This was a clever take on the theme. Using an espresso machine to make liquefied hot dogs, burgers, and pizzas was silly and fun.
Using different head shapes and eye colors as clues worked decently. It tripped me up a little when some of the squares had pointed corners and others had rounded corners, but I think it added a nice bit of difference without needing to add another food type. It also took me a bit to realize that aliens with two different colored eyes wanted both things taken into account. Friday’s rule was not very clear. I think I figured out what the aliens with two of the same colored eyes wanted, but couldn’t figure out the ones with two different colored eyes.
I think this would have benefited a lot with a tutorial. It took me several tried before figuring out where I was suppose to drop the food and what I was suppose to do after I added everything I needed. Once I figured it out, adding the food to the grinder and clicking on the alien to give them their food made sense, but it’s not very clear beforehand. Walking the player through the whole process with the first drink would help.
Giving a better indication when the player got a drink right or wrong would have been nice. The sign board wasn’t the clearest and it was very easy to miss the lives on it. The drink pouring into the cup was did a decent job of showing the player they got it right once you knew what to look for, but it wasn’t super clear at first. Changing the alien’s expression, some sound clues, or giving some type of notification (such as a a smiley face or “good job” text when right and a frown or “too bad” text when wrong) would be a good way to give the player more feedback.
I also would have liked a way to dump a drink if I made a mistake, giving me the chance to start it over and try to make it right within the time limit. There were a couple of times where I was moving too fast and grabbed and added the wrong thing, and would have liked to be able to fix the mistake for the customer instead of having the loss.
If you sat on the game over screen for too long (in some cases as short as a few seconds), the game would restart on Tuesday in the shop. My first time playing while trying to figure things out, I lost on Monday. While I was processing the gameplay, it started up on Tuesday, leaving me to wonder if I had actually lost or missed something. After I lost on Friday, it restarted on Tuesday again because I stayed on the game over screen too long. In both cases, it took me straight to the shop, so I didn’t get to read the rule for Tuesday. Clicking on the main menu button in time would get you back to the start screen.
Sometimes when I added the cup to the machine too early, right after the previous alien left and while the next was moving up, it would trigger that I got the order wrong, causing that alien to leave and losing a heart. I liked adding a new cup before adding any ingredients, to make sure I didn’t forget it. I would pick up a new cup as the previous one was filling and wait until the machine was no longer red to add it. It took me a couple of times to acknowledge there was a bit of a skip in the animation and to check around to realize that the costumer number skipped one and that I lost a heart. It didn’t happen every time, but it happened a couple of times so I wanted to mention it.
Once I figured things out, the game was fun. Using clues to figure out orders instead of being directly told was pretty cool, and the way you changed orders while using the same basic shapes and colors was clever.