is to help her make it the best in the store before the end of the year.

First, gather recipes for your cookie shop and create a delicious menu of cakes and pastries. My initial task was pancakes, which I was expecting to have to make as part of the game, but no they appeared instantly with no effort involved from the yours truely. All you have to do is click 'make' and add them to your shop menu. After that I got a bit lost - I knew I had to add things to my menu but with no tutorial to help me I couldn't remember how.Sadly my first day's sales were a mere 80c (cacaos!). Another day's sales were wasted while I read the instruction booklet.

After wondering around my Habbo Hotel style shop for ages, I finally remembered that in order to win more recipes I need to go into the kitchen - doh! (This makes me sound quite dumb, but this game is very fiddly to navigate.) Then I found the option to do research, trouble here is that it takes a half a day, so another day past with only one pancake sold.

My poor progress may well have been beacuse I spent a large part of the day up at the games shop on the top floor playing lots of fun mini games (which include a choco slot machine). This isn't going well! At this rate the rather evil looking 'Peachy' shop next door will win with her rival establishment.

Next day I discovered I had unlocked a new recipe (not sure how!) but didn't have the ingredients to make it. After much time tapping around my teeny kitchen and shop screens - utterly confused - I gave up and went to look around the rest of the department store. Bingo! Finally the penny dropped, I found a supermarket and fruit store. Bought my ingredients then went back and created Strawberry Shortcake for my shop menu. Hooray, progress at last! I even got to do a nice cream decorating mini-game to celebrate my new recipe. Phew, this seems like a lot of hard work for what should be a very simple game

Despite this brief moment of success I still struggled to progress without wanting to throw the DS across the room in frustration. In the end I spent some more time wandering around the department store. Doing this gives you valuable interaction with other chocco dogs and cats and you can buy things to improve your shop too! I wanted a refrigerated display unit for my shop from the interior design store, but didn't have enough Cacao.

Sadly this has lost a lot of its fun because of the very fiddly style of it; with headache inducing teeny graphics and sickly music to match. It's a shame because I quite like the concept of the game; it is just way to much hard work to play.

So who would play this? It's definitely aimed at the younger market, but a child would need some good DS know-how to be able to work out how to play and navigate (though I expect most kid's DS skills are far superior to mine!)

Written by Josie Campbell

Josie Campbell writes the Domestic Gamer column. "As quite a domesticated mum of three I love the thought that Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS lite and PSP games can have a practical role around the home and enriching everyday life but also fun to chill out and unwind with too. Here are my Domestic Gamer review, join me to read about all sorts of games, from cooking, health, and family ones too."

Josie Campbell's recent reviews:

• Last Window: Secret of Cape West
• Nintendo Crossword Collection
• Electrolux Ergorapido
• Your Shape

Subscribe: RSS | Newsletter

© Game People 2006-10 | Advertise