Zombie Cafe

Zombie Cafe is a freemium mobile simulation video game created by Capcom's American subsidiary Beeline Interactive, Inc.^[1] The game has players run a café by cooking dishes and serving customers with the help of zombies. It was released for iOS^[2] platforms on January 26, 2011 and was formerly on Google Play for Android. Zombie Cafe received positive reviews since its release.^[3]

Gameplay[]

Players uses zombies to cooks dishes and serve customers, gaining experience. There are a variety of menu items, each differing in price, number of servings, XP, and time to cook. As the restaurant builds up savings, the player can purchase more recipes, better furnishings, fancy novelties, and can infect more customers. The player can also purchase pets and expand their restaurant. Along with growing their business, players can send their zombies to raid enemy cafés to obtain or unlock new recipes.

Players can add friends on Game Center to order food, collect fees, share recipes, and raid each other. Players can also connect to Facebook to form a franchise with their Facebook friends.

The waitstaff in the restaurant is made up entirely of zombies. While the customers can be transformed into zombie slaves to serve food and take up dirty plates, they must not be overworked. If their Energy levels get too low, they will start attacking customers, lowering the café rating. A low-Energy zombie must be sent to rest for a period, or the player can instantly replenish the zombie's Energy with Toxin.^[4]^[5]

Dishes[]

Dishes are the main source of income in Zombie Cafe. Each dish varies between cook time, cost, number of servings, and amount of XP given. A stove is required to prepare and cook all dishes. While cooking, the player first spends money on the dish then they are required to wait a certain amount of time before serving it to the customers. Dishes can also be looted during raids for free, and new recipes can be unlocked if the player has not yet unlocked them. The player can cook a previously unlocked dish if they have enough money and an open stove. The dish requires a chef or zombie to be cooked but it can be paused and resumed at any time.

Depending on the dish's cook time, if the player leaves a stove unattended for a long enough time or ignores it after it is finished cooking, it will burn. Once a dish has finished cooking, they can leave it unattended for a period of time depending on the recipe cook time.

To serve a dish after it has completed its cook time, the player can select his or her zombies or chef to serve by clicking/tapping on a serving counter, sink, or table. Servers will automatically take dishes to waiting customers and clear dirty dishes. They will need a clear path to every table, serving counter, and sink. If not, the zombies or chef will remain motionless.

Cooking is the best way to gain XP and level up a player's café. As a café levels up, the player can unlock new dishes that are found in The General Cookbook, with a total of 97 dishes. The highest level dish players can unlock is Yucky-soba (at level 100).

There are 320 recipes the player can cook in 21 different cookbooks and over 100 recipes from raids can be unlocked, including 34 rare ones. Many require special stoves to cook on. These stoves can be purchased in the store in the Utility section for Cash and can be upgraded by spending Toxin.

The second way to acquire a dish is by raiding an enemy cafe on the map. When raiding, there will be a random food dish on the counter. When the zombies win, it will be stolen then the food will appear in one of the fridges. From there, players can either serve the dish for the customers or unlock it as a cookable item. If a dish or recipe has already been unlocked, the only option left is to serve it.

There are 9 different dish variations: Spicy, Very Spicy, Fancy, Very Fancy, Bulk, Fresh, Frozen, Quick, and Very Quick. These rare and special variations are more valuable than their normal counterparts. Each can be unlocked through enemy raid cafés or through a friend's café (if already unlocked by the player's friends).

Customers[]

Customers are the people who consume the dishes and give money to the player. There are many types of customers with varying appearance, gender and occupation. Not only can customers come as pure human, they can also appear as supernatural beings such as mummies, vampires, aliens, superheros, deities, and some based on legendary creatures. Some characters in the game are based on living persons. The Japanese version has characters from the Mega Man series.^[6] Each customer that visit the café will depend on the player's level and the café's current rating, as can be viewed in the Zombiepedia. Every customer has a "zombie form", so the player can infect any patron they want into a zombie to work for the chef. The ones first encountered (from the tutorial) are usually free. Later on, newer customers will appear with varying prices, some with coins but most with Toxin.

The player can view a customer's attributes (e.g. Energy, Tip Rating, Speed, Atk. Strength) by clicking/tapping on the Info button on the lower right hand corner after the player clicks/taps on the customer. All customers have different stats; Energy ranges between 50 and 1250; Tip Rating, Speed and Atk. Strength ranges between 1 and 12. Customers with higher stats are more expensive, topping at 80 Toxin the most.

Raids[]

There's more than just growing the business by cooking and serving; players can also send their zombies on a raid. They can steal food and unlock new recipes if successful. New recipes will then end up in the player's fridge from which they can either serve it or unlock it. To defeat a café, the zombies must defeat the raid boss. Players can also have their zombies retreat by clicking/tapping on a white flag icon on the upper left hand corner. If unsuccessful (all zombies get killed), the player does not receive the recipe but can receive Cash if the zombies eat the customers or employees. Toxin can be acquired albeit rarely. Players can also invite their friends to raid each other.

The higher Energy and Atk. Strength zombies have, the better outcome of winning raids. Players can purchase Spcial Tombstones in the store for Toxin to alter zombie stats (making them stronger) or heal them. Some zombies, like Little Red, Huntsman and Granny Wolf, can turn into the Big Bad Wolf to easily defeat raids as they become invinsible and much more powerful in the process. The five robot pets (namely Midnight Panther, Royal Bear, Rage Bull, Golden Lion, Fiery Hound) can assemble into Amtron, a powerful bipedal composite robot, which can easily wreak havoc in enemy cafés. Players can even summon the Zombie Yeti (after purchasing as a Tombstone for 75 Toxin) and a maximum of three can be summoned at once.

Café rating[]

The café rating shows the reputation of the player's café, indicated by stars on the upper left hand corner. The higher a café's rating, the more popular a café becomes. This way more customers will appear. When customers finish their food and give you money, thought bubbles appear above their heads to indicate their feelings about the service. Happy yellow faces increase ratings and frowning blue faces decrease ratings. By making customers happy, the star rating will increase and more customers will show up, giving the chef more cash. If customers aren't satisfied or are attacked by an Energy-deprived zombie, the café rating will drop, affecting its popularity thus less customers will appear. A café should have enough seats and number of dishes to accommodate customers. Depending on the size of the café, the player may need more seats, more utilities, and more zombie servers to speed up the serving process. Certain items from the store will grant the café a rating bonus. Green blinking stars indicate that a café rating had just gone up during a player's absence and red blinking stars indicate that the café rating is now lower than it used to be.

There is a feature from Zombie Cafe which functions similar to reviews. It becomes available when the player's café reaches level 6. By completing four tasks in the "to do" list, the chef's café rating will gain a purple bonus star. Up to three bonus stars can be obtained, and they will only drop with the pass of time. The tasks are selected randomly from either raiding, serving, cooking, spending money on your café, collecting fees from friends. If the player has friends playing the game, the tasks will shift towards doing business involving their friends. After completing the four objectives, the player will gain one bonus star and a review will be shown. The player can also bribe the reviewer to complete the tasks by using 2 Toxin for each incomplete objective. The purple stars last temporarily, maxing out at 3 stars.

Tip Rating and Speed ensures higher café rating. Higher base-Energy can be important as zombies will take longer to attack a customer.

Store[]

The store is where the player can buy new content for the café. It is divided in seven sections: Featured, Decor, Utility, Furniture, Walls/Floors, Special, and Storage.

The Featured section shows the most notable content or recent additions to the shop; Decor contains floor decorations; Utility contains important kitchen utilities such as a stove, fridge, counter, sink; Furniture contains chairs and tables for the clients; Walls/Floors includes different wallpapers, floor tiles, windows and decorative wall objects; and Special contains miscellaneous content such as outdoor decoration (e.g. [Special] Tombstones, Pets), café expansion, any item that generates in-game money (e.g. ATM, Vending Machine), and any item that costs real money (e.g. Toxin Generator, Super Booster). The Storage section displays the items the player stored, which is unlimited (the Storage section also appears as a brown box icon on the lower right hand corner). The player can store all bought content from the shop after a certain level.

Items can be sold for 50% of their original price. Flooring and wallpaper in Walls/Floors cannot be stored, sold nor refunded if replaced. Tombstones can be stored but cannot be sold.

It is known as the shop (ショップ shoppu) in the Japanese version.

Zombiepedia[]

The Zombiepedia is a book containing a list of zombies, showing details of every zombie in the game, similar to the Almanac Entry from the Plants vs. Zombies series. It was added in the 1.3.6 update and is located on the right side of the game screen. Currently the Zombiepedia contains 225 zombies. It shows all the zombies' Energy, Tip Rating, Speed, Atk. Strength, price, the café rating requirement, and the player level requirement.

The Zombiepdia is divided in three sections: Featured (displays the most recently added zombies), Themed (showing zombies that represent their respective themes) and All (all 225 zombies).

In the Japanese version, there is an alternative to the Zombiepedia called Zombie Collection (Template:Lang-ja Zonbi Korekushon). However, it lacks the "themed" organization of the International version and doesn't give a full view of the zombies per page due to having over 1000 zombies available. The Zombie Collection also allows players to see the uninfected customer versions of acquired zombies, unlike in the Zombiepedia where it only shows the undead versions.

Meat Locker[]

The Meat Locker is used by the player to keep zombies that aren't in use so they aren't lost due to the limit of zombies working in the café (the maximum is 14 and there are 225 zombies in the game). It was added in the 1.2.7 update. The Meat Locker contains five hooks (meaning that players can store up to five zombies) by default, and the player can add five more hooks by spending 5 Toxin. This can be done 19 times until the Meat Locker can no longer be expanded (the maximum number of hooks is 100).

In the Japanese version, zombies working in the café and stored in the Meat Locker (ミートロッカー Mītorokkā) can be used in a "Sacrifice Kitchen" (生贄キッチン Ikenie Kitchin) to be turned into recipes that make the zombies stronger. Up to 10 zombies can be used at a time. This makes for a useful way to get rid of unwanted zombies other than firing them. Combining two identical zombies will give a bonus to its stats, indicated by a mark above their level. This bonus maxes out after eating four identical zombies. Sacrified zombies give experience based on their rarity and level.

Influence[]

The game is influenced by Dungeons & Dragons style role-playing games. In addition to money, the player earns experience points for the restaurant. As the restaurant gains experience points, it goes up in levels, and the player is allowed to add new zombies to the staff. New levels also unlock new recipes and new items available for installation in the restaurant.

As a unique twist on the SIM model, the zombie staff can be sent out to attack and raid other restaurants. If victorious, they will bring back food to either serve in the restaurant, without the time or expense of cooking it, or add to the menu to be cooked whenever the player chooses.

In-app purchases[]

Zombie Cafe offers in-app purchases.^[7] It is a slow game, gradually building up the funds to add or improve, but the player has the option of purchasing in-game Cash and/or Toxin to speed up the process. Some of the restaurant facilities and furnishings cost a great deal of money and while the restaurant has a relatively slow rate of earning money, the player has the option of spending actual money to purchase in-game Cash or Toxin. There is also a faster way of earning in-game money instead of spending real money: players can change their phone's clock to speed up the process.

Controversy[]

The game was part of a lawsuit filed against Apple Inc. Children were using their parents' devices to play games and were exercising the in-app purchase options, costing their parents a lot of money. Zombie Cafe was one of the games that children had used to run up expenses. As a result of the lawsuit, Apple made in-app purchases only accessible through a security check.^[8]

Collaborations[]

In 2014, Capcom made collaborations with Zombie Café by having characters from the Mega Man, Ghosts 'n Goblins and Gaist Crusher series appear in the Japanese version of the game for a limited time.^[9]^[10]

Reception[]

Zombie Cafe has received mostly positive reviews since its release. The game received 9.0 out of 10 by App Store customer ratings and Appolicious, HiTPhone gave it 8.0, Gamezebo's Jim Squires gave it a 7.0. Slide To Play and GameRankings gave it a lower score of 5.0 out of 10.^[11]