Video Game Review: Diner Dash for PC and the Nintendo DS

Working in a restaurant was supposed to be a pit stop for me, until my genius would be recognized, and I would be recruited as a billionaire CEO, or called upon to save the world. But alas, reality's cruel claws got a hold on me, and now I'm a two-year food service industry veteran. As such, I feel that I know a thing or two about the business, and feel a sense of sympathy and camaraderie with other servers, and essentially any member of the working class who has to deal with the public on a regular basis. My interest is automatically piqued by anything server-related in the media, and I'm always eager to size it up to see if it accurately represents the hellish experience of waiting tables.

Enter Diner Dash, a simple, yet fast-paced game that incorporates puzzle and strategy elements in a restaurant setting. Diner Dash can be played on the PC, the Nintendo DS, and on mobile phones (depending on the service provider). I have played this game on the PC and mobile phone platforms. Diner Dash puts the player in the role of Flo, a lady who leaves her desk job and decides to open a small eatery. As both the owner and sole waitress, Flo gets the singular pleasure of running around like mad and doing everything. Flo's duties include seating people, taking their orders, bringing said orders to the kitchen, delivering food, delivering the check, bussing tables, and taking dirty dishes to the dish station, among others. These tasks seem simple enough at first, but when the restaurant fills up and impatient customers are lined up to be seated, the game becomes a frantic, scrambling, stressful hodgepodge of activity and prioritization - just like in real life!

The object of Diner Dash is to keep all the customers happy. A party's happiness is indicated by a series of hearts (or red bars, in the cell phone version). If kept waiting too long at any point - waiting to be seated, waiting to have their order taken, waiting for their food to be brought out, or waiting for their check when they finish - the hearts will decrease. The fewer hearts a group of customers has, the angrier they will get. At a certain point, they will start looking really pissed, and puffs of steam will appear over their heads - a phenomenon which I think I've actually witnessed a few times where I work. If the hearts decrease entirely, the customers will storm out of the restaurant, and you will lose points. Fortunately, there are ways to regain the customers' favor, namely by bringing drinks and appetizers, keeping them entertained, and not making them wait further.

Diner Dash is comprised of a series of progressively harder levels. In each level, Flo must earn a certain amount of money, which she then uses to "upgrade" the restaurant in various ways, or even open a new restaurant. If this quota is not met, then the level must be played again. Bonus points are awarded for being efficient in general, and for seating guests in the right colored seats. Guests wear a variety of colorful clothing, and when a table leaves, the seats will take on the guest's clothing color. So if a group of people wearing red clothes gets up, the seats will be red. If you seat another group wearing red in the red seats, you will get color bonus points. Strange, I know; I think this is how gangs get started. The customers come in several different "flavors," each with their own tipping habits and patience levels. For example, elderly customers look at the menu for a long time and are fairly patient (in this game, if not in real life), but they don't tip as well as other groups. Businesswomen tip well, but are extremely impatient and quick to anger. These idiosyncrasies must be taken into consideration when making priority decisions, especially since Flo can only carry one object in each hand. The stakes become higher as the game progresses, to where even a couple of less-than-thrilled tables will make it impossible to achieve the quota. At this point, the game has the feel of a high-level Tetris game, where the blocks fall fast and you're almost out of room. The game also features an "Endless Shift" mode, which is essentially every server's worst nightmare: an eternal lunch shift where the restaurant never closes, and the customers keep coming until a set number of people get angry and leave.

The graphics in Diner Dash are not very elaborate or impressive. It is clear that the designers were shooting for simplicity. The characters, who look vaguely anime-like, are "cute" and brightly colored, but basic in appearance, with minimal detail. Overall the game has the look of a flash animation or game. And that's just fine for a strategy game like this one, where the emphasis is on prioritizing and quick thinking.

The sound is quite minimalist. A few tracks of extremely repetitive muzak (which can fortunately be turned off in the options menu) are looped during gameplay. The sound effects are functional. A murmur of voices lets you know when new people are waiting to be seated, and a "bing!" sound alerts you to food in the window. Sounds like the clattering of dishes and the slurp of brewing coffee add to the ambiance. Again, this level of sound quality is acceptable in a game of this genre, which need not be a visual or auditory tour-de-force.

The control scheme is simple and intuitive. The PC version allows the player to click-and-drag parties to their tables, while everything else is point-and-click. The cell phone version makes creative use of the number keys, with each numeric key corresponding with a table or a spot at the kitchen.

As both a gamer and a professional server, I like Diner Dash. It's a cute, addictive, challenging little game with a lot of character. I'm simultaneously honored and amused that someone would create a game that focuses on what may well be one of the most stressful and disrespected professions in our society. It's a bit of an oversimplification, of course. Conspicuously absent from this game are customers who come in pissed and stay that way (probably to get a free meal), customers who seem happy but don't tip, customers who constantly chug their beverages and arrogantly shake their glasses at you to indicate their desire for a refill, angry cooks, meddlesome managers, and sidework. But that's probably for the best. The game can get a bit repetitive and frustrating after a while, and it's not something you'd want to play for hours on end. But in short doses, Diner Dash makes for a fun challenge, and a small taste of how we servers roll.