Lemon Cake Review

Game: Lemon Cake
Genre: Simulation, Time Management
System: Nintendo Switch (also available on Steam (Windows), PS4/5, Xbox One/X/S)
Developer|Publisher: Cozy Bee Games | SOEDESCO
Age Rating: EU 3+| US Everyone
Price: US $29.99 | UK £26.99 | EU € 26,99
Release Date: September 30th, 2022

Review code used, with many thanks to SOEDESCO.

Lemon Cake is a time-management bakery simulator in the style of Diner Dash. You zip around an eatery, serving customers before they lose patience or leave empty-handed.

But unlike the original Diner Dash, which was a hectic race against the clock, Lemon Cake feels a touch less frenzied. For instance, there seems to be no penalty for failing to serve customers. This new title is calmer but just as engaging. It’s also cuter and more customizable. You’ve got more choices, in recipes, shop upgrades, and personalized looks.

All these reasons make Lemon Cake worth checking out, especially if you love time management or cooking games.

Rush Hour: Bakery Edition

The daily loop is addictive. You begin the day quietly with kitchen prep. Then throw open the bakery doors and serve customers, both dine-ins and take-outs. In between, do a hundred things: rescue burning buns, sweep up spills, replenish firewood, brush the cow (yep!), water the crops, restock window displays, bake new loaves, and whip up frozen desserts. Oh, and it’s lunch rush hour now!

The day ends with a profit report, planning the next day’s menu, and perusing upgrades. You must occasionally catch bugs in the bakery, a mini-game that rewards you with extra cash (which is great at first but feels like busywork after a while, so I wish it were optional).

The Daily Grind

Overall, Lemon Cake is fun and compulsive. The incentives are strong: you need to earn cash for those lovely upgrades and eventually unlock the climatic Lemon Cake recipe. But this incentive is also the source of my biggest frustration: the upgrades are too darn expensive.

The game feels like a slow grind despite the enjoyable gameplay. For a long time I was making, say only $45 a day, while many upgrades cost around $200. One in-game day takes several minutes and therefore 30 to 45 minutes to reach each upgrade. To finish the game, I’m guessing it’ll take 15 to 20 hours or more. That seems a little long, considering new mechanics aren’t introduced throughout the game.

For that reason, I’m tempted to quit before finishing the game. I’m still playing it, though, because I just can’t resist another day in the kitchen. It’s fun to scurry around the bakery, trying to maximize daily profit. Apart from the basic gameplay, which I enjoy, other well-designed features make the grind quite tolerable.

Each day is short enough and challenging enough to make me itch for another round. The lunch rush is always exciting. Because there are always more customers than I have time to serve, I’m motivated to do better next time.

The quiet moments are a nice change too, like when I’m assembling a menu for tomorrow or pondering an upgrade. I enjoy the switch from dashing around to slow strategizing.

Planning a menu takes a little thought. You want a good variety of pastry types (there are seven), an average price that’s not too high, and new items that customers aren’t bored of seeing. You should also consider how long each pastry takes to prepare. Candies can be whipped up quickly, but cakes hog the oven for a while. Some recipes need only one ingredient; others take four ingredients.

A Fine Selection of Goods

Despite the slow progression, when you do get upgrades you’re rewarded with something helpful or pretty or both!

I like the wide variety of upgrades. There are new fruit, veggies, and farm products. More ovens, a shop assistant, even an automatic crop sprinkler. These upgrades are located on skill trees and require cash to unlock. You can also buy new clothes and bedroom decor, though I simply had no cash to spare for those luxuries.

New recipes, on the other hand, can be obtained just by playing the game long enough. Performing tasks, even sweeping the floor, grants experience points towards a level-up. Levelling up lets you add a new pastry to your repertoire. I always found this gratifying, and the option to choose between three recipes adds a small element of strategy.

The game provides an incentive to switch up your menu rather than stick to the same recipes. You get extra tips from customers for selling new items, providing gluten-free options, affordable pastries, and so on.

Being able to choose all these things makes me feel like I’m really planning my own bakery, not simply being a waiter or kitchen serf.

The Icing on Top

Lemon Cake is cute and cozy, down to the bakery’s resident ghost Miss Bonbon. In a world of struggling small businesses, there’s nothing like an adorable ghost to rally you on!

I enjoyed the cheerful art style and pleasant music. There’s a teeny bit of story, though it’s more about Miss Bonbon than your blank-slate character.

No touchscreen controls here, but Joy-Con controls work well enough. I never felt like I wanted to use a touchscreen or mouse. The game’s UI and movement controls could be slightly improved, though.

Navigating menus was a pain because it was difficult to see where my “cursor” was at. I also wish the “Next Day” could be initiated by a separate button (e.g. a Joy-Con shoulder button) instead of being a menu tab.

I also found character movement to be sluggish, especially in the early game. It felt like tracking through mud. Even worse when I ran into floor spills, which slows your character down. Dashing helps, but it’ll take a to fully upgrade your dash. Even then, I hate how dashes get wasted when I run into spills. Some players may find the spills too annoying; but I like to think of them as good obstacles, part of the time-management challenge.

Conclusion

Lemon Cake is cute and addictive. The basic loop is enjoyable, and there’s a diverse spread of goodies from chocolate croissants and caramel flan to cakes and crumbles.

But it’s a slow grind and doesn’t introduce new mechanics along the way. So it won’t engage everyone to the very end, but it’s still keeping my interest. Even when I think I’m spending too much time on this game, I keep returning for more baked goodness. Recommended for fans of time-management games like Diner Dash and Overcooked.

Final verdict: I Like It A Lot