This morning, I bought myself
Adventure Bar Story on Android, after trying out the free "Lite" version the day before. This game has been out on iOS for ages, apparently, but is new to Android and as such is on cheap special offer at the moment. :)
It's a cheap and cheerful JRPG; sort of Recettear / Atelier type game. Graphically quasi-16-bit style, reminding me of things like Ragnarok Online.
You run a "bar" (though I'd say it seems more like a restaurant). You
buy / collect ingredients, discover recipes, set restaurant prices and
stock levels, fight old-school turn-based RPG style. You only level up
by eating food, not for killing things (though it seems like you do
learn combat skills from battle). So you have to decide what your priorities are, because eating most of your shop's stock is probably not the most profitable way to run a business!
It's got some flaws - sometimes the text seems to skip quickly, the
interface is a little annoying - as though they added a virtual d-pad as
an afterthought then made it the default control system.
So for example, you're holding your device with thumbs on the screen in
d-pad position and it changes to menu options that need you to select
via touchscreen, with a "cancel" button placed right under your left
thumb where the d-pad was a second ago. Oops, cancelled it, start over.
No big deal but it gets annoying.
Seems well worth the £0.81p it's priced at on the Android Marketplace, all the same. :)
