Toca Kitchen 2 is the sequel to the original Windows Phone game for children that puts your child in the kitchen with a wide range of ingredients to prepare some rather unique meals.
Toca Kitchen is a part of a series of games that are designed to challenge your child's creativity. The cooking game will let your child experiment with different proteins, fruits, vegetable and other food ingredients and let them get messy without creating a mess. You also have three dining patrons to serve as taste testers.
Available for low-memory Windows Phones and Windows 8 devices, Toca Kitchen 2 comes across as a fun, time-consuming game for our younger readers.
The menu layout with Toca Kitchen 2 is rather minimal with the opening menu offering a single option to play the game, which will transition to a screen where you get to choose your dining patron. You have a boy, girl and something that resembles the Abominable Snowman.
Once chosen, the patron will be seated with an empty plate in from of them. Swiping to the right will reveal your pantry to the left of the screen. Swiping to the left will reveal your kitchen to the right of the screen. A salt and pepper shaker icon sits in the lower right corner of the screen, which will pull up your seasoning options.
The pantry includes 24 ingredients such as:
- Chicken
- Shrimp
- Steak
- Corn
- Watermelon
- Onion
- Octopus Leg
- Spaghetti
- Rice
- Peach
The kitchen tools includes a cutting board, frying pan, deep fryer, pot (with boiling water) and blender.
Game controls are all touch related. Tap and drag ingredients from the pantry or refrigerator straight to the plate or into the kitchen to be prepared. The cutting board works much like Fruit Ninja and the blender has a red button that will automatically blend and pour your mixture into a glass with straw.
Once you are done in the kitchen, tap the back arrow to send the cooked item back to the plate. If you want to fry a carrot and then slice it up, you will need to fry things up, send it to the plate then drag to the cutting board. In that respect, the navigation can be a little cumbersome but nothing that would frustrate a young gamer.
If you are looking to cook more than one ingredient at once, here is how I was able to do it.
- Drag the ingredients you want to use to the serving plate in front of the patron
- Pull up the seasoning menu (the salt/pepper icon) and drag the ingredients to the empty plates on this menu
- Open up the kitchen tool view (skillet, blender, fryer, etc.)
- Drag the ingredients from the seasoning menu to the kitchen tool and cook away
There may be an easier way to do this but without a Help Section, a lot of game play is figured out through trial and error.
Once your meal is plated, you can add condiments such as salt, pepper, ketchup, lemon juice and soy sauce to the meal. When everything is just right, tap and drag the food to the patron's mouth and they will gobble it up quickly. If you have created a tasty meal or one that really shouldn't be tried again, you will tell by the reaction your dining patron has.
Overall Impression
Toca Kitchen 2 is a fun, entertaining game that will let your children play in the kitchen and explore their creativity. The game has no rules, not timers and an endless supply of ingredients to experiment with.
Navigation may take a little time to get used to but nothing too difficult and I wouldn't mind seeing a tutorial or Help Section. Learning the game as you play isn't a bad thing and does help promote experimentation. Luckily, the stress level with Toca Kitchen 2 is non-existent so you can take your time exploring the game without any pressure.
Nonetheless, the game is a nice sequel to the original and I wouldn't be surprised if a few parents sneak in a little game time with Toca Kitchen 2. It is a free gaming title and available for both Windows Phone and Windows 8 devices.
