Following on from a DS success is a daunting task for any game developer. Nintendo’s handheld is rife with avid fandom, fired not only by the games, but the uniqueness of the hardware itself. So a full-on smash hit like Diner Dash could be dangerous territory for a fledgling or half-hearted developer to tread.
Fortunately, all these aspects of the game’s previous success are just as prevalent on the iPhone. The fancy technology, the bright touch screen and the brilliantly simplistic yet intensely engaging gameplay all leap from the iPhone’s screen every bit as much as it did on the DS – if not more so, considering the larger display.
As close a conversion as you could hope for, Flo is back and winding her balletic, oft fraught dance around the belligerent customers of her ever increasing diner. The restaurants themselves have been given a new coat of Apple coloured paint (which is fractionally murkier than we saw on the DS, to be frank, though it’s by no means a deal breaker) and the gameplay follows the same managerial mechanics. As customers line up at the door, it’s up to you to meet their every whim; seat them, take their order, bring them drinks, deliver the food, offer up desert, take their money and clear the table before the next customer gets fed up of waiting an leaves in a huff.
Each stage of a customer’s experience at your diner occurs at a random interval, so some will take longer to decide what to order, for instance, but eat up quickly and want to settle the bill. You’re there to guide Flo from one quick fire task to the next as the tables fill up with families, students, OAPs, food critics, the glitterati and all manner of visitors each with their own temperament and expectations as to what constitutes good service. The pace gets utterly frantic at time, seeing Flo become a blur of waitressing efficiency or a struggling agent of chaos; whether your restaurant runs like Chez iPhone or MacDon’t-go-back-again depends on your quick fingers and even quicker eyes.