Chocolatier 2: Secret Ingredients (Strategy-SIM)
REVIEW AND GUIDEI love these games. I absolutely love them. I originally bought them for my eldest, and had absolutely no interest in them when I watched her play. Because of a group challenge, I played
Chocolatier 3: Decadence by Design and quickly found how addictive they are! I've played #3 through several times, and only recently decided to play this one,
Secret Ingredients. At first I didn't like it as much as #3, but now I'm not so sure... I may enjoy it even more!
Whilst reading this, please remember that I have not played Chocolatier 1, yet!First, the basics:
There are separate sliders for Ambient Sound, Music, and Sound Effects (or you can Mute All,) and a Full Screen Option. There is both a Story Mode and a Free Play Mode.
The game is easy to learn with the built-in (optional) tutorial, and the gist of the game is simple: Make chocolates and sell them to make money. Doing this will mean traveling around the world to buy ingredients for your chocolates, meeting people in the know, and of course, making the chocolates.
Herein lies a problem for those with
coordination issues: Making the chocolates involves timed mini-games, ranging from simple to extremely difficult, depending on which kind of creation you are working on. You CAN play this game if you aren't very good at these games, but the game will take much longer. The way it works is that you have a certain amount of time to shoot ingredients into groups that will combine to make your chocolates. You will have quantity bonuses for matching colors -- all red, all blue, or all yellow in a grouping will get you more chocolates. The mini games for the pralines (which you won't encounter until later in the game) were especially difficult for me, and I generally don't have trouble with this type of thing.
There are six types of chocolates that you will be able to make by the end of the game:
- Squares
- Infusions
- Sauces
- Pralines
- Truffles
- Exotics
To progress in the game and open up new locations, you will need to complete quests. Find these quests by talking to people in every building, in every port. Once you have a quest, there's no need to check every building until you've completed the task and are looking for a new quest. In
Secret Ingredients, you can only have one quest at a time.
HINT:
You will earn more money for your confections the first time you go to a shop after inventing it. If you have the money, do not visit any chocolate shops until you've stockpiled some of your new creation. You will be able to purchase your own chocolate shop (in San Jose) fairly quickly if you're making sure to have a quest at all times, and you'll get the very best prices at your own shops (without having to haggle.)
You will want to buy the Chocolate Tasting Lab in Buenos Aires as soon as possible so that you can start creating your own confections, as every new creation will earn you better money. You will want to change up your recipes frequently, as you will earn less if you just offer the same thing all the time.
HINT: Be sure to watch your ingredients, as they will eventually go bad! Buy ingredients and rotate what you're making in your factories accordingly! Even if you will not be able to use new items any time soon, you will want to buy one of each ingredient as soon as you discover it so that you can have it available at your Tasting Lab. Just be sure to stop by the Lab in Buenos Aires once you've purchased it/them.
There are forty ingredients to discover across the globe, seven of which are seasonal (you will get better purchase prices on ingredients when they are in
season.) Scroll up to the last post to see where you can find each ingredient.
Here is a screen of all of the discovered ingredients (fully-stocked tasting lab):
In #3,
Decadence by Design, when you make your own creations, you pretty much have free reign. Not so in
Secret Ingredients. Most times we just experiment and get hints from our lab assistant as to what might work in the recipe. Other times we're given a full or partial recipe by someone we meet whilst traveling, and just formalize the recipe in the lab.
Another difference is that when you're told that you can't trust everybody... you really should pay attention. Sabotage, factory strikes, and storehouse fires do happen!
There is a continuing storyline throughout the
Chocolatier games, and I look forward to discovering the first installment
Overall this is a completely addictive game, and I highly recommend it