Took a try on this one.
There is lot I like in this game, but in its current state it clearly has not reached its potential, and game that could be potentially very fun and good game, is not yet.
I have played a lot of Tower Defence games, and what I really like is that you have brought a lot of new ideas to Tower Defence Genre (although at this point they dont work well yet).
I liked how the first couple of levels were basically puzzle games, but done in Tower Defence way, that was a nice twist, and also a very good way to introduce what different "towers" (in this case food) do.
I would however try to squeeze them into three levels instead of 5. It is not critically a problem, but when I got to level 5, I thought that this was all this game was going to be, and I thought that okay, it is a fun idea but they dont give enough puzzle elements to make this fun. However when next level with the cooking came, that was very much a nice change. Plus, what an excellent way to teach player in peace to learn to make these different kind of cookings, like fusion cookings, that he is to just make any 5 food with no time-limit. I liked that very much.
However, then came the first level where I was supposed to both cook and serve (place towers), at this point I really liked the idea of this game, but it isnt quite working yet.
Right now one big problem is that it is simply too hard. Took me several tries to get past that first cook and serve level, and when the second one like that came (I think level 10), after a couple of tries, I already gave up, since it seemed just too hard.
There are several problems currently with cook and serve levels, and I would suggest following changes:
1. While the idea of moving mouse to the edge of the screen to move between cooking and serving side is a good and effortless User Interface idea, I however noticed it became a problem for me, as I kept accidentally moving from one screen to other. Hence I would suggest make this to the options menu as optional, and add a possibility of, for example, clicking on the door to change the sides.
2. I am not sure if accidentally moving from one side to other was so much a problem, but what was bigger problem is that to move around in the cooking screen, you need to move your mouse and character follows it, meaning that when you are not in the cooking screen, character stays still.
This also makes the game extremely hard, as you cant really multitask, but you have to be placing the Towers in place real fast to get back to the cooking screen to be able to continue cooking.
To solve this problem, I would suggest you make things clickable, and character would then move to those places automatically.
This way you could first drop a product to the line, and then click to move towards getting new potato, and while character is moving to get the potato from the cabinet, you could go to the serving screen, and place the tower, when done, you would go back to cooking screen, and move the potato to one of the cooking spots.
This, I think, would make a huge difference to the playability and funness of the game, as well as make it much easier.
3. I would make couple of easier cook and serve levels, since one of the problems is that I didnt do a single fusion in either of these two, simply because I was already overwhelmed to just get couple of towers in place to avoid customers from getting to the door almost with no resistance, and multitasking these both things at the same time, makes it very hard to think about the fusions at the same time.
4. Consider slowing down the customers. I did like that they were fast in sense that playing the game didnt take long, but levels were very fast, as in, if customers would be slower, then game would take much longer to play, and wouldnt be as casual or quick-game.
However, one of the things that take a bit from the game on those cook and serve levels is that you cant really follow up what is going on on the serve side, which would be important, since now you are basically operating on the kitchen side completely blind.
Slowing down would help on that, but, I am not sure it is the right way to go, since it would change the games dynamics quite a lot.
5. Make slow down foods slow those people down more. Especially when game is already so speedy, I didnt even notice them slowing down. This made me even wonder if those slow down foods actually even worked (I think they did, but im not sure, anyway, point being, player wants to see that something noticeable happens, like customers actually noticeably slowing down).
6. It is bit annoying being on kitchen completely blind of what is happening on the serve side. It would be nice if there would be some indications on what is happening. At simples show energy and energy left on bottom of the screen for example. A more difficult version would be to have minimap showing both where customers are in the service side, in which case you could see where dots are disappearing, if they are, indicating they are not getting to the door, and in best case there would be even some indication on how much HP they have left.
More about the positive sides of this game.
I liked the story, it works as it is, there is no need to do changes there, well, actually there is one thing.
I on one level missed the story part (but I was able to see it by going back to menu and choosing this level, since then it displayed the story part again - good choice), since I was trying to speed up the text coming to screen by clicking mouse before the end, and it just jumped to the next text.
So instead of jumping to next text, when still in middle of the text, you could change it so that instead the first click makes the text instantly fully appear, and next click would take to next text.
Regarding the story, or the plot, I loved how you had made the towers be french fries etc. and idea being that you need to feed hungry customers before they reach the door. This was very funny and opened new kinds of options.
I also very much liked how some of the levels were puzzle like, as in, you didnt get to choose the towers, only place them, while some levels had both the cook and serve side. It is a really fun twist on tower defence genre on having to build these towers on another screen, just doesnt work currently. By the way, I have been thinkins something bit similar, just never had an idea that I felt like actually working, your idea seems like it can work, although right now it doesnt yet, as it is too complex feeling, making player feel too overwhelmed getting things done, especially since the difficulty is instantly very hard. That would there be some easier cook and serve levels first, you could then perfect making those food and fusing them, until getting to the more difficult levels, where time matters.
I also liked how you had that recipe book there that you could take a look on how all the foods are made, and also see their stats. For what bothered me in the first levels was that I didnt have much idea how much stronger some towers were, but that cook book solved that problem completely, as I could see precisely what they damage and speed were.
Anyway, I liked this game and I hope you work forward with it, since I think it might have potential, and could be real fun addition to curernt tower defence games, being bit different from the rest. I might even give this game another try at some point, especially if I notice it has been updated.