Review: Cake Mania

It should have been called "So you want to have carpal tunnel?"

On the recommendation of a friend, I decided to give Cake Mania a try. I'm admittedly a fan of the so-called "casual game" genre. Casual games are games that are not intended to be played to completion in a few long sessions. They're games in the old-school arcade sense, meant to be played in short bursts for entertainment. The levels tend to be repetitive, getting more and more difficult until either you are killed off or you reach the end of the game.

Cake Mania is part of the MultiClick subgenre started by Diner Dash. The main mechanic of this subgenre is clicking on actions. Some of the actions can be queued; some actions can only be done when ready. The skills of the subgenre are multitasking and memory.

The theme of Cake Mania is appealing to anyone with a sweet tooth. You're a hardworking granddaughter trying to save your nana's bakery from being bought out by the evil megalomart. To accomplish this, you must make ever-increasing profit goals by making and selling cakes to a demanding set of customers. The graphics in the game are cute without being overdone, and the gameplay is easy to learn but very addictive.

You can play Cake Mania in a shortened "demo" version on a number of websites, and many sites allow you to download a full-featured (but time-limited) demo version.