The developers are working under the assumption that you've played a LOT of very similar games, so the tutorial is very weak. Most of it I figured out as I went along and for some things I found answers online. The answer that was hardest to find is how to change the Shopkeeper's look after you unlock the ability to make changes to your character's appearance. It took a lot of searching, but here's the answer: You have to buy a mirror. Then click on the mirror and that activates a menu so you can change your look. If that information was anywhere in the game, I missed it. Achievement notifications pop up at the busiest times and disappear so fast in this game. It would also be nice if you had a few minutes of "night/closed" time to get some stuff done without drastically cutting into your "daylight/open" hours. Also, I'm not really getting the whole employee situation in this game; mine never seemed to do much of anything and then one day she just didn't show up (no notification about that in the game). I had plenty of money, so she was getting paid. No game message that she quit, no explanation about it. She sure didn't seem overworked. There are other minor irritations so far, but those are the main issues I have with the game at this point. Moving furniture is a bit glitchy, but I can get it to work. I didn't see anything in the game about this, but I found out online that when you select furniture or shop decorations as if you're going to move them, you can hit the F key and return it for the full price you paid. Would have been nice to know that sooner and this should have been in the tutorial. What I do like: Love the options to play in different modes. There is a lot of room to customize things in this game and unlocking new options as you go along keeps it interesting. The look is fantastic. With some extra beta testing and adjustments, I think this would have been a 5-star game for me.
First thing to know: there is no separate tutorial; you can only learn by playing Campaign mode. No quick overview; instructions are spread out very slowly while playing in Campaign mode. Instructions are vague and leave out key information. Maybe if you've played other games in this series it's not needed, but if you're starting with Game 3, this becomes a real pain. I don't find the layout very intuitive compared to other sim/strategy/management games. The actual gameplay is fun and leaves lots of room for creativity. I'll probably love the sandbox mode once I get through all the Campaign mode. I nearly asked for a refund on this since it's so frustrating to learn and so inconsistent about what makes customers happy. My biggest complaint (aside from a really weird ingredient list to work with and metric system measurements) is that the customers are absurdly obsessed with the pizza's weight. They can love the price, combination of ingredients, and amount of ingredients used, but then they will be unhappy with the pizza's weight?! It wouldn't matter to me, except that you have to make each type of customer 100% happy with at least one of your pizzas (they don't all have to like the same one though). And you can't advance to the next level of the Campaign (meaning you can't finish the tutorial) until you make everyone happy. If you're finding it impossible to please some types of customers, you should know a few things. First, you need to spread out your ingredients MUCH more than you would in real life; go very light on each kind of topping. Most important: on the Cell Phone, you need to keep clicking on the arrow, using the drop-down menu to switch between customer types. For example, if you're trying to make Big Shots happy, click away (select Teen), then click back as you build the pizza. Reactions change when you click away and then back. Final thoughts: I'm really glad I got it when it was 90% off. I wouldn't advise paying full price.
