Games like Stand O’Food HD prove that the iPad is a superior gaming platform to the iPhone. Of course, it’s not as mobile as its smaller counterpart, but the graphical clarity and interface options that open up for the larger screen make any iPad game far more exciting. When you look at the iPhone version you notice that everything is squashed together; on the iPad however you have ample room for all of the different elements and most importantly you know exactly what a customer wants (only half is visible on the iPhone).

The game itself is a fun time management title that places an emphasis on rudimentary puzzle solving in order to pry out various ingredients to make up a customer’s sandwich. This is because in the restaurant there are several conveyor belts that carry the basic ingredients, and you have to select from each one to create the order; in the precise order that is displayed above the customer’s head. It can be prone to random chance, which is why there’s a number of different features to help you out; firstly, the undo arrow near the top right of the screen; secondly, the plates that you can buy to place ingredients on and swap them should you need to; and lastly, the sandwich boxes which will help you out if you have all of the right ingredients, but not necessarily in the right order—the customer will pay full price for boxed sandwiches. Of these, the latter two need to be bought, so make sure you have enough plates and a good stack of boxes should it all get too much.

It’s somewhat of a shame that the arrow isn’t immediately obvious as an undo button—we chanced upon it completely accidentally—but otherwise the controls work seamlessly and are exactly as you’d expect. Complex orders can be queued, so that you can tap a few conveyor belts to get your result and each action will be performed in turn; once a sandwich is made, the customer receives the result; if you have a toaster then it will be automatically toasted and then served. This allows you to focus completely on the ingredients and sauce bottles, and occasionally the jukebox if your queue is getting impatient. One thing made us laugh though; salads still get toasted even though they aren’t in a bun!

In addition to the variety of ingredients on the menu (burger buns, lettuce, cucumber, onions, burger patties, bacon, egg, cheese and more), you can choose to buy sauces to complement the various meals; or perhaps add a sandwich toaster to receive a bonus for each sandwich dished out. Plus, there’s a few other upgrades that help out too; a fan for cooling down the restaurant making customers stay longer; a jukebox that puts customers in a good mood; and a coffee maker to increase your productivity.

There’s over 80 different meals to be found in the game, ranging from small salads to large, meat stacked burgers and depending on your location you will serve up a different selection of them. You travel from small burger parlours to large fast food chains nearing the end of the game, and what’s more is that it’s not just simply a linear path through; there’s instances where you can choose between two or three different outlets. Of course all of your upgrades are carried over from place to place.

Even with the large assortment of orders that can be placed, you won’t lose track thanks to the colourful, stylised graphics that make each ingredient easy to locate in a sandwich. Thanks to its uncomplicated layout, Stand O’Food HD is a pleasure to play and once you become familiar with it you can have a blast racking up sandwich after sandwich.

It’s certainly true that Stand O’Food HD is a fun filled experience. Its quick fire rounds will test your reflexes, and will impress you with two different modes; Meal Quest being the main portion of the game and Lunch Rush which gets increasingly hard until you become overrun with orders that you can’t fill. We’d easily recommend it.

Media gallery

• 
• 
• 
• 

More by this developer

Virtual City, B

Review by Ben Briggs, September 20, 2010

Paranormal Agency HD, C

Review by Ben Briggs, June 21, 2010

Supermarket Mania, B

Review by Ben Briggs, March 30, 2009

Why not try...

---

• 

  G.Blacksmith

• 

  Airport Mania: First Flight

• 

  Astro Ranch

• 

  Kaloki Adventure