Cafe Life Review

Have you ever dreamed of owning your own cafe, but never had the time (or money) to make your dream come true? Or at least would you love to manage and bring to greater glory such a cafe? If so, then you’re certainly playing Cafe World or Restaurant City… but things might change with the launch of Cafe Life, the newest virtual cafe game on Facebook.

Created by Icebreak Games, Cafe Life has a very delicious description: “In Cafe Life, you take the role of head chef in your very own dessert cafe. Create delicious confections such as cupcakes, tarts, macarons, and more!

With decoration styles ranging from Victorian to Modern, you can design and customize a unique cafe with your own sense of style and flair. Invite your friends to play Cafe Life and compare your designs with your friends’s cafes.”

However, the reality is not as beautiful, especially if you’re already playing Zynga’s Cafe World: there are very few differences between the two games in terms of concept. This means that you have a limited number of stoves to cook on (number increases as you level up), a limited number of stoves and space – all of them being allowed to go up as you level up and add more neighbors.

The cooking itself is the same: you click a counter, wait for the indicated time and serve it. The only thing that makes Cafe Life different to Cafe World is the fact that after finishing a dish you have to click on it a few more times in order to add the “finishing touches”. But this, imho, is just a waste of time and not a real addition, especially since in CW you do this before the dish is ready.

You can also visit your neighbors and help them around once per day, send and receive gifts and hire your friends as waiters, plus use the money you own to decorate your cafe. There’s a really nice range of items to use and indeed Icebreak Games adds new items regularly and overall the visuals are colorful and charming – a bit better than those of Cafe World, I would dare to say. Or at least I like them more.

However, for those who are already playing Zynga’s title and who consider it to be enough, there would be no point in starting to play Cafe Life since it offers absolutely no extras – just a few sweets instead of the steaks and alien stews.

Still, this does not mean that Cafe Life is a poorly done game: for those who try it before Cafe World and up to a point Restaurant City, the game will certainly prove to be one of high quality and it might even gen them hooked. But either way, it still is Cafe World in terms of concept and it offers absolutely nothing to make us consider it a better or at least different game.

You can give Cafe Life a try here.