Diner DASH Adventures Reviews

I’ve given this game a year. I actually love the concept of the game, but unless you willing to shell out a bit of money, you’ll never win a competition, you won’t get hardly any of the special characters, and what finally did it for me is that every time you play a new House of Thorns or boat event they start you over with new items that start at zero so all the coins and gems you pay out leveling up aren’t useful at any future event. I have spent cash on this game; probably more than my son pays on one video game that he gets to keep everything as he progresses. I even broke down for the current event and spent the money for the “Special Menu” and started with 100 gems (saved them for two weeks) and I’m still not going to get close to the top spots in the events. The other major issue I have is that in the Food Truck events you earn all this “cash” that you can’t do anything with other than upgrade stuff in the trucks. After awhile you have to pay so many gems for the updates that you are stuck so you don’t get to keep your earned money because you are “maxed out” (can you imagine if they did that in real life). The game has just become stagnant because it’s just starting over again and again. It’s fun for about six months so if that’s what you’re looking for you might enjoy this game. If you’re looking for a long-term enjoyable game that you can build on, this is not it.

As one reviewer put it, you don't need to drop any money in to play the game, you'll just be playing levels repeatedly until you get enough free gems to get the upgrades you need. Which I did for a few months, because the levels are well-designed, characters are unique, and the music is easy to listen to. But the bugs in the game test my patience on this.
glu mobile as partnered with Tapjoy to bring free gems through completing actions such as opening ads, completing surveys, or making outside purchases. This helps with f2p, but getting in and out of the Tapjoy menu is a hassle because it is slow and freezes often. Luckily, the gems you earned get mailed if you have to close the game. If you try to watch an ad within the game to earn free gems, coins, or 30 more seconds, the ads sometimes "load" infinitely and you're forced to close the game and lose all the progress on the level you played and the play-energy used.
Other quality of life issues include the clippy loading screen on launch and the slow or laggy camera movement when trying to scroll across the map (which only gets bigger and laggier as you advance in the game).
It's a good game that's easy to get into, but also one that gets repetitive and is easy to move on from.

I’ve always been a fan of Diner Dash. I’ve been playing this version for awhile now and while it’s a somewhat enjoyable game, it’s very obviously about monetizing as much as possible and comes across as a really sleazy used car salesmen or the goons in this game. They need to hire the monetization designers from games like Fire Emblem Heroes or Final Fantasy Brave EXVIUS where I actually don’t mind paying for things in the games because they weren’t sleazily trying to squeeze the money out of me. I paid for the games because I wanted to support it. Positive things. Not negative. I don’t want to bitterly give you money because that’s what I need to win...because I’ll be less willing to. I want to give you money because it’s a good game that I have fun with and enjoy and deserves support.

The positive aspects of this game is that the art is cute, the music is fun, and the actual game design isn’t bad but I feel is hampered by the predatory monetization aspect. Instead of some levels being about skill in resource management, it’s more about upgrades...

Update: With the addition of Skillet Mode, it’s much easier to earn gems. I’ve added an additional star to my review as it seems like they’re less greedy. I’ve also put more money into the game too.

This was turning into what could potentially be my favorite game. I’ve already spent over and hour playing it and I just started! And that’s big because I’m not a big game person. But the moment you shortened my time to play? You basically lost me. I get that you have to rig the system to try to get people to buy from your shop like with more supplies, keys, or diamonds. But randomly putting a time limit? Here I am just serving the customers and having a grand old time, when my fun is cut short because “closing time”. First of all, in the real world, If I had already seated the customer and their food had already been ordered, they can stay past closing. They don’t get thrown out because it’s time to close. I’m sure a lot of workers wish that’s how it really works, but it doesn’t. And secondly, you rigged the system to where there is no possible way to finish that round without having to buy more time. There are ways to get around not buying the diamonds, but earning them. There are way to choose the fix you want without using keys. And there is even a time limit for the supplies so you don’t have to buy more. The “store hours”, if you will, is the final straw. So much potential. But you just lost a player. I know corporate doesn’t mind one player when they have 1,000’s-1,000,000’s of players. It’s just sad because I truly liked this game. And that’s rare.

I’ve played every Diner Dash game and most of the iterations (Wedding Dash etc) since they debuted so I got this game the minute I got a new phone. It has the same fun and gameplay of the other Dash games (although what the heck happened to Flo and why is she now a sharp-faced witchy looking redhead?) and I’ve given it 4 stars for that.
But yes, it’s pay to play. It’s not if you are the type of person who wants to play for about 20 minutes and stop. On other games like this you only lose a life if you lose the round, but on this game you lose lives even for winning. Your lives run out in about 20 minutes and then you can spend gems or money to fill them. Free gems are offered but not enough to cover say a 2 hour playing session. If you don’t upgrade products you can’t progress in the game and the products become outrageously expensive. Even farming rounds over and over you don’t have enough and need to buy gems to upgrade.
They need to either A) make you only lose lives if you don’t pass the round and lower the cost of upgrades or B) offer a ‘buy full version’ like they always did. A little suspicious that that isn’t an option at all on this game.
I’ve spent quite a bit to keep playing this as much as I do.

Listen, I’m never the type to leave a bad review or even review a game at all. So if I go out of my way to review a game it’s because it’s really good or really bad. In this case it’s really bad. The whole dynamic of the game is messed up. Firstly, I’m going to start with the star system. So you play rounds to earn stars to complete upgrades in the town / restaurant. Cool. Also comes with an upgrade shop where you can spend your coins on upgrades to make more money. Cool. Here’s what’s not cool. After you upgrade all your kitchen / restaurant properties the first time it then requires diamonds on the second level upgrade or higher. Diamonds ARE REALLY HARD TO EARN. You’ll get like 5 a day tops. Each upgrade is like coins and 3-5 diamonds getting higher and higher as you upgrade. But you’ll KEEP playing cause what else are you supposed to do. But then you get to higher levels that you won’t be able to earn all your stars because your upgrades aren’t good enough to keep up with the standards of the customers AND the level requirements that get your stars. So they make it REALLY hard to advance unless your sitting there for hours OR you pay. Ofc. These games always want money money money... it’s pathetic. Just make the game playable at least. A waste of time in my opinion. ON TOP OF THIS... the other diner dash games that were actually FUN are now removed from DinerDASHAdventures Store. Classic empire move. Play cooking dash at least.. but this game... don’t bother

So in light of all the bad reviews, I have to give a good one. I never review games either because I’m a lazy person when it comes to that. I gave this game a 5 star review. All the people complaining seem to be the impatient people playing this game. It’s pay to win ONLY if you’re impatient. I’ve only spent $10 max on this game and that’s because I was impatient the day I spent it. This is the game I’ve spent the most time on out of all my games and just beat all the story 2 days ago. You absolutely do not need to spend money to beat the game or the story. Every time a notification pops up about there being new deals in the store, I log on and grab the gems from there. They even made the first deal free for you people complaining after the first few months of it being out. The second deal to buy is IN GAME COINS, not real money to buy the gems. So if you’re a patient person and you’re interested in this game, ignore the bad reviews and play it. Everyone wants a trophy today but no one wants to put in the work to get there. Developers, I’m really looking forward to the VIP you’re putting in the game. I already buy the VIP every week for Kingdom Hearts mobile game. Also thanks for making this game and keep up the good work.

I like this one better because I personally like having to do the cooking levels instead of the puzzles Iike many others. This game is pretty good, I like that while fixing up the city you can pick from different options. What I have been noticing lately that I’m not a fan of is when you finish a level, the bar in the top corner shows how many stars you earned like it usually shows for me that I got 1 star. But then once your supposed to get them it almost never gives me one, it only gives me coins. It even showed that I got 2 stars on the bar once then it showed I only got one, but as soon as the stars went in, it went from 1 to 3. It’s annoying that it shows me I get stars but then give me none. This hasn’t started since yesterday and I’ve only had the game for a few days so far. There are also diamonds, but they can be hard to get and to upgrade anything or anyone it can cost up to 6, but this number could go up. It takes awhile just to get one but then you can lose lots of them just upgrading one thing. Then unfortunately, this effects your level, and you have a higher chance of not getting anything.

You guys be stealing gems that we get when we do offers and than we write about it you still don’t give us our gems and than you start ignoring people when they contact you guys and write about how we can’t open up the game and we can’t play any games, I have wrote about lives I paid fir with my real money and I lost them either by your game stopping and restarting on its on. Some items in the game don’t work they be locked, It’s just not right to take hard earn money from us why we going through a pandemic. Than I wrote you guys a week and 1 day ago and still having heard anything back from you guys. It’s cool you got free money off me and said forget me, because you all not worried about us paying our money for Gems that get took from us are bags that is lives that we pay for that get took from us. I just don’t understand why nobody having said I’M SORRY and tried to Fixs my issue I been playing your game since 2018 and this how I get treated. Guys if you looking for a game like this and people that care about your feelings and what’s going on within they game “PLAY COOKING DIARY” You will think me later. I really can’t believe you all done me like this. I guess I got to try to see if my bank would give me my money back now that I spent with you all and let my bank come after you all for they money.

I’ve played all the Diner Dash games. This one is great too. It is very similar to games like Garden Scapes where you earn rewards to decorate the town and advance the side story. I have had the game for three months and have not had to pay to advance the game but it does take a lot of patience to play that way because gems are hard to come by. What surprises me is how buggy and laggy it is. It’s a brand new game and I have an iPhone 12 on 5G. Occasionally it lags when I scroll by certain areas of town. Also since three updates ago, I have been getting multiple ad playback errors and it causes me to lose a reward that I had already earned. For example, when playing the Truck Bucks mini challenge, after I finish a round, it will occasionally offer to let me continue the round to earn more rewards if I watch a 30 sec ad. But more and more often when I click the to play the ad, the whole game freezes, nothing loads, and so I have to completely restart the whole game. Since your plays are subtracted before you start a level, that means I lost my play and any advantages that I used and it didn’t save what I earned. Very frustrating!!!! Also, this game is rated 4+ but several of the ads are about games that involve producing & selling weed and casinos, which are not age appropriate.

Ok first I just wanna say I don’t usually leave bad reviews. Usually if I don’t like an app I just delete it and move on, but since there was such poor customer service I thought I would warn others. First I want to say that I really wanted to like DinerDASHAdventures. I was a huge Diner Dash fan, which is why I downloaded DinerDASHAdventures in the first place. I can confirm what the other reviews say about not being able to advance without spending actual money is true. It is expected with a play to win game, but early on in the game you reach the level of having to pay just to advance in the game.
I had won 45 min. of free game play. I was 10 min. into the free gameplay, and set it down to grab a drink which took about 5 min. (Honestly took less than that) Anyways, when I sat back down I had lost all my free play. I tried to reach out to customer support to fix this error. They replied pretty fast, but basically called me a liar, and refused to fix the error. This fix wouldn’t have costed them anything, and honestly I would probably still be playing. I don’t have a problem with pay to plays, and usually spend money every month on my favorite apps buying things, but I won’t take being called a liar. I’m not the kind of person that would lie just to get things as I’m a gown adult that spends money each month on digital purchases. If you’re a Diner Dash fan like me, don’t waste your time on DinerDASHAdventures!

This is overall a fun game that is easy to
advance with some patience. I think there are adequate ways to play without spending money. Gems are available for free throughout the day and by watching videos. I enjoy the game and I’ve finished all of the star levels so at this point I’m just working on the VIP levels and saving to upgrade. This is good because it gives me a reason to play while waiting on the next update. Overall it’s a nice game to play quickly to pass a bit of time or take a break during the day.
I do wish that when a timed bonus is achieved you could choose when to start it. It is frustrating to win the bonus only to have it be wasted because you are out of groceries. I’ve tried not to claim the bonus until Im ready but it’s easy to do by accident. The other thing I don’t like is that the boosts are automatically checked so they have to be removed each time before starting a level. I would rather choose when to use them and I will never buy one because it’s too easy to use them inadvertently.

Latest update added “Father Time” scenario. Each time I try to play this imbedded series, I get an error that I lost connection……reload. I cannot play this scenario, and it only plays for 21 days. I haven’t been able to play it for two days now. I will not be able to accomplish what I want out of that scenario if you don’t fix the problem. I can play other areas of the game without “lost connection”.

Edited 2/2/22: Really upset right now! For the last few days, this has happened 2-4 times each day…. While playing, everything seems fine until suddenly in the middle of dashing around, everything stalls mid stride. Sometimes the characters will move a step or two again in a Jersey motion, then DinerDASHAdventures closes. Meanwhile, I have lost all of the stuff I was using for that scene. I have lost several of my allowed tries at the Game of Thorns scene, and I have lost several of each of my bonus items (fast flow, quick customer, color match) not to mention when I had achieved my goals or I should have received diamonds. None of that gets recorded before it closes, and when you reboot, it is as if you didn’t earn anything and you lost all your bonus/tools. Really starting to irritate me enough to stop playing (and I have been playing this for years)

Games like this are a rarity in the mobile app world. It’s fun and you can successfully progress without having to spend money. And the game doesn’t become less fun if you progress without spending money like most mobile games would do. I enjoyed Cooking Dash and a lot of the fun elements for that game definitely transferred here. Not to mention that they offer free gems every day several times throughout the day so you can easily save up for upgrades. And challenges allow you to earn gems easily as well.

If I had to make one complaint though, it would be nice if each level didn’t automatically set boosts if you happen to have them. There have been multiple times where I accidentally started a level with a boost I didn’t want to use because I forgot to unselect it. I personally think that the boosts should be manually set if you want to use them. Or at least the option be presented in the settings for you to decide if boosts will be applied automatically based on whether or not you have them or manually activated prior to starting a level.

It’s a fun game, however, the daily goals are ridiculous and impossible to finish. I don’t have 50 gems every day to spend on upgrades, people, or anything and everything else that cost gems. You know, some games make you use just coins for upgrades.. Please fix the daily goals, they are impossible to complete without spending real money everyday, too much real money for very little gems. I’m not paying $5 for 1 upgrade worth of gems. I might spend $2 for 50 gems, but not $5 for 20 gems. Might as well say “for every dollar you spend, you relieve 1 gem!” Everything in this game requires gems. This game isn’t hard at all, it’s just gem hungry and stops you from having fun because there is almost no way to earn gems, except the daily goals, which I nor anybody with no money can complete. This is the first game I’ve played that makes you spend your gems on what they want, not what you think will make the game fun. Everybody wants money, stop being selfish, make this game playable and fun, not restricted and demanding. This world is hard enough as it is, games help to distract us and make us feel accomplished, stop taking away the heart of gaming and replacing it with gems and greed, and make a great game actually worth time and money.

The servers keep having issues, and because of this, a handful of my boosts and keys I accumulated by playing the game and by purchasing have disappeared. It’s quite annoying. Especially when I have to be the one burdened to prove that the game has issues. Thankfully, I recorded when it happened. I just need to know who to address. The only game I have yet to encounter any issues with is the Sims FreePlay. Why can’t all apps follow their lead when it comes to avoiding bugs and other issues that end up cheating us out of our money and time? I’ve played that game since 2016. Not once have any of my items/currency disappeared, nor have they had any server problems. I’ve only been playing DDA for less than a month.

On a more positive note, I will commend the musical composers of this game. Diner Dash has always had catchy tunes since I played the game on PC way back when. Anyway, I don’t know who to reach out to or what can be done about these issues, but I refuse to purchase anymore gem/coin currency packs and I would recommend others not to do so either until they can maybe reassure that the game will stop crashing and stealing our purchased/earned items. It’s theft.

The game was really fun at first. But after a few level your upgrades cost most of your gold and basically all of your gems. You have to upgrade everything. Stuff in the restaurant, relationships with customers and so on. If you don’t upgrade the equipment, things don’t move fast enough for you to complete the level. If you don’t upgrade your relationships with customers, you don’t earn enough hearts to complete the level. If you don’t have enough time to earn the right amount of hearts you can’t move on. And upgrading just the equipment or just the relationships isn’t enough. You need to upgrade both to complete the levels. When you only receive one or two gems once in a while and have to upgrade two or three things that take 2 or 3 gems each it’s impossible. Unless you buy gems. You can buy 20 gems for $2 and after about 3 or 4 upgrades your gems are gone. Then one or two levels later it’s time to upgrade again or you won’t win. You can also complete tasks on bogus websites designed to spam you but they don’t work. I did one and never received my gems. I won’t be playing anymore unless changes are made that it’s either easier to get gems, you get more gems for your buck or less upgrades. This game was not designed to just make a small profit. It was designed for greed and nothing else.

The actual game is enjoyable but every time DinerDASHAdventures has an update, there’s always a massively frustrating, timely and ridiculous downloads that follow. DinerDASHAdventures already has problems due to their servers not being able to handle the game as is, and the load that they put onto the user is just unacceptable. I put off downloading the most recent update because I knew that the the update would have a subsequent download that takes forever and I was right. I kept DinerDASHAdventures open for 30 minutes and only 2 parts had downloaded, but the rest of the sections were still halfway finished and remained that way. DinerDASHAdventures will not allow you to play until you download whatever update has been put out, and the packages have been increasingly cumbersome and timely. I play other games and I update them regularly but I never experience this kind of issue, even if there’s an additional download that has to download after the update, only this one. It’s very ridiculous and ruins everything to the point that I’m about to delete it from my phone, because more and more these updates are just unacceptably and massively frustrating. Why would a gameplay developer pass that kind of data requirement onto their users?

I love all the Diner Dash games, so I hate to give 2 star review but after reading some of the other reviews on here all I can say is SAME.
I was so excited to play this game but after weeks of grinding to get diamonds I have reached my limit.
I complete every daily challenge possible, log in throughout the day while I’m at work to get offers from the store and I still cannot catch up on upgrades. Today for instance I completed my daily bonus challenges and am awarded 15 minutes diamond rush. Awesome, this is where customers have a chance to drop diamonds when playing levels. Too bad for me because I have 0 groceries to play anymore levels now since I had already played my 50 groceries previously which took a whopping 5-7 minutes!!! In 20 minutes I’ll have enough groceries to play 1 level which takes 2 minutes to compete but guess what no diamond bonus because that perk will be over by then! So to summarize levels are entirely too short, diamonds are a pain to get, upgrades eventually get ridiculously expensive (10-12 diamonds to upgrade something then realize you won’t even serve that in the next chapter) please balance the game out and I will gladly spend $2.99 on 20 diamonds if I knew it would get me more than 1 or 2 upgrades

It’s fun but after awhile it gets frustrating. Everything cost gems but gems come slowly. The first upgrade of everything should be strictly coins and after that it shouldn’t be 8 gems just to upgrade something. It should be way more attainable. I even do the daily goals, daily deals, AND daily deliveries as well as watching ads with offers to maximize my gem count and it can still be unrealistic. Sometimes you’re offered one gem from each of those so that’s only 4 and then you have to wait at least 8 hours for another gem. It can take three days just to get 8 gems at times.
Second- I’m at the fish shack on the ocean and I have upgraded everything at least once and still can’t pass certain levels. I upgraded two items at once and STILL couldn’t pass levels getting anymore stars or anything. I even have three days of free play (almost over) and can’t get anywhere.
Third- the specials levels shouldn’t cost gems to upgrade stuff. You already don’t get enough. I’ve played beatrix’s day off multiple times and I’ve passed three levels all together because you can’t get anywhere without upgrading, same with game of thorns. It’s ridiculous.

I’ve always loved Diner Dash & always will but I think the creators need to start listening to the reviewers. For every solo complaint about the cost & time spent advancing, there are plenty more dashers not speaking up because not everyone likes to take the time to write a review, or considers leaving a review to be a hassle. (Let’s be honest, clicking stars or “Not now,” is way easier.) I’m not denying that I haven’t purchased gems, but I’ve reached a point of shame realizing how much time & money I’ve spent with a lesser return from the game & its creators. & come to find out other dashers have complained about this for a while now? I feel a little foolish, for sure. But hey, if I don’t pay someone will, right Diner Dash? I’m just about done adding to this cash cow. & having to wait for my energy to be refilled only makes me search for new games to play in the meantime. There will come a day when other games will fulfill my interest for more rapid gameplay & the Diner Adventures app will be quivering with the other games of my past as I make more room on my phone. Guess it’s a good thing DinerDASHAdventures company dabbles in more than just the Diner Dash fandom, otherwise they’d do something about this. Bummer.