Storyline

Diner Dash brings us story of Flo, an office lackey fed up with monotonous, unchanging pressures of everyday life and work in big city. Thus she hucks everything out window and runs off to find something better to do with her life. As it turns out, that is starting a restaurant chain in suburban America.

We are taken right into her quest as a restaurateur as Flo herself; an energetic, enthusiastic owner who fulfills every role from hostess to server, bartender and busboy (thankfully, cooking is provided by a overworked dark figure behind counter).

Beginning with her very first diner, and ending with an upscale surf and turf joint, we take on Flo's every activity; seating her guests, handing out menu’s, delivering breadsticks, taking and delivering orders (not to mention cocktails), clearing tables, and seating next guests. All this in pursuit of money with which to improve her existing restaurants or even open up a new one!

Navigation

The navigation is easy enough to pick up on first try; it’s point and click (click on a dirty table, she runs over and clears it, click on table awaiting their food, she delivers it from counter). This does get quite challenging in later levels where it becomes necessary to click on other activities while Flo is executing current one (the game creates a queue of activities which Flo will execute one by one until they are complete).

Ease of Use

In terms of ease of use, this game is fantastic. I wasn’t surprised when I was able to pick it up rather quickly, however I was surprised when my grandmother was flying through at a faster pace then I managed to muster. While easy to get going, it does require a master’s touch to reach highest scores at end of levels where constant motion is a must. But this just adds to playability, and is a welcome change to contemporary games which prove easy to complete with no added challenges.

Playability