[My Cafe: Recipes Stories Unlock All
Abdul Soumphonphakdy
I have from time to time, played facebook games. I know to some gamers, that is.. like the most disgusting thing you can do. But I have found some of them fun and even, maybe.. engaging. Of those games, a certain genre generally gets my attention, the job simulator. These games put you in the position of worker, owner or designer of some sort of socially-acceptable job.
Unsurprisingly, jobs and work are often, very often, topics for second language learning and teaching (L2TL). This review then, is interested in discovering how well, if at all, casual job simulator games are for L2TL. this review will follow a basic format. First, I will explain basically the game and its core mechanics along with the communities that exist around the game. Then we will present an overall, table-form, evaluation of the main areas of game-design enhanced Task-based learning and teaching (TBLT) from Sykes & Reinhardt (2013). A detailed discussion of the evaluation follows with specific examples from the game. Part 2 of this review will discuss useful ways to leverage My Cafe: Recipes & Stories for L2TL.
My Cafe: Recipes & Stories is a mobile, free-to-play, single-player, worker and resource management game. The name is apt, as you (the player) take the role of the new owner of a small cafe. The ultimate goal of the game is the superficial customization of the cafe to meet your desires. The main task of the game is the solving of simple puzzles through the mechanic of conversation dialogue choices. Recipes are the puzzles, and the conversations you have with customers are the directions and hints that help you know what recipes and what ingredients you need to make those recipes.
My Cafe employs basically three different assets, or resources, that the player must manage carefully in order to progress more quickly in the game. Importantly, there are no fail states in the game. There is no decision that the player makes that will lead to an end game. Instead, the boredom of being the same level (the star number represented in the top left corner) and the lack of interesting dialogue from the customers are the punishments for not managing your resources well enough.
Narratively, the players primary task is discovering and making new drinks for their cafe and customers. Utilizing the assets mentioned, the player can learn which drinks to make by engaging their customers in conversation. Customers will tell the player what they want but also, what they would like to have. This mechanic alone drives the game forward and motivates the use of coins, diamonds and spices.
Players on the community forum primarily do one of three things. The first, is complain or comment about some aspect of the game that they think should be changed or updated. Often the primary complaint players have with the game is the pace. The early game can be too slow for many players, but for end-game players, often it is the lack of interesting stories to keep them playing.
Besides complaining, players also share screenshots of their cafes and comment about the look of other players cafes. From the game perspective, this is good, since a primary motivator for playing is the individual creativity of designing your own cafe. The last major category of comments, and perhaps most interesting, are the requests for players to join townships. Townships represent the only multiplayer aspect of the game, in which several players can work together to earn rewards. These come from both the players that run townships and from players interested in joining them.
Anyway. The rest of this article will first provide a full, basic review followed by a more detailed analysis of specific aspects of the game. Finally, how My Cafe can be utlized for L2TL TBLT lessons will be addressed.
The goals, tasks and interactivity of the game have some problematic aspects, both related to the problem-solving and linearity of the game. Which is not to say that linear games are bad, definitely not, but hopefully the explanation below will explain why I think it makes it difficult for L2TL.
My Cafe is different and for good reason. In My Cafe, you are not a worker but the owner. The game mechanics, then, need to represent this difference of position. It does so by letting you hire workers, design the layout and then, you can basically let the game go by itself. Your workers will attend to customers who randomly come in without your help. You will gain money just by having the game open (and for about an hour after you close the game, it will continue to run). See the video below for an example of how the game does this.
But not all owners are detached from the day to day activities of their businesses. Some cafe owners want to also be the barista, taking customer orders and pulling espresso shots. In terms of player-directed decisions, it is this aspect that My Cafe gets right. While you will have a barista, the player is free to fulfill all the orders they can, or, to not fill any orders. Either way, the game will progress, though there are specific things the game wants the player to do to make the game go faster.
To be sure, the tasks in My Cafe are designed with thought and they do interrelate which is an important feature for creating both moment-by-moment engagement with the task-at-hand and also more global goals. Also important, the tasks are fairly simple and repetitive. The basic task cycle in My Cafe has four basic steps: 1) use money to buy equipment, furniture and employees, 2) sell coffee and other items to customers 3) listen to customers wants and 4) buy the items that will fulfill customer needs with the assets gained.
This little Petrovich task cycle demonstrates how My Cafe uses its tasks and goals through ideational interactivity (interaction with the game mechanics) well. It requires the player to learn the important steps in the cycle and attend to the important parts of the dialogue in order to know what exactly needs to be purchased in order to get the reward. This task is very useful for noticing and learning new vocabulary items.
While the tasks relate to goals and require the player to interact will with the game mechanics, there is very little player-driven choices in the game. Instead, the game leads the player along a very linear path with the hopeful end point that the player can design and create their own cafe superficially. This is important. The creativity in the game is not in the making of your own cafe, instead, it is in the ability to design, organize and decorate your own cafe. Everything else is very linear.
Consider the opening of the game. Every player starts the game by hiring a barista, setting up a counter and stool and then a tea machine. For tutorial purposes this ok, however, My cafe would not start as a tea shop. I want to start as an espresso shop, or drip coffee (not even a option) shop.
You see the problem here. Now, the game mechanics and inter-relation of stories and recipes may make this more difficult to design. Customers come into the shop with specific items the want to drink based on the level of the player. But this is more of a procedural problem. For example, if I start my game as an espresso bar, the customers might be given restrictions to espresso drinks in their design.
Now, the real problem this introduces is not in the area of tasks and goals. Instead, a linear game with weak problem-solving is a problem for motivation. By largely ignoring fail states and not including any creative puzzles, My Cafe limits its own ability to keep players engaged and in a state of flow.
By ignoring win-states and adaptive and dynamic game mechanics, My Cafe will bore many gamers after only a short time. And without real out-of-game social groups that are player-organized, there is very little to discuss when not playing the game. This takes us back, I think to the review from the Appstore at the beginning of this review. My Cafe is alright, it helps pass the time.
My time playing My Cafe led me to think very seriously about what it might be like to own a cafe. And for that reason alone, it was worth the time I spent playing it. I enjoyed thoroughly the mechanics that emphasized this narrative and it was fun to explore the different ways to perhaps manage a cafe. I think it has usefulness for learners in the L2TL classroom.
However, if educators are going to use My Cafe: Recipes and Stories, they will need to confront the problematic areas, namely: interactivity, goals and tasks and motivation. I think this can be done however and in ways that will meet and probably even exceed traditional L2TL pedagogical standards and goals. Part 2 of this review will be my thoughts on how to use My Cafe (and other job simulators) to teach language learners.
In 2007, the Willingboro native opened a second location in Haddonfield on Tanner Street. He opted to close the Cherry Hill location in 2010 and focus on the Haddonfield restaurant. But, unfortunately, the latter was abruptly closed in 2013 due to tax issues.
For years now, the Sicklerville resident and Willingboro native has been the culinary & food bank director/executive chef at the Harvest Caf & Abundant Harvest Catering for Bethany Baptist Church in Lindenwold.
His recipes have been featured over the years in "Cooking Light" "Culinary Trends," "Ebony," "Black Enterprise" and more. He has also appeared on the Food Network, National Geographic Channel and the Discovery Network.
A: The first book had more recipes but not as many stories. The favorite from the first book is the crabmeat cheesecake, and the second book has about 75 recipes. I love the oxtail and black pea soup, the stuffed eggplant is a winner and the lemon pound cake.
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