Bonbon Cakery is Kairosoft's fourth foray into a freemium model. The game is free to download on Android and iOS but heavily features microtransactions. That being said, you don't need to spend any money to enjoy what the game has to offer, it is actually quite surprising at how well the game balances through just normal game play. It is helped that the game is supported by ads (which are displayed permanently at the bottom of the screen), which means less reliance on microtransactions to make a profit. In this game, you own a cakery where you will design cakes to sell. It plays similarly to Kairosoft's other games but unfortunately it is not as addictive, fun or well balanced. It is not helped that the game will never end, unlike other Kairosoft games where there is a set time limit to get a high score, Bonbon Cakery lacks this and thus feels like there is no point.
Confusingly, there are three types of game currency. There is the normal $, which are earned by selling items and spent by purchasing items, paying staff and general overheads. There are Premium Tickets which are used to replenish meters instantly and spin for items, these are the ones that you purchase using real money (but can be earned in-game). Finally, there are Medals which are earned by satisfied customers and are spent on training. To create a new cake, you will select a base, then add toppings and syrup. You start off with only a sponge cake and a few ingredients to add, but by combining certain items together, you can create new bases such as donuts, tiramisu and chocolate cake. Discovering these are probably the best parts of the game. You unlock more ingredients through winning contests and having satisfied customers.
Creating a new type of cake to sell requires the use of CP points, which refills slowly using real time. You can use Premium Tickets to instantly refill your meter if you wish. You see, each customer has their favorites and each cake has three stats: Aroma, Taste and Volume, which each determine how likely it is to be purchased, how much will be purchased in on go and how much satisfaction it'll give to the customer. As your customer levels up, so too does their disposable income meaning they can purchase more at once. Leveling up is in your interests because you can then xpand the shop such as being able to hire more staff and selling more items.
You have to hire staffs in two areas, the kitchen and service. The kitchen determines how quickly the cakes are being baked while service will determine how quickly the cakes will be placed onto the shelves for customers to purchase. Both are important and one will probably be the bottleneck. You can train staff so that they bake faster or stock faster, and it is important you do this. Earning a profit through selling cakes alone is quite difficult in the beginning, especially as the game runs on a yearly cycle split by months. Each month will have different types of cakes being popular, which determines how much will be sold and if you have a month where all the items you have on show are unpopular, be prepared for a big loss.
With that said, money is the easiest in-game currency to earn, this is because of a feature called Truck Sales. You send trucks to certain areas with a few of your cakes and it will sell to customers. After you send the truck off, you will have to wait in real time but you don't have to be in the app, therefore, you can set it, come back in two hours and voila, you've earned $100k! By doing this, you will rack up heaps of money to spend on promotions, which are used to expand your customer base. Items are available to be used to level up your ingredients to improve their quality. It is nothing special but still quite important. There are contests to enter in which winning means you will earn some nice prizes. Each contest requires you to enter one of your cakes and the later ones can be very difficult to win. The game also tracks how many days you have logged into the game, giving you some good bonuses if you have played the game for a certain number of days.
Unfortunately, the biggest downside of the game is the slow unlock of new features. It ends up getting a bit boring waiting for something new to show up, and the fact that there's nothing too much happening, you can only stare at the sprite graphics as your customers purchase from your shop for so long. Overall, Bonbon Cakery is an okay game, considering it is freemium, Kairosoft could have totally screwed it up by forcing paywalls onto the player. Instead, they created a game which is still easy to enjoy without spending any money. Unfortunately, Bonbon Cakery lacks the addictive kick that Kairosoft was aiming for. Only play this game if it sounds interesting to you and you liked Kairosoft's other games (granted, their other freemium games Beasty Bay and Dream House Days are leaps and bounds better than this).
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Kairosoft games are addictive, so head over to this page if you're interested in reading reviews about a few others!