If you give a cat a pancake... you get invested in a deep drama and restaurant simulator.
Campfire Cat Cafe & Snack Bar (sometimes shortened to Campfire Cat Cafe) is a restaurant simulation mobile game by HyperBeard Games.
The game takes place in a world of adorable anthropomorphic animals. Our main character is Chef Gino, a cat who used to run a successful cafe with his wife, Alessia. However, Alessia left years ago to attend a prestigious cooking school, leaving Gino to run the cafe with no one else but "Big Mouth" Oliver, another cat who serves as an entertainer. Things change one day when Gino gets a letter from Alessia telling him that she's coming home soon.
But there's a problem. Gino has let the cafe go to shambles because, as he states, "I'm a chef, NOT a manager!" It's up to the player to help him build it up again.
The game focuses more on managing and upgrading the restaurant than on cooking. A variety of animal customers will enter the cafe one at a time and tell you what food they want. When you tap on their order, they will immediately get it, as long as you have that food item on the menu. As you get more acorns (the game's currency), you'll be able to get more menu items, upgrade the items in your restaurant, unlock additional rooms, hire more staff, and more.
In addition to normal customers, you will also get special NPCs who enter the cafe from time to time. Some of them will offer minigames that will get you more acorns and other important items, while others will boost your cafe's productivity for a limited time in exchange for watching an ad. Ads are not mandatory in this game. In fact, you can even unlock special tokens that let you skip one ad each.
This game, having released in March 2023, is notable for having a surprisingly involved story for a mobile game. You unlock one story segment at a time once you have enough Reputation points for each segment. You can also feed your staff members bread from the bakery to get unique dialogue that reveals more about them. The staff members and special NPCs, as well as certain customers, each get their own introductory cutscene when you first unlock them. (In the case of customers, it happens the first time they finish eating their order.)
This game contains examples of:
- Affluent Ascetic: Daddy Doge is described as a "billionaire, the rare kind that lives humbly." The "living humbly" part is supported by him wearing an average-looking button-down shirt and regularly going to a cafe that isn't quite prestigious yet.
- Angry Chef: Played with. Baker Mario has a perpetually angry expression and shouts everything he says. However, his dialogue indicates that, rather than hating his job, he's actually very serious and passionate about it.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Witty Bran is a special NPC who helps the player get more flour for the bakery. He's a lion, and his mane looks like it's made of wheat.
- Bunnies for Cuteness: Bunnies are one of the most common species for customers. They're all very cute and small. One notable example is Camping Rabbit, the first customer to appear. With his big, droopy ears, purple fur, and calm expression, he almost looks like a plushy.
- Cute Kitten: There are a lot of cat characters, and they're all very cute. One especially notable example is Down Kitty, who is clearly a young kitten. They are the game's Mascot instead of Chef Gino, an adult cat, presumably because they're cuter and more marketable.
- Delivery Stork: Implied. "On Time" Jett is literally a mailman stork who occasionally delivers presents to the player containing acorns and other useful items. However, his character description states that he also brings "other pleasant news" which could be a reference to the traditional role of storks delivering babies.
- Detective Animal: Slither Holmes, a snake who is a Sherlock Homage. He dresses like traditional depictions of Sherlock and works as a detective.
- Education Mama: Hoodie Bear's bio description states that he's studying for his college entrance exams because "mama bear" wants him to do well.
- Furry Confusion: Fish and lobsters are used in some dishes... but one of the special NPCs is an anthropomorphic manta ray.
- Genial Giraffe:
- Smiling Daniel, an anthropomorphic giraffe, is a pen salesman who is named for his friendly and charismatic personality. In his introductory cutscene, he strikes up a conversation with Salesman Frank, the cafe's salesman, and politely haggles with him for hours.
- Averted with Angry Lawrence, another giraffe who is perpetually angry due to being sunburned. He makes no attempt to be friendly at all.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Alessia frequently appears in photos and other flashbacks, but she is always seen from the back to hide her face. She is eventually seen from the front in one story segment where Gino has an Imagine Spot about her.
- Honest Corporate Executive: CEO Leo, one of the customers, is a corporate executive lion with a friendly demeanor. He is very generous to the player when paying for his food.
- Jerkass: Richmond stands out as being obnoxiously mean in a cast of otherwise friendly characters. He's a snooty rich cat who is persistently rude to Gino and his staff. He frequently insults Gino's cooking, boasts to Gino that he (Richmond) has gone to a reputable cooking school while Gino hasn't, and he openly accuses Gino's wife, Alessia, of being a thief.
- King of Beasts:
- Parodied. CEO Leo, as his name indicates, is a lion who works as a corporate executive. His character bio calls him "king of the concrete jungle."
- Averted with Witty Bran, a standup comedian lion. He's one of the few special NPCs, but he doesn't seem to have any sort of high position.
- Mascot: Down Kitty (so named because they're always looking down), one of the customers, seems to be the mascot for the game, as they appear in most of its marketing images.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Flowy Mandy, a special NPC, causes customers to drop more acorns when she dances. In her introductory cutscenes, the other characters argue about whether she creates the acorns by magic, or if they're simply blown in by the wind.
- Mellow Mantas: One of the special NPCs is Flowy Mandy, an anthropomorphic manta ray with a calm expression. She dances for the player, causing more acorns (the game's currency) to appear.
- Mona Lisa Smile: The game's backstory involves a Funny Animal version of the Mona Lisa called "the Meowna Lisa." It was gifted by Richmond's father to the cooking school as thanks for accepting Richmond into the school. Like the real Mona Lisa, the Meowna Lisa was stolen by a thief.
- Nice Mice: One of the special NPCs is Wiz the White, a friendly wizard mouse who runs a minigame where a slider goes back and forth, and the player has to stop it at the right time. The in-game explanation is that you're helping Wiz make the biggest bubble, but in terms of gameplay, what this does is help the player get more acorns or diamonds.
- Rambunctious Italian:
- Implied with Chef Gino. There's not much to tell us about his nationality except that his name is Italian (and so is that of his wife, Alessia.) However, he fits the personality of this trope. In his default expression, his burly arms are folded, his eyes are closed, and he has a big grin on his face, showing confidence and strength. He also gets very romantic and emotional (to the point of Manly Tears) whenever he thinks about his beloved wife.
- Also implied with Baker Mario. Again, his name is the only indication of his nationality. He has a perpetually angry expression and shouts everything he says. However, unlike most Angry Chefs, it seems like this is because he loves his job so much that it's serious business to him.
- Sherlock Homage: Slither Holmes is a detective snake who dresses like traditional depictions of Sherlock Holmes.
- Shout-Out:
- One character is an anthropomorphic shiba inu named Daddy Doge.
- Baker Mario's description states that "We are skilled in baking, unlike a certain red plumber."
- Sensei Bruce is a tiger who wears a karate outfit. His description states that he "could have been a film star, in another life."
- The game's backstory involves an elusive, mysterious thief known as "the Scarlet Paw," which is almost certainly a reference to the Crimson Paw from The Bad Guys (2022).
- Ranger Harrison is named after Harrison Ford and dressed like Ford's iconic character Indiana Jones. Harrison's character description even says that "his archeology feats inspired many films."
- In one story segment, Gino imagines Alessia as the mysterious thief, the Scarlet Paw. She's wearing a black catsuit and mask, and also holding a whip, making her look like Catwoman.
- Snakes Are Sinister: Averted with Slither Holmes, one of the customers. He's a snake who happens to be a Sherlock Homage, so he seems to be heroic enough. In-game, he acts just as kind and harmless as any other customer.
- Threatening Shark: Subverted with Bad News Burk, one of the customers. He is a bipedal shark. His character description states that he originally came to the cafe to "collect 'fees'," implying that he's some sort of gangster. However, his description then states that he loved his food so much that he paid extra. Despite his menacing appearance, he acts just like any other customer, walking around and exploring the cafe. He doesn't do anything bad.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Downplayed. When you first get a new type of customer, they will always order the same food, which will be something you just unlocked on your menu, and which have to buy in order to serve it to them. Once you buy that food and serve it to the customer, you've basically "unlocked" that customer. Once a customer is unlocked, they will sometimes order other foods besides their original order.
- Vegetarian Carnivore: Downplayed. Bad News Burk, a shark, first orders roasted zucchini. However, like all customers, once you unlock him, Burk will start to order other dishes, some of which have meat.
- We Sell Everything: The cafe is a very versatile place. Despite being called a "cafe," it's actually more like a restaurant that serves all sorts of high-class dishes from around the world. There are additional areas that you add onto the cafe to make it even more diverse:
- First is the bakery, which seems like a natural choice for a cafe, although it also comes with a boat ride, of all things.
- Next is the campgrounds, which has tents that guests can pay to sleep in, along with a hot tub. (It also has an "Expedition Lodge" where the player can dig for treasure, but it seems like this is only for the player, not for the customers.)
- Weird Currency: In this world, the currency is acorns.
- World of Funny Animals: The game takes place in a world of anthropomorphic animals. Most, if not all of the story-relevant characters and staff members are cats (Most are domestic cats, but Ranger Harrison is a snow leopard and Xoco is a lion.) The minor NPCs are more diverse in species, including animals such as rabbits, black bears, pandas, llamas, giraffes, more lions, and others.
- Wrong Restaurant:
- This can be invoked in-game. From the start, the menu lists all the food items that can be unlocked throughout the game, but there are two things you need to do before you can serve them to customers. First, you need to unlock them, usually by getting a certain number of Reputation points. Second, you need to purchase them. You only have to buy them once, and then you can serve them to customers indefinitely. Customers have one or two conditions to unlock them, and these are almost always (if not always) different from the unlock conditions for the food item they order. So, you will occasionally have a new customer come in and ask for a dish that you haven't unlocked or bought yet. You can either keep them seated at the table until you buy that food item, which is inadvisable unless you're really close to buying it, or you can tap their order, at which point they will get angry and leave.
- This can also be inverted if you happen to unlock and buy a food item before you unlock the customer that goes with it.
