Cooking Diary: The Recipe for a Six-Year Success Story
MYTONIA, the developer behind the wildly popular time-management game Cooking Diary, reveals the secrets to its six-year reign. Whether you're a fellow developer seeking inspiration or a devoted player curious about the game's creation, this "recipe" offers valuable insights.
Key Ingredients:
- 431 captivating story episodes
- 38 unique hero characters
- 8,969 diverse in-game elements
- 905,481 thriving guilds
- A wealth of engaging events and contests
- A dash of humor
- Grandpa Grey's secret ingredient (revealed later!)
The Cooking Process:
Step 1: Crafting the Narrative:
Begin by developing a compelling storyline rich in humor and unexpected twists. Populate your world with a vibrant cast of characters. The narrative unfolds across numerous restaurants and districts, starting with your grandfather Leonard's Burger Joint and expanding to locations like Colafornia, Schnitzeldorf, and Sushijima. Cooking Diary boasts 160 unique culinary establishments spread across 27 distinct districts, ensuring a diverse and engaging experience for players.
Step 2: Personalization and Customization:
Enhance your game world with an extensive array of customizable options. Include over 8,000 items, encompassing 1,776 outfits, 88 facial feature sets, 440 hairstyles, and over 6,500 decorative items for player homes and restaurants. Add pets and 200 customizable pet outfits for added personalization.
Step 3: Dynamic In-Game Events:
Introduce a continuous stream of engaging tasks and events. Leverage robust analytics to ensure event design aligns with player preferences and data-driven insights. Create diverse yet complementary event layers, offering individual enjoyment and cohesive overall gameplay. August, for instance, showcased nine simultaneous events, demonstrating the potential for layered event design.
Step 4: Building a Thriving Community:
Cooking Diary's success is partly attributed to its over 905,000 active guilds. Introduce guild events and tasks strategically, ensuring a gradual rollout and seamless integration. Avoid scheduling conflicts to maximize player engagement.
Step 5: Learning from Setbacks:
Embrace mistakes as learning opportunities. The Cooking Diary team's experience with the initial pet introduction in 2019 highlights the importance of iterative improvement. By adjusting the pet acquisition system, they achieved a 42% revenue increase.
Step 6: Strategic Marketing and Presentation:
The casual games market is highly competitive. Stand out by employing a robust social media strategy (check out Cooking Diary's Instagram, Facebook, and X presence!), creative messaging, contests, and collaborations. Cooking Diary's successful partnerships with Netflix (Stranger Things event) and YouTube (Path to Glory event) exemplify strategic collaborations.
Step 7: Continuous Innovation:
Maintaining success requires constant innovation. Cooking Diary's longevity stems from its continuous updates, including event calendar adjustments, gameplay balancing, and the introduction of new content.
Step 8: The Secret Ingredient: Passion!
Grandpa Grey's secret ingredient is passion. Creating a truly great game requires genuine love for the craft.
Download Cooking Diary on the App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore, Microsoft Store, and AppGallery.