Flowmotion Entertainment, a developer mostly known for its cooking games has just released a new time management game which puts you in charge of a series of restaurants. Titled Cooking Crush, this game is a pretty traditional entry in the category, although it does come with its own unique elements.
Your journey in Cooking Crush starts in the Crème Cafe where you are tasked with preparing Pancakes and Cappuccinos and serving them quickly to your customers before they run out of patience. Once you complete enough levels and earn the right amount of Keys, players are able to move on to new restaurants which comes with their own set of recipes.
Compared to other restaurant games we played before, we can say that Cooking Crush is a bit more on the difficult side. Progress can be a bit slow, due to a number of reasons, but luckily we’re here to give you a hand.
For this reason, we’ve assembled a Cooking Crush beginner’s guide where we’ll proceed to detail a comprehensive list of tips and strategies so that you can improve your dish serving skills quickly and efficiently.
1. Cook Food In Advance
In Cooking Crush, cooking food in advance should be a staple of your strategy. Especially since it takes a good while before you can unlock all 3 cooking stations, and even then it’s still encouraged that you cook batch after batch with no pause in between. Well in most cases anyway, we’ll talk about the exception in the next section.
Levels can be quite difficult when you’re operating with only 2 cooking stations and 2 serving plates, so this is why you shouldn’t wait to deliver the dishes you’ve just prepared to start cooking up the next batch. Our recommendation is to start cooking a new lot immediately after you’ve placed a fresh batch on the serving trays.
Some restaurants will prove more challenging than others to manage. For instance, preparing the final dishes at the Salty Tavern takes less effort than at the Dream Deli. This is connected to the number of moves required to produce a dish. At the Salty Tavern all you have to do is 1) Grill the Fish and 2) Boil the Lobster and then place them on their respective plates before serving them.
On the other hand, at the Dream Deli you have to 1) Cook the bread + Add the Ham and 2) Fry the Bacon + Add the Bread before placing and serving. This means preparing dishes at the Deli takes longer and so you won’t be able to move as fast when it comes to sending orders out. To be as efficient as possible, you’ll have to make efforts to be extremely precise and not mix any of the preparation steps up.
Anyway, the main reason for setting up a constant production line is that your diners don’t like to wait around for their orders. During some levels, it will prove imperative that you don’t let their satisfaction fall below a certain threshold as you risk failing the level altogether. Fortunately, customer patience can be managed if you’re willing to use up some of the Boosters you’ll win along the way while playing the game.
2. Keep Your Eyes On The Level Objective
Each level in Cooking Crush comes with a different objective that you need to achieve in order to pass. Make sure that you know what that is and if you ever get confused you can always check it again to make sure by reverting to the upper part of the display.
Depending on the level objective you’re working with you’ll need to adjust your strategy accordingly. Usually you’ll have to deal with one of these 3 targets:
Serve a given number of dishes;
- Collect a given number of likes from your customers;
- Earn a given amount of coins.
Later on, these goals might be accompanied by additional restrictions to make things more challenging. So you might be finding yourself trying to avoid:
- Tossing food in the thrash;
- Burning food;
- Letting customers walk away from your restaurant;
- Running out of time.
With this in mind, sometimes the strategy we’ve recommended above might not work so well, unless you’re very very careful. We told you that the best way to approach levels in Cooking Crush is to always cook food in advance.
Well, beware of levels that have a “Burning food” restriction attached to them. In your quest to keep production of food items up, you might have to keep some products on the cooking stations a bit too long because you don’t have enough free plates available.
This might cause some items to overcook and burn, so if you’re playing a level which you know will penalize you for burning food, slow things down. Instead, do this – whenever you’ve served a dish and a plate has opened up, go ahead and drop another raw item onto the stove and so on. Only cook in advance items which you are sure you’ll be able to place on plates immediately.
If the level objective has a different restriction attached, for instance not allowing any customers to leave without their order, then you can cook batches in advance without worrying about burning them. If something like this happen, you can simply double tap on the item and it will be automatically sent to the trash bin, and then you can continue playing like nothing happened.
3. Start Investing In Upgrades Early On
Kitchen and food items upgrades are perhaps the most frustrating part of playing Cooking Crush. It’s a slow-slow affair trying to upgrade everything you need for a more flowing gaming experience. Due to this, you’ll be spending a lot of levels playing in an incomplete kitchen, but this is just how the game is designed so you’ll have to do your best to adapt to it.
Upgrades usually cost Coins and Gems and the money and Gems you win at one restaurant can’t be spent at another one. Which is quite limiting. On top of that, it takes a LONG time for some of these upgrades to arrive to your shop. Sometimes, you’ll have to wait up to 6 hours to get your hands on the goodies, which is again a bit too much. Sometimes the game allows you to a watch a few ads to speed up the delivery process, but that won’t be the case with later restaurants.
Given the reasons listed above, you’ll have to start investing in upgrades as soon as your able. You won’t be able to inherit coins from previous restaurants you worked at, so as soon as you put together some money you should start purchasing some of the upgrades offered in the shop. Some are extremely crucial like those that add extra plates and cooking stations, while others can be left for later.
Just don’t forget about them, as they are important too for passing levels later on. For instance, upgrading your cooking ingredients makes the dish that includes them more expensive. This allows you to hit levels with monetary targets on them more easily.
Some upgrades are quite expensive, so you’ll need to work on gathering the necessary resources to pay for them for a while. We show you the fastest route to doing so in the next section.
4. Replay Levels To Get The Keys And More
Not unlike many other time management games out there, Cooking Crush requires you to collect Keys in order to unlock new restaurants. Each level in this game consists of three separate stages and the Key is offered as a reward for beating one of these stages. Sometimes, you can grab the Key during the first stage, but often times you’ll have to play the second or third time to be able to get ahold of it.
Keys aside, it’s always a good idea to be replaying levels. We mentioned in the previous section how kitchen upgrades tend to be quite expensive. Well, a way to get the money to pay for them faster is to go back and replay some of the remaining stages. What’s more, if you can beat all 3 stages under a level, you’ll be awarded a small prize which can consist of coins or even better Gems.
You get limited access to Gems throughout the game, so the more you can acquire the better. Gems are needed for all kinds of things, but most importantly they can help you unlock new upgrades for your restaurants.
To conclude, our recommendation is to invest time in replaying the complete set of stages under each level. You’ll not only get Keys in return but more cash and a few Gems too, which will help you progress faster in this game.
5. Collect Stars To Unlock Prizes
In the main menu of each restaurant, you’ll notice a bar at the very top on the left side of the display. The game tasks you with collecting a number of stars so as to unlock progress rewards. These can be quite helpful for your evolution in the game, because they can bring you extra Gems, coins, Boosters and even Lives.
These prizes offer another prime incentive for going back to older levels and playing the remaining stages. If you do so you’ll be able to collect Stars a lot faster and thus get access to these gifts which contain important resources.
6. Always Double Your Coin Earnings
No one likes ads in games, but sometimes they are a necessary evil. Unless you want to go spending real-world money to fuel your progress. Each day, you’re given the opportunity to double your earnings after each successfully completed level. We suggest that you take up these offers each time they are available, so you can supplement your income.
You’ll need all the cash you can get in order to continue improving operations at your restaurant, so don’t hesitate to press the x2 button at the end of the level whenever you see it available. These offers won’t last throughout the day, actually they will be popping up for a limited amount of times each day. So make sure you use them to your advantage.
7. Aim To Create Serving Combos
Speaking of cash, you can increase your earnings during a level by creating serving combos. This trick is particularly handy if you’re playing a level that has a cash goal attached to it.
The idea is to learn how to serve as fast as possible. Create a flow and don’t break it when it comes to serving your orders. Check the bar at the top of the screen under the level objective and notice it light up with every order you deliver. The bar is divided in 5 sections, but you can create combos bigger than 5 orders if you manage to work swiftly.
If you take longer than a few seconds to serve, the chain will be broken and you will have to start again from scratch. Don’t worry if it happens, though, sometimes the game can work against you and will send the next customer in extremely slow, so you have no choice but to take a tiny break in between serving orders.
8. Make Though Levels Bearable With Boosters
Cooking Crush can get quite hard at times, especially if you haven’t managed to upgrade the kitchen to its full capacity. Given how long upgrades take to arrive at your restaurant, you might find yourself unable to pass a level at a given time. This forces you to either abandon the game for a while and return after a few hours or to go back and play older levels, which as you already know we strongly encourage.
But what if you went through all the available stages, and still want to continue playing? Well you might want to activate a Booster to help you beat the pesky level. There are 3 options to choose from here:
- Money Maker – doubles your coin profits in one level;
- Teflon – prevents food from ever getting burned;
- Flash Fry – cuts all of your food cooking time in half.
Depending on your level’s objective, you should pick the most appropriate Booster to equip. For instance, if you’re playing a timed level during which you have to serve a given number of dishes, then using the Flash Fry might be the better choice. With this Booster activated, you’ll be able to cook food faster and serve it in no time. This ensures that you can deliver a larger number of orders in a shorter time frame.
On the other hand, if you’re playing a level where you’re supposed to collect 14 likes from customers and at the same time not burn any food items, you might want to equip the Teflon. This way you won’t have to worry about overcooking food and you’ll just be focusing on getting the requested food to your customers in the timeliest way possible.
Customer satisfaction is super important during the majority of levels you have to play in Cooking Crush. Most importantly, this aspect stands out during levels that task you with collecting likes. In these situations, you’ll need to be keeping a constant eye on your customers’ satisfaction levels. A good trick to quickly increase their patience while waiting for their food, is to serve them one item of their order. Then circle back a few seconds later with the remaining items.
However, there will be still times when a customer will get angry and threaten to leave your restaurant. This can have ruinous impact on your efforts to beat a level, especially if during that stage your goal is to keep customers from leaving. Fortunately, the game puts additional helping tools at your disposal in-game. Whenever you notice a customer running out of patience, you can use a Lollipop which has the effect of instantly making him/her happy again.
Additionally, there’s also the Happy Hour power-up which freezes the clock and makes all customers happy for 10 seconds. Last but not least, you also get the Groceries boost which instantly serves all customers.
The game also gives you one last chance at the end of a failed level by allowing you to activate additional Boosters that might save you from having to replay the level again. These options include Need More Customers which adds 3 more diners and Need More Time which gives you 30 more seconds of gameplay.
While all these Boosters can be of enormous help, try replaying a level a few times before activating one of them. Abstain from becoming too overly reliant on power-ups, as you’ll run out of them quite fast if you create a pattern in this sense. Boosters cost Gems in the store, but you should conserve this resource and spend it only on buying upgrades for your kitchen.
In the case of Lollipops, the game generates a free batch every 12 hours, so don’t forget to redeem them by tapping on the Lollipop Delivery icon in the main menu.
9. Don’t Forget To Redeem Achievement And Daily Quests Rewards
You can find the Achievements tab in the lower left part of the display – it’s the cup-shaped icon sitting right in the middle. It’s important that you don’t forget to check what Achievement rewards are available from time to time because this is how you can get more Gems easily.
Players can grab free Gems for hitting all sorts of goals. For instance, obtaining 80 stars in the Dream Deli can earn you 2 Gems. Sometimes, you will have to go back to older restaurants in order to unlock certain achievements. For instance, obtaining 30 stars in the Crème Café (your very first restaurant in Cooking Crush) can get you 3 Gems. As we explained in previous sections, Gems are essential for getting access to restaurant upgrades, so the more you can grab the better off you will be.
At the same time, also make sure you watch the daily ad which can get you a free Gem, and log into the game daily to grab the daily reward, which might consist of Gems.
You should also keep an eye on the Daily Quests. You can access the list by tapping on its dedicated icon in the left side of the screen in the game’s main menu. Here you can earn coins by performing various actions such as “Watching 1 an” or “Upgrading (item) at a (restaurant)”. Now for the best part. Complete 5/15/30 and so on of these quests and you’ll be able to crack open a treasure chest which packs tons of goodies.
For instance, the first chest in the Salty Tavern contains 200 coins, 5 Gems and 30 minutes of unlimited lives. So make sure you check the Daily Quest tab from time to time and focus on completing these goals. It’s certainly worth your time.
10. Get Your Dose Of Daily Happiness
Need even more Gems? Check the icons in the lower right corner in the main menu and tap on the Smiley face. Here you’ll find a few incentives to smile and relax your mind. Take them up each to easily earn some extra coins. But the better part comes now. Once you perform all these small tasks, you’ll be able to crack open a chest that includes something precious – a free Gem.
Your happiness dose is available daily, so don’t forget to check back here every day to get your free Gem. In addition, if you feel that you still need some extra Gems, you can go ahead connect your Facebook account to the game for a 10 Gem reward.
With this last tip we conclude our Cooking Crush beginner’s guide. If you have anything else to add to this list, feel free to share them with us via the comment section below. Otherwise, we hope our post has proved useful to you and that the strategies included have allowed you to hone your food serving skills in Cooking Crush.