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Like a lot of classic arcade games, it’s a very simple concept to begin with. Then it finds ways to subtly build on that concept, ramping the difficulty level up and down until you’re tapping the stylus back and forth as fast as you can think.

That’s the thing that Diner Dash does so well. Except for a few, fairly rare rough spots, it knows exactly how hard to be at any given point, and how much easier or harder to get as the levels introduce new things to do.

Career Change

Strip away the presentation and it could be about anything, but on the surface this is a game about restaurant management. You’re a waitress – you seat your customers, take their orders, fetch their food, deliver the check, bus the tables, and hopefully do all of the above fast enough to bring in a respectable tip. Every command uses a tap of the stylus, dragging customers to their seats and then tapping their tables when they want you to come over and serve them.

Bonus points come from combinations. If you bus more than one table in one trip out on the floor, or collect more than one order, that nets a few extra dollars in recognition of your efficient task management. There’s also a chance to combo the same type of patron – seat the same color of customer in a different seat more than once, and there’s bonus points in it for you as well.

This may sound pretty simple, and it is in the beginning, before the game starts throwing curveball after curveball. Some patrons eat slower than others, for instance. That makes it harder to clear their tables for other customers. Families have kids that throw fits and make noise – better not seat them next to easily-annoyed businesspeople. Most of the time it’s easy to tell when a customer wants something, but when they’re the type that constantly talks on their cell phone, it’s easy to miss when they’re actually calling for the check.

There’s more, of course, much more. Diner Dash takes just enough time getting more complicated, though, so as soon as you’re used to the latest wrinkle, another one shows up. The difficulty curve has some well-tuned little dips, too, so that after a tricky new gameplay element arrives – like reservations, for instance, which mean a certain table has to be clear at a certain time – the game slows down a little to let you catch your breath and get a handle on it.

All About Atmosphere

The game’s graphics, again in that classic arcade tradition, are the bare minimum needed to keep the gameplay together. At the same time, though, they have some cartoony charm, and they change up from level to level in some fun ways. Each progressive stage is a different restaurant (you work your way up from a diner to classier joints), and after each individual “shift” (there are 10 of those per restaurant), you often get a chance to customize your place with a choice of different background graphics. You might be able to pick different facings for the counter, say, or one of a couple styles of jukebox. Small things, sure, but eventually you build a place that really feels like your own.

Most of the tunes on the ‘box are pretty simple. There’s still a few catchy surprises, though -- the “Retro” restaurant (level four, a colorful ‘80s throwback) backs the action with a modestly-disguised imitation of “Turning Japanese” by the Vapors. It doesn’t last long before repeating itself, but it has the useful effect of lulling one’s mind into a mood more conducive to quick and smooth stylus taps.

Zen and the Art of Slingin’ Hash

Intense alpha wave production only goes so far, though. Eventually you have to get very good at this game if you want to progress beyond key points in the career mode. If there’s a hitch in the difficulty curve, it’s that after a certain point – and that point doesn’t necessarily announce itself very loudly – you have to get much better at stringing together move combos and seating the same colors of patrons in sequence. The occasional level is impossible to pass otherwise. That’s hard to do without being psychic, or simply memorizing the patrons that arrive during a shift, which isn’t a heck of a lot of fun.

There’s a compliment buried inside there, though. Diner Dash is addictive enough that you’ll still want to bash through those crazy tough levels. When you’re willing to stick with a game through its flaws, that’s usually a pretty good sign.

Article by: D. F. Smith