Difficulty...

[Max Shadow]

I played this game a long time ago with some friends. It was difficult, but definitely doable, at least for a few days. I unlocked a bunch of stuff back then.

Now I wanted to play again with a different group of friends, but I kinda forgot which zone was the first and last. So I start a game on Country, in a random restaurant layout. Turns out it only has a single table, and it's raining. We loose on the first day, what the heck.

So I thought, well maybe this is the last zone I unlocked, so it's harder. I select City, with a random layout again. Turns out it's the same restaurant than before, and it's raining again. We loose again on the first day.

Am I missing something? Is there anything affecting the difficulty? It's too hard to enjoy this game with new people if it's so difficult...

[Chris!!]

City and Country are base difficulties and have no gameplay changes between the two, Alpine has snow instead of rain which has a worse impact on your customer patience (so don't pick that), Autumn and Turbo significantly change how you play the game so don't pick those either unless you know what you're getting yourself into.

There's a flat 50% each day that it'll rain or snow.

Also you get tables depending on how large your restaurant is, and since you picked the smallest layout you only get a single table - and by the way the smallest layout is awful for multiplayer and in general, so don't use it.

[my butt is erect]

The smaller the kitchen basically just the harder difficulty you're playing. Kinda unfortunate. But it's a totally different game. Large kitchens are easy mode. As long as there aren't way too many doors or other problems.

[Max Shadow]

The kitchen is not really the problem, but the space for the dinning tables. I thought bigger restaurants would be harder to play, but it's actually the opposite. With small spaces, it's much easier to lose because of people waiting outside.

[Lord Forwind]

The really small kitchen is mainly for SP. since they can put the tables up against the kitchen barrier and serve over it. I've completed all the foods on the small map with only 2 tables and maybe a coffee table on some runs. Other large group runs, 2 tables is usually enough, 3 can help. Try to avoid any changes to the basic recipe or things that add more people or less patience.

Its a matter of not ringing the booking desk too much too quickly but enough that you get money coming in.

[my butt is erect]

Originally posted by Lord Forwind:

The really small kitchen is mainly for SP. since they can put the tables up against the kitchen barrier and serve over it. I've completed all the foods on the small map with only 2 tables and maybe a coffee table on some runs. Other large group runs, 2 tables is usually enough, 3 can help. Try to avoid any changes to the basic recipe or things that add more people or less patience.

Its a matter of not ringing the booking desk too much too quickly but enough that you get money coming in.

You dont need a small kitchen to serve over counters, it isn't a small kitchen benefit, it's any kitchen. There is maybe literally no benefit to small kitchens. Other than it basically being a different game mode where you see how far you can get with its problems.

Can confirm not calling early levels is how you lose. Pretty much any recipe with proper setup you can instantly 3x call before even cooking anything for a few days which will like double your money or something. And always squeeze in a call at last second if you can because it still pays and there's not really a downside.

Yes there are plenty of setups that work great with 1 or 3 tables for a very long time. Putting up tons of tables early is usually a trap. It's usually more important to get the full cycle of 1 customer quick (cook-serve-clean dish-repeat) by minimizing the amount of walking needed. Certain stuff may need more tables like if eating time of a food is very long, but you can also counter long eating time by giving sharp cutlery or leftover bags to large customer count tables.

Yeah small kitchens are simply hard mode. With proper setup 2 tables will last a long time, put them in doors (creates a counter) or over counters so serving takes no running.