Game: Good Pizza, Great Pizza
Genre: Other, Strategy
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, iOs, and Android)
Developer | Publisher: PM Studios | PM Studios
Age Rating: US E | EU 3+
Price: USD $7.99 | UK £7.59 | EU €8,42
Release Date: September 3rd 2020
Review code used with many thanks to PM Studios!
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Ever wanted to open up your own pizza shop? Now’s your chance! Good Pizza, Great Pizza is a fun simulator that allows you to take customer’s orders, make the pizza to their liking, and do your best to keep customers happy while making a profit. You need to be fast while still getting the customer’s order perfect!
The game is separated up by days and each day you face a countdown timer of how much time you have to take and fill orders. Each customer also has a happiness meter that is based upon how fast they receive their order and how pleased they are with the pizza that you made them.
Hands-On Experience
Once you get the customer’s order, now comes the fun part! You will actually be making the pizza starting from putting on the sauce and toppings to baking the pizza, to boxing it, and giving it to the customers. Everything that you do is through a different button. You use the right JoyCon to select ingredients, the left JoyCon for spreading and placing toppings, and R to move the pizza to the oven and then to the box. You even cut the pizza!
Grow Your Product
Good Pizza, Great Pizza scales in difficulty and you can take the game at your pace which really makes it a game that you can enjoy for the long haul. You start off with just sauce and cheese but as you make money, you can purchase a variety of toppings. More toppings, though, means more work done within the same amount of time and more complicated orders so you really want to make sure that you are comfortable where you are before buying another topping.
Once you have more toppings, that is when strategy starts to become important. You may need to get a little more sloppy slapping down toppings or use less ingredients. Are you comfortable making two pizzas at once or is it better for you to make just one at a time?
A second kind of strategy also comes into play in Good Pizza, Great Pizza. There are so many different types of customers that come in, all with unique orders. Some may be more vague about what they want on their pizza at first. You can guess what they want but if you are wrong, you have to give them a refund and they leave angry or you can ask them “What?” and they will be more specific with what they are wanting. If you ask them to be more clear, though, their happiness meter automatically goes down and you have less time to make and serve the pizza before they get upset and this reduces the amount of tips you get.
There are also special characters, such as kids, homeless people, or people who are short on change and you can choose whether or not you make them a pizza but if they do not pay or pay full price, it really eats into your profits. It can also play in your favor though in the form of repeat customers or them coming back in and giving you a lot more money as a way to thank you.
Upgrades and Customizations
Starting to feel overwhelmed by the amount of toppings? Struggling to make and serve the pizzas without customers getting unhappy? Need more customers to make extra profits? There is an upgrade for you! Once you start saving up your money, there are a variety of upgrades that you can purchase. You can increase the amount of customers you receive and how quickly they pop up with one upgrade. Another upgrade makes it so the customers’ happiness meters tick down more slowly. My favorites so far, though, are an upgraded oven that cooks more quickly and sauce/cheese buddies that take care of those ingredients for you! They are expensive but oh so worth it.
Another big part of the game is customization. You can customize your signs, walls, floors, tables, decorations, and pizza boxes. There are so many options to choose from so you can really make your pizza shop your own. I am personally a crazy cat lady so I have a cat open sign and paw-print wallpaper!
Overall Thoughts
I personally was super excited to be able to review this game after spending way too much time a couple of years ago on the iOS version of Good Pizza, Great Pizza. It definitely still has the same addicting charm as before. The mobile apps rely on touchscreen so I was really nervous that this port to the Switch was going to be unnecessarily difficult. There are no touchscreen capabilities on this Switch version but you really don’t need it; the controls quickly become routine and it makes choosing toppings and making the pizza a breeze.
It’s been a while since I have played the mobile version but it seems like there are a lot of upgrades that make this game so much better than before too, such as the addition of the MyPad (haha!) that gives quests and has an achievement system. It would be great if they added more quests, though, as that part seems a bit bare but the MyApp says “more quests coming soon” so I hope that will be fixed soon!
If you enjoy restaurant or simulation games, go on and give Good Pizza, Great Pizza a shot! Just make sure you clear your plans for the day though… You will be finding yourself saying “I’ll stop after one more day” or “I’ll take a break after I hit $300” over and over!
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot!
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