6-Year Cooking Diary: Recipe for Success

Cooking Diary is celebrating its sixth anniversary, and developer MYTONIA is eager to share the recipe behind their successful time-management game. Whether you're a developer seeking inspiration or a player curious about the magic behind your favorite casual games, dive in to uncover the secrets of Cooking Diary's success.

Ingredients

• 431 story episodes
• 38 hero characters
• 8,969 elements
• 905,481 guilds
• A generous portion of events and contests
• A soupçon of humor
• Grandpa Grey’s secret ingredient

Cooking Instructions

First Step: Make the Lore

Begin crafting the game's plot, ensuring it's seasoned with humor and unexpected twists. Introduce a vibrant cast of characters to enrich the narrative. Divide the story into various restaurants and districts, starting with the Burger Joint owned by your grandfather, Leonard. Expand the world with districts like Colafornia, Schnitzeldorf, and Sushijima. Cooking Diary boasts 160 unique dining establishments across 27 districts, ready to welcome a multitude of guests.

Step 2: Customize

Lay out your story and enhance it with up to 8,000 customizable items. Include 1,776 outfits, 88 sets of facial features, and 440 hairstyles. Add over 6,500 decorative items for players' homes and restaurants. For those who enjoy a personal touch, include pets and their 200 clothing options.

Step 3: In-game Events

Enhance your game with a variety of tasks and events. Use top-notch analytics to fine-tune your game design, ensuring that each event is both rewarding and engaging. The key to successful events is layering them in a way that each stands out on its own while complementing others. For instance, August showcased nine diverse events, ranging from Culinary Experiments to Sugar Rush, each enjoyable individually and collectively.

Step 4: Guilds

With over 905,000 guilds, Cooking Diary is a hub for community interaction. When introducing guild-related events and tasks, do so gradually and thoughtfully. Avoid scheduling events that conflict with each other to maximize participation and enjoyment.

Step 5: Learn from Your Mistakes

Great recipes evolve from learning and adapting. Cooking Diary's developers faced challenges, such as the initial flop of introducing pets in 2019. After adjusting the pet acquisition model through the Path to Glory event, they saw a 42% revenue increase and happier players. Embrace mistakes as opportunities for growth.

Step 6: Presentation

In the competitive casual games market, available across the App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore, Microsoft Store, and AppGallery, standout presentation is crucial. Utilize social media effectively, engage in creative marketing, run contests, and stay attuned to trends. Cooking Diary's vibrant presence on Instagram, Facebook, and X, along with collaborations like the Stranger Things event with Netflix and the Path to Glory event with YouTube, exemplify successful strategies.

Step 7: Keep Innovating

Maintaining a top spot requires continuous innovation. Cooking Diary's success over six years is attributed to constant updates, from tweaking the event calendar to refining time-management gameplay. While the game evolves, the core ingredient—passion—remains unchanged.

Step 8: Use Grandpa Grey’s Secret Ingredient

The secret ingredient is soul. Passion fuels the creation of a great game. Experience the heart and soul of Cooking Diary on the App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore, Microsoft Store, and AppGallery.