Diner Dash by PlayFirst is all about a young waitress just doing her job. Several kinds of customers come in, wait for you to take them to their tables, then wait again for you to take their orders, then wait again for you to deliver the food, then they pay as they leave. Then you take the money, clear the table for the next customer, and do it all over again.
While the game is simple enough, the faster the customers come in, the more money you make. You begin to start juggling the customers and the differences in the time it takes for them to order and how long it takes them to eat. Each customer has his or her own peculiarities – the only variety in the game, but as more and more customers come during the busy hours of the restaurant, the more difficult the game becomes.
Or, you can try the Endless Shift if you are looking for the real challenge in Diner Dash
As the title of the section implies, the game becomes a test of skill and mastery of time management along with a great deal of determination. The Endless Shift starts with customers piling in droves, and continuously. It is all up to you to see how long you can manage to keep the restaurant open, or the customers from leaving. The game ends when all the customers are unhappy with your service.
The Kinds of Customers in Diner Dash
Diner Dash is just a game after all, and you can judge its political correctness of the game from the care and attention the game makers put into the graphics for the iPhone app. The customers are the only source of income for Flo, so keeping them happy is the only point of the story. The happier the customers the more money you make – that is all you need to remember.
If you reduce the game to the number of steps you need to interact with a patron, you can identify the differences between customers, and the amount of time they need to finish a particular step. There are customers who are patient while waiting for a table, but demand immediate attention when they order. Some diners take long to order, but take their time eating. After playing the game for a while, you should be able to identify the characters that come into the restaurant and anticipate how much time you need to keep your patrons happy.
There are some techniques to the game that allow you to earn more points or money. You can match the attire of the patron to tables of similar colors. You can also try doing a sequence of predetermined actions within your routine, and a bonus is waiting for you if you finish the actions in order while keeping your patrons happy.
The Story of Flo
The back story of Flo is a funny one – the humor of the game is lost in the drudgery of waiting tables. Flo starts out as an employee in a large stock company. After the usual story of being unhappy in her job, she starts at the bottom again, and tries out waitressing in a diner. Investing in her success at her first job, she moves on to bigger and bigger restaurants until the goddess Shiva tests her to ten trials at a heavenly restaurant – but Flo is given two more arms to help her. After finishing the ten trials, Flo turns into a goddess, seeking earth to help out other souls to the heavenly art of waitressing
Other Features in the Game
In Diner Dash, Flo begins at the bottom, waitressing her way into profit. Each restaurant on the app has ten levels of difficulty, and there are five more restaurants to unlock on the free version, so keep waitressing well. As an added incentive, if you have had enough of the six restaurants on the free version, you can purchase via IAP new restaurants – one in particular is called the Spooky Section. And remember, Apple has categorized Diner Dash with mild tobacco, alcohol or drug use in the game – you may find it through the Diner Dash IAP options after unlocking it.
And here is a treat for iPhone users – you can play your own music. While the game of Diner Dash is not really about the multimedia experience, the heavy graphics or the sound but about time management, the music becomes annoying after a while, especially when things are getting too hectic and you simply have too much on your plate. On the iPhone, you can switch the music to the iPod Music option which you will find in the main menu, and you won’t be bothered by inane music from Diner Dash for the session.
How to Play
The final feature of the game is that it is addictively simple. After all, the game is about time management. While it can completely immerse you with the simple tasks it sets before you. Diner Dash can eat up a lot of your time without you even feeling it pass away. Try to keep your playing in check – the fame is teaching you the value of time, and it seems senseless to keep wasting it once you have learned it.
That is how you play Diner Dash on your iPhone – conservatively. The challenges of Diner Dash is purposely created to keep your attention, as all good games do. So practice it in your real life – once in a while, you can play Diner Dash just to remember what it means to really value time. The alternative is to keep playing ad infinitum.
Diner Dash
Category: Games
Price: $2.99 / Free
Developed By: PlayFirst
Requirements: Requires iOS 3.0 or later
Compatible With: iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad
Other OS: Android, Facebook, Blackberry
Our Rating: 
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