Animal Restaurant

## Game Overview & Guide Information

**Animal Restaurant** is a business simulation (somewhat) idle game that has great artwork and is strangely soothing to play. The mechanics are simple (if sometimes indecipherable): you buy recipes and facilities to expand your restaurant, serve customers, hire staff, and increase your star rating to discover new customers.

This guide is open to the community to build on and expand for others who love this charming little game!

Feel free to leave comments below if you have questions/want more explanation!

## Beginners Guide

When starting out with Animal Restaurant, you start with two areas, the Kitchen & Front of House areas. The tutorial walks a user through the backstory of Chef Gumi's restaurant, how to purchase & place tables to serve customers & stoves to cook food for customers.

### Front of House Seating Area & Customers to appear

* Customers will appear by randomly wandering in - this does not require any action. Customers who appear in this way will not be carrying any item when they appear.
* Promotion
	+ Customers who appear through a promotion activity will be carrying a brochure in their hands.
	+ Click the promote button in the bottom right corner until the meter fills. Once filled, a new customer will appear holding a brochure.
		- Ads - You can watch an ad to unlock Promotion x15, where the Percussion Section (of Orcas) appears surrounding the door and makes music, handing brochures to 15 customers who wait in line to be served. You are unable to click the Promote button while this is happening, as the meter will be auto-filling on its own.
	+ Upgrading Promotions (Eject button above the promote button in bottom left corner).
		- You can pay cod to upgrade your promotion style. Promotion upgrades require meeting a certain threshold of star rating to upgrade. Upgrades allow your promotions to reach a wider range of new customers, however, each promotion upgrade will require that you tap more (which is the trade-off). Newer customers may be more likely to request more expensive Cod dishes.
* Staff
	+ You can unlock staff who will self-promote, bringing in promoted customers automatically after a certain time span and increase the efficiency of the promotion button - allowing you to hold it down to fill the meter instead of tapping.
		- Offering Staff Promotions (upgrading staff) will make them more efficient at their job - have them perform their task for longer, take breaks less, and increase efficiency of their task, as applicable.

#### Earning **Cod** (Aka Currency)

* **The Best Ways to Make Money**:
	+ Active
		- Serving customers via Clicking / Holding Promotion. This will be the main way in the beginning of the game, but as it gets more difficult to use the promote button, and because this function does not happen idly, this method will become increasingly frustrating
		- Completing Tasks (Unlocked at 25 stars)
			* You can start completing simple daily tasks, orders, and achievements to earn Cod.
	+ Purchase Items that Generate Cod Idly
		- Tip Desk
			* The tip desk will generate money from served customers. The tip desk will gain money every minute, while you are playing and while you're not using the app.
			* **Always** **Double your Tips by watching an Ad**
				+ It is most efficient to only withdraw tips once the tip jar has reached its cap, to avoid watching multiple ads
				+ If you accidentally click on the tip desk, you can click anywhere else on the screen to deselect the tip desk, (instead of claiming the tips).
			* The tip jar has a max limit that it can hold.
				+ Upgrade your Tip Desk facilities as early and often as possible to increase the max cap of tips you can hold.
				+ The Tip Jar will max out around 4-8 hours
			* Other facilities, staff, etc. will increase your minute tip rate.
		- Purchase facilities for rooms (Front of House / Kitchen / Garden / Buffet)
			* Benefits
				+ Other facilities can provide you achievement bonuses for purchasing (see Achievements List in the Tasks area)
				+ Other facilities that offer Cod will also raise your star rating when purchased
				+ Neat to decorate with
				+ Cod will be picked up by staff (if staff that collects cod is unlocked)
			* Drawbacks
				+ Other facilities that produce money by the minute or half-minute do not generate cod at the same rate as the tip desk (except the buffet conveyor belt)
				+ Other facilities will not allow you to double the cod when collected (except the buffet conveyor belt).
		- Buffet-Conveyor Belt:
			* The buffet will send through lots of people.
				+ Buffet facilities,Staff (Temp Worker Yolky), will at the end pick them up and stuff into their mouths! This will significantly increase the base rate of Cod collected.
			* **Receive Extra Cod When Collecting Cod by watching an Ad**
				+ When you collect this money, you are offered to watch an ad for an additional lump sum of Cod.

### Increase Rating / Earning Stars

You can earn stars in multiple ways. Your options for earning stars will increase as you move forward. Some new customers will give stars randomly. Purchasing new items, including facilities or recipes will increase your rating. Receiving letters and mementos will automatically increase your star rating. Promoting staff will increase your rating. etc.

* **Ways to Earn Stars**
	+ Daily Task Completion
		- If you complete your daily tasks, you can earn +25 stars
		- **Always** **double your star earnings, when offered (**doubling your daily task star earnings appears to stops once you reach a certain level - note: this is not as important when you unlock other ways to gain star ratings)
	+ Order Task Completion
	+ Unlock New Customers - Some Customers will have the ability to drop stars along with their Cod Payment
	+ Purchase Items & Recipes
		- Purchasing Items & New Recipes will automatically increase your star rating.
	+ Hiring Staff / Promoting Staff
		- When you Hire Staff, your star rating is increased
		- When you promote staff, your star rating is increased.
	+ Garden
		- Flowers
			* Purchase a Garden Table - which comes with three vases
				+ Upgrading your garden table will allow for additional views of flowers, which will generate more stars.
			* You can earn stars by moving flowers into vases. Customers view flowers; each view generates stars (or percentages of stars).
			* Flowers can be viewed a certain number of times before they are consumed (disappear).
			* Upgraded Flowers (flowers with more than 1 bloom) will generate more stars and can be viewed for longer.
		- (Staff) Messenger Hedwig
			* Messenger Hedwig may return with stars
			* Letters always give you automatic stars; letters are delivered by Messenger Hedwig
	+ Purchase stars **(May not be cost-effective)**
		- The Mysterious Merchant (crow)
			* You can purchase stars using Cod from the Mysterious Merchant.
			* **This may or may not be a good deal**. A good rule of thumb is to compare the cost of growing a flower and output of stars to the price of a star being sold. **Don't overpay for stars!**

* **Cost-Effective Stars**. Promoting / Upgrading staff, particularly Temp Worker Yolky and Messenger Hedwig, can be a source of highly affordable stars to increase your star rating when compared to facilities. As a bonus, their skills will also be upgraded and they help to increase your tip desk earn rate.

## Tips & Tricks

### Saving Cods by watching Ads to make up the price difference

* When you don't have enough cods to upgrade facilities, buy recipes, or plant flowers in the garden, you can make up the price difference by watching ads.
* Finding whether you are able to make up the price difference by clicking on the item/recipe/flower bed. If there is a TV below the "buy" button that says "Watch an ad, Make up the difference, Auto-buy," then you are qualified for making up the price difference.
* Clicking on the TV, watching the Ad, and your facility/recipe/flower is automatically purchased!
* **The higher your rating is (indicated by the number of stars in the upper left corner), the more price difference you can make up.**
	+ The graph of the maximum price difference that can be made up over the number of stars is not stepwise. Instead, it should be a smooth curve. However, the slope is not determined yet.
* **The maximum price difference that you can make up is 400,000 cods, and this threshold will be reached at a rating of about 9,000 stars.**
	+ An effective way for a beginner to earn stars while spending the fewest cods is prioritizing the purchase and upgrade of facilities.
	+ Make a list of the facilities, divide the price by the number of stars given after purchase, rank them from the cheapest to the most expensive in the unit of number of cods per star, and buy them in this order.
* You cannot purchase a new room, including garden, fishing pond, buffet, and take-out, by making up the price difference. You cannot make up the price difference when upgrading your staff and raising the price of take-out food either.
* increase the price of your food

### Sharing to Facebook to get Free Cod, Garden Items, Stars, & Promotions x10 (without annoying your Facebook friends)

* **Change Privacy Settings when Posting to Facebook.** Share to "Only Me" in the privacy settings when sharing to Facebook.
* There are several opportunities to gain free cod / garden items / stars by sharing to Facebook
	+ New Customers - Some new customers give you a share bonus for the first time you share to Facebook. If you forget to share a customer, you can access customers by going to the upper hand corner and clicking on the book, then looking at the customers tab.
	+ Promotions x10 - Once you finish sharing to Facebook the max amount of times, you will see a notice that the band is too exhausted to play.
	+ Wishing Well Items - You get a daily amount of free wishing well items based on what wishing well you have purchased. After you run out of free wishing well items, you can watch ads. Once you run out of wishing well ads, you can share to Facebook. Once you finish sharing to Facebook, you can generally watch 1 more ad. Following this, you will see a notice that the Wishing Well is being cleaned. This is reset daily.

### Buffet / Earning Plates (Buffet / Green Coins Currency)

* The buffet offers an idle way to earn **Cod** (aka Fish Currency). However, a separate currency is used in the Buffet area to buy Buffet Recipes, **Plates** (aka Green Coins Currency). When you enter the Buffet, you will see a new currency total pop-up in the upper-left hand corner of the screen.

* Ways to Earn Plates (aka Buffet/Green Coins Currency):
	1. Hire Staff - Temp Worker - hired via the Staff Menu after opening the buffet area; Yolky gives off coins every once in a while (possibly on his 4-hour extra plate ability cycle)
	2. Purchase a Self-serve Drinks Item with **Cod** - purchased in the Buffet Menu; they generate green coins on a daily basis.
	3. Upgrade your Items
	4. Promote Staff

### Organizing / Decorating / Gardening

* **Redecorating**
	+ After you purchase a series of items in a facilities category, you can redecorate without losing the bonuses associated with unlocking said item. (i.e. wishing wells will still provide you extra wishes, tip jar will stay at same max capacity, etc.)
* **Organizing Flowers / Garden Items**
	+ When you start to collect consumable garden items (watering cans, soil, flowers), you are able to move them from their original location to somewhere else in the garden. Gardening items do not expire/go away when you leave the screen or close the app.
		- You can relocate each item into its own pile to sort for later.
		- This can be helpful if you're trying to send specific flowers to receive letters / attract new customers
	+ Save Watering Cans & Soil for more expensive !
	+ Move flowers to empty vases in the gardening table. Flowers will turn into percentages of stars.
		- Flowers can be removed from a vase for a short period of time. Once you click on another flower/item, you can't remove a flower from a vase.
			* If you're trying to save flowers, this is helpful to know in case you accidentally put a flower you wanted to save for later in a vase.
	+ Move flowers to Messenger Hedwig to try to get letters
		- Up to 3 Flowers can be picked up and placed in Messenger Hedwig's briefcase (Click on Hedwig) before sending her on a trip (by clicking the check mark button).
		- Flowers can be removed before Messenger Hedwig is sent out.

### Differences between Android / iOS

* iOS ads always show up in the same format (One 3-30 second ad, some are playable; time is based on when you can close out of the ad and still get the reward)
* Android ads have multiple formats - AKA this isn't as good a deal for Android Users.
	+ 1 ad that is a variable length (some are playable) / Multiple ads that you have to view in a sequence to unlock the reward
	+ Ad Salesman could give you an option to watch 8/8 ads. Sometimes they are short, sometimes they are longer ads