The game is pretty fun. I would say this is more of an idle/simulation game. I love the different aspects to the game, I will say that leveling up is very confusing. I’m not sure how it calculate the rating points but I tried to level up my staff ratings, each staff will have ratings points they’re worth when you level them up, but when I go to level them up it gives you way less than the ratings point they show on the staff. So I feel like there’s some misleading there, it’s very unclear of how they calculate their rating points. that’s my biggest issue with this game. However I enjoy the details and it’s fun when you finally level up and unlock more things. I love the different events they have going on, Although they can also be somewhat confusing as well. With the thanksgiving event you had to convert the diamonds into other points but when I did it, I never received the points so I had essentially wasted my diamonds. I believe they should be able to make this much more clear and direct and less misleading so the player doesn’t waste their time and resources.
Well it was fun for a while, until I got to Silver Level 2. Then I got stuck because the experience needed to get to the next level was much higher then previous levels. Then it took me a long time in real time to meet the criteria, and once I did that, realized the next level was going to be even worse. So what was a fun, mindlessly entertaining game became boring and repetitive. And I could only play for maybe 1/2 an hour twice a day, because I had to wait for the money to grow while game not active so I would be able to use game money for the upgrades needed to level up. (Money only grows for 11 hours in real time then stops, hence twice a day. You can’t not play for a few days, rack up loads of game money and spend like crazy until next time.) So I never got to open the buffet, or deliver meals, which would’ve been a new chapter in this game. Unfortunately I don’t like the game enough to sink a lot of real money into game to go up some levels.
I found this game via an AD on TikTok. At first there is a lot to do since you are barely starting off your store. You don’t have staff so you have to take orders, clean, and serve the food. But once you start hiring people the game becomes self sufficient. So then it’s about unlocking the next room and then the next room think of them as levels. But this too has an end (there are 5 rooms max). Once you are done with unlocking rooms it becomes about unlocking a “to go” feature, this is where I’m stuck. It’s impossible to get the last feature as the way to unlock food is collecting 3 elements via various ways in game. The problem begins when you realize getting these food items are completely randomized. I’ll give you an example: I just accumulated 100 each of these elements and unlocked 100 food items, ALL OF THEM WERE REPEATS! So now I’m stuck where I am with no hope for the next level. Mind you I’m the type of person that doesn’t mind paying for game extras to which I dumped about $70 in this one, yea I know stupid but it was fun while it lasted. Pro tip, there is no real cooking being made in this game, it’s NOT cooking mama. A message to the developers, think of a way the last few foods items needed to unlock gold level 3 can be more easily obtained cuz this method is not working.
I really liked this game when I started playing it. It has been around three months since I downloaded it and I have been on it everyday. But ever since I got to the “silver” level, it has been unnecessarily difficult to go forward. Now I know that with each new level the difficulty rises, but this is too much. It took me around 2-3 weeks just to get to silver two. Even more time to get to silver three. It has been a while since I’ve gotten to silver three, unable to get to gold one. While it’s not impossible to raise your “service rank” f2p, it’s going to take a long time. I’m not even sure you can get it to the needed amount f2p. You can keeping purchasing these (with in-game currency) things called “notebooks” which when you have enough you can raise the level of an employee. It takes me around 5 days to get the necessary amount (from doing the daily arcade). This game also urges you a lot to buy things. Without using real money, you can basically not move forward in the game in a reasonable amount of time.
I used to be a huge fan of this game. As others stated, it was relaxing and didn’t push you too hard to make in-app purchases. That said, I wanted to support the game developers and I truly enjoyed the time I spent on the game, so I purchased probably around $200 worth of bonus packs. That’s a lot, right? Definitely, but I felt it was worth it given the small amount of happiness the game gave me everyday.
One day last month, the game updated with a new rewards scheme where you can earn additional offline bonuses based on the number of ads you watch, or the packs you buy. I was incredibly upset to see that all the money I spent before the update was not reflected at all in this new scheme. Am I incentivized to spend more? Absolutely not. To the game devs, I hope this review sends a message about how you can better treat paying users and how easy it is to lose one. An easy fix would be to honor past purchases, even to some extent if not in full, if you’re going to suddenly change the way rewards work.
This last update took away watching ads for diamonds…which doesn’t make any sense because it was making money for the creators cause diamonds were very useful ie people would watch ads to get them. Also, diamonds gets you chances in the arcade which you can redeem those points to get training books, but now that’s difficult to do. The new cumulative rewards thing is also a terrible idea. 600 ads for 100 diamonds when before you could get 100 diamonds with just 10 ads. Make it make sense. Creators imo are just getting greedy at this point. I was enjoying this game very much until this latest update :( hopefully they’ll bring back the watching ads for diamonds, but right now I’m definitely playing less.
Update: Glad they decided to restore the watching ads for diamonds with this new update! Don’t take it away again please!
I was completely and totally addicted to this game… until today. The newest update was installed and I was so saddened to see this end up like the rest of the free mobile games out there. One of the things I loved about My Hotpot Story was that it was one of the first games I played that didn’t absolutely bombard me with ads and I didn’t feel like just another dollar sign as a user. The devs seemed to genuinely be for the user experience, and there was a good balance between gameplay and watching ads to accumulate what I needed to advance in the game. With the new update, the devs have completely shifted their focus away from the user experience and essentially turned this into a P2W game. There is no incentive to play anymore if I have to watch 600 ads (that is not an exaggeration) or pay money out of my pocket just to get what I need to advance in the game. After seeing that, it was an immediate uninstall for me. To sum it up, I will not be returning unless the P2W setup and cumulative rewards are scrapped. I don’t recommend anyone waste their time on this game. It’s either going to pull a lot of money out of your pocket or take you months, that will likely turn into years (also not an exaggeration), just to advance.
This last update took away watching ads for diamonds…which doesn’t make any sense because it was making money for the creators cause diamonds were very useful ie people would watch ads to get them. Also, diamonds gets you chances in the arcade which you can redeem those points to get training books, but now that’s difficult to do. The new cumulative rewards thing is also a terrible idea. 600 ads for 100 diamonds when before you could get 100 diamonds with just 10 ads. Make it make sense. Creators imo are just getting greedy at this point. I was enjoying this game very much until this latest update :( hopefully they’ll bring back the watching ads for diamonds, but right now I’m definitely playing less.
1 STAR BC OF NEW UPDATE made it 5 so my review gets seen. ever since the 1.6 update the game became a money grab. it was such a new simple game with optional ads if you want to gain diamonds which honestly made me want to grind and play the game more. now i’m unable to watch an ad to claim 10 diamonds which really helped with acquiring training books which was already hard before but taking the optional ads away makes it difficult and nearly impossible ! especially since you can’t have more try’s on the arcade which helps a lot with getting more training books! i’ve been grinding on this game for months now trying to get to gold 3 but now i don’t even have a motivation to play as much since now they are really trying to get you to spend irl money. i don’t understand the point of taking away this option other than a money grab. and either or you still receive when we do watch ads !
I'm not usually a gamer, but I stumbled upon My Hotpot Story and found it quite enjoyable. I've been playing it for months now, and while leveling up was slow, I found there were enough daily tasks to keep me engaged. The option to watch ads and earn diamonds was helpful, especially for the little arcade game that rewarded me with training books. However, the recent update has removed the option to watch ads for diamonds, making it almost impossible to progress without spending actual money. As a result, I find myself bored and resorting to changing furniture back and forth just to pass the time and because I want to just keep playing the game. This seems like a greedy move by the developers, especially considering that the majority of players are kids who likely won't spend money on the game. I agree with other recent reviews, particularly the detailed one by StrawberryroseG, and urge the developers to revert to the previous system. If they do, I'd be happy to rate the app four or five stars. Until then, it's a disappointment. They’re also not active on social media. They only have 1 post on Instagram. It would also be helpful if they could be more active online with updates and news. Please fix this. Thank you for reading.
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