Dashing for dinner

Tried & tested: Diner Dash

You might have played this on your phone, on the Internet or perhaps you got a free demo with your computer. Either way you’ve probably played this.

The highly addictive mini-game involves you serving customers as fast as possible so you can make enough money to upgrade the diner and bring in more customers.

You can get this game for most platforms and whilst I’ve played many of the sequels to the game online or on my phone, I tested Diner Dash by purchasing the game from Xbox Live Marketplace. For just 800 Microsoft Points you can play this directly from your console and go on to unlock the achievements.

You play as Flo and it’s your job to:

• Seat the customers
• Take their orders
• Deliver the orders to the kitchen
• Serve the customers their food
• Take their money
• Clear the tables
• Take the dirty plates to the sink

 

As you complete more levels you will unlock extra features. These could include speedy boots to make Flo walk faster, coffee machines so you can keep customers satisfied, upgrades to the interior to attract more customers and more tables so you can serve more people at once. You will even move on to serve at new restaurants after you’ve achieved a high enough score.

The tricky thing with this game is if you don’t serve the customers fast enough they will leave and you’ll lose money. The levels get harder as you progress and I must warn you, the Xbox version is pretty tough.

But I love this game, always have ever since I was a child. It’s just such a simple concept but so addictive because it tests you’re concentration skills. You’ve got to be quick to do multiple things at once.

But one thing that takes it from being fun and addictive to being frustratingly difficult is some of the levels. I still haven’t been able to achieve the goal that is a score of 10,000 on the final level of the second restaurant. You will get a higher score in the game by performing the same actions multiple times in a row but this is just impossible to attempt when you’re trying to concentrate on all the customers at once.

So if you have managed to complete the game or you’ve got further than I have then get in touch and tell us how you did it!

And if you’ve never played a Diner Dash game before then It’s probably a good thing because it’s amazing how much time you can spend serving virtual customers.