Snowy’s Lunch Rush: Serving Up Another Dashing Diner Game
As customers come into (or drive up to) the restaurant, Snowy must seat them, take their orders, deliver their food, give them their bills, and clear their tables. The goal is to raise enough money for store renovations, and as such there’s a set amount of money that you need to earn every day. In addition to the regular goal, there’s also an expert goal, and reaching it will allow you to earn a star, which will provide you with an extra chance later in the game, should you fail at a level.
Most customers have various colors on their clothes, and when seated will change the color of the seat they were in. This is how you can create “color combos,” which will bring you more money (eg., placing a woman with a red shirt into a red seat will yield a bonus), and because they are cumulative, the greater the number of times that you can match colors, the higher the bonus. In addition to color combos, Snowy can complete action combos by doing several of the same actions at the same time. There are several levels in the game where you’ll be able to take all the orders at once, then do all the deliveries in a row, and so on. If you set out matching colors the best you can and doing actions in a string, you should have no problem getting to the expert goal, at least in the earlier levels.
Customers get fussy if they’ve been kept waiting too long, and if they get angry enough, they’ll leave. As you can imagine, this is bad for business, and it’s impossible to get through a level if too many of your customers have gotten angry and left. Once they’ve been seated, they can be appeased with coffee and completed actions, both of which will raise their happiness meters (coffee is often the easier solution), but while they’re still lined up, things can get a little sticky.
Seated customers can only eat so fast, which often leaves you with a long line back to the door. People waiting for a table get angry rather quickly, but not to worry – a little ways into the game, Snowy will set up a stage where he can sing to the customers to make them happier. If you’re working on your action combos, and all of your customers are currently eating, this is the perfect time to sing to the rest of the customers to put them in a better mood.
A few levels into the game, Snowy gets a cat, which doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other than to sit in the corner of the restaurant and occasionally meow. While one of the levels begins with a warning that the cat could get in the way, it doesn’t seem to do anything other than its usual, so don’t be confused when you’re expecting the cat to do something and it once more just sits there. Snowy can also get a cake stand, and customers will order cakes occasionally (more often on certain levels than others), but this is easily managed, and delivering a cake or coffee won’t break Snowy’s action streaks.
There are six different types of customers in Snowy’s Lunch Rush, and each have their own quirks and needs. Each different type of customer is introduced at a different point in the game’s 60 levels, and they’re eventually all mixed up. Having the low-down on how they each work makes this game a whole lot easier. Here’s a basic overview of the different kinds:
Women
These are the first customers that you’ll encounter in the game. They’re the game’s slowest eaters, but they’re also very patient, so they can often be kept waiting longer than any of the other types of customers. Keep their delay in mind when trying to arrange action combos, and make your life easier by seating them first when you can so that by the time all of the other customers are seated and have made up their minds, their orders will also be ready to be taken.
Businessmen
Slightly faster than women, but likewise slightly more impatient. Businessmen aren’t really anything to worry about – keep in mind that they’re the second-slowest customers, and you’ll do fine.
VIP customers
VIP customers are basically businessmen who have called ahead and reserved a table. They cannot be appeased by Snowy’s songs, so go out of your way to seat them as quickly as possible, or you’ll lose their business altogether. At one point in the game, there’s a VIP convention in town, so expect a slew of VIPs. The only time that Snowy will use the phone is when these customers call to make a reservation.
Young girls
Young girls do everything quickly, so you won’t have to wait very long for them to make up their minds or eat. Because they’re a bit faster than their older counterparts, they’re also a good deal less patient. Keep an eye on them, especially when they’re in line, or you could find yourself losing their business. It’s sometimes wise to seat young girls before women, simply because they take less time to get through the eating process and women will wait longer before leaving.
Young men
If you thought that young girls were fast and impatient, you’ve got another thing coming. These guys eat like lightning, make up their minds almost as soon as you seat them, and this can make your life really easy or really complicated. If you’re going for action combos, you’ll want to seat everyone else right before you seat the young men, so that the others have some time to make up their minds before the young men are on the scene. Likewise, you’ll want to serve the others first for the same reason. You’ll end up keeping your young men waiting at some point, so prepare to send some time bringing them coffee.
Drive-thru customers
These are possibly the easiest customers that you’ll have. Because they’re in the drive-thru, they need to be served very quickly, but you’ll never have to worry about sitting them down or waiting for them to eat. Just serve them and be done with it – and if you time it properly, you can add them to an already long action chain.
The game takes a concept that’s already been done several times and redoes it with enough flair that what it loses in creativity, it gains in fun and sheer entertainment value. With 60 levels to complete, this game will keep you (or your kids) fixated for an extended period of time without the hair-pulling frustration of other games of its type. It’s good, clean family fun with enough quirks to keep everyone entertained. The downloadable demo has all 60 levels in it, though they’re supposedly only available in the full version. As it is, you can play the game the whole way through in one sitting without paying for the full version.
