General
Cookie World is a game where you can build a cookie business. You will have to do everything, which includes buying ingredients, inventing recipes, setting prices, upgrading your store, managing your money, participating in bake-off contests and dealing with customers.
All of your competitors are displayed on the ranking page, sorted by net worth. Net worth is the money in the bank plus the value of all your upgrades.
Reputation is the percentage of all the people in Cookie World that have heard of your store and would shop there. It is possible to go negative which means that people have heard of your store and would keep away because they don't like it! Your reputation will change depending on how well you serve your customers. The higher your reputation is, the more customers you will get on a daily basis.
First Steps
When you start the game, you will have $500 and a sample recipe. First, you should go into your recipe section and modify it to contain some sort of ingredient. Maybe Chocolate Chips. Then go to the store and purchase 10 units of each ingredient in your cookie. Then click on the arrow to start your first day. See what your customers have to say and you will probably want to tweak your recipe and restock some ingredients.
Restock
From this screen you can see how much of each ingredient you currently have. You can also see the prices for each item. If you need more of something, you can purchase it from this page.
The total is automatically calculated as you add stuff to your cart. If the "purchase" button won't click it's because you don't have enough money to buy your items.
Keep in mind that ingredients spoil if you don't use them for a while, so it might not be wise to purchase a ton of something if you don't plan on using all of it soon.
Also, the prices for ingredients changes from time to time, so if you see a good deal on something you might want to stock up a little, but not too much, or might not be able to use it all before it spoils.
Shopping List
The shopping list is a special feature for Braingle subscribers only. You can use the shopping list to set the amounts of ingredients that you commonly order. Then, you can easily purchase the entire batch with one click. This saves you a little time whenever you need to restock.
Secret Recipe Book
Here is where you can create all your secret cookie recipes. We have started you out with a plain cookie, but you will surely want to start adding interesting combinations of different ingredients.
To create a new recipe, type in a name, the number of cookies you want to make per batch and the amount of each ingredient. Each day that you sell a certain recipe, you will get feedback from your customers. This will allow you to tweak your recipes to make a better cookie.
The checkbox next to each recipe indicates that this recipe is active. You can have as many recipes in your recipe book as you want, but your store only has the capacity to use a certain number of recipes at a time. When you start, you can only have 2 active recipes at a time. This number can be upgraded from the "upgrade" page by purchasing upgrades to your display.
Your customers' tastes are constantly changing, so you need to stay on top of them. A very popular recipe today may not be popular tomorrow. Keep this in mind when you are selecting recipes.
If you use the wrong amount of sugar, your customers will complain about the sweetness of the cookies. Customers will complain that your cookies are too rich or too bland of you use the wrong amount of butter. Incorrect flour will get your customers to complain about soggy or dry cookies. Eggs are critical to a good cookie recipe. Use the wrong number of eggs and your cookies will be too heavy or too delicate.
Set Prices
The cookie price is the amount that you charge your customers for a cookie.
Advertising is how much money you are going to spend putting ads in papers and passing out flyers. The more money you spend on advertising, the more customers you will have.
Upgrade
Upgrades are where you can spend all your extra cash. There are six different categories of upgrades. When you purchase an upgrade, it isn't replacing something else in that category. It is advantageous to own multiple upgrades in the same category.
Location. Having the right location can make or break a business. Each location that you own will increase your traffic which means more people will be shopping at your store. Why not get all 4 locations?
Refrigeration. As you know, ingredients spoil, but you can help prevent this by buying some refrigeration.
Display. When you start the game, your store only has room for two different types of cookies at a time. If you want to sell more varieties of cookies (which customers like), then you will need to upgrade in this category. At some point, your customers will demand that you serve more types of cookies. Be careful with this upgrade, because you'll need to keep the extra shelf space stocked, otherwise customers will start to complain about a lack of variety.
Cooking. You can only cook so many cookies per day. At some point, if you become popular, you will have more customers than you can serve. At this point you might want to make an investment in an oven to help bake more cookies.
Entertainment. People are impatient. If you can provide some entertainment, they might stick around longer in your store, which means they will buy more cookies.
Extra Revenue. Sometimes, just selling cookies isn't enough. With these upgrades, you can earn some extra money on the side. If your reputation goes down on any particular day, your customers will be so upset that they wont give you any extra revenue, so be sure to keep your customers happy if you want your upgrades to generate money.
Bank
At the bank you can take out a loan or pay off an existing loan. You can get loans for amounts between $500 and $1000.
All of the loans come with a 10% interest rate. This means that if you take out a $1000 loan, you will owe the bank $1100. Each day you must pay back 1% of your loan. So, if you owe the bank $1100, you will owe the bank $11 on your next day. This amount will be automatically deducted from your daily profits.
Taking out a big loan is a quick way to get into a debt which is difficult to get out of, so be careful.
Historical Records
On this page you can see all your statistics for previous days. You can track your performance and see how changes affect your profits.
Bake-Off
The Bake-off happens once a day (a real world day, not a cookie world day) and is your chance to compete with the other stores for the best cookie recipe.
There is a $50 entry fee for participating in the contest. Ten dollars go towards paying the judges to taste all the cookies. The remaining $40 goes into a pot for the winner. If you have the winning recipe, you could potentially win a lot of money. You also get a little trophy .
Selling Cookies
Once you have purchased ingredients, selected your recipes and set your prices, you are ready to sell cookies. Click the arrow and you will go through one day of sales. On this page you will see complaints and compliments from your customers. You will also see how many cookies you sold, what your profit was, and other useful information. From this information, you can tweak your recipes, or upgrade your store if necessary.
Keep in mind that the preferences of your customers will change from day to day, so the complaints and compliments that you see today may not be what you see tomorrow. You will need to adjust to the tastes of your customers.
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