Hungry Hearts Diner is an idle cooking and management game where players discover recipes, prepare meals and serve them to customers throughout the day. But once explored in depth, the game offers a sweet and endearing story filled with enthralling characters with unique backstories and history.
Coupled with delicious recipes unlocked and found throughout the game by upgrading the diner and developing friendships between characters, Hungry Hearts Diner makes for a fantastic game that is worth the experience and time put into it.
The overall story follows an elderly woman taking up her family diner after her husband takes ill and is unable to continue watching over it. Picking up his recipes and beginning renovations for the building, she serves her neighborhood tasty meals and meets all kinds of characters coming through her sliding doors.
The game is set in an early era of Japan and showcases traditional meals and snacks of Japanese cuisine. More difficult recipes can be discovered and unlocked by earning enough tips from customers and delivering their favorite food can help unlock their backstories as well as increase friendship among characters.
From businessmen to a young girl who just moved into the small town, the elderly woman takes care of all customers who come through her door. More about her story is discovered by unlocking key aspects of these customers, revealing more of her own backstory that is mostly veiled to the player.
The game can either be played actively or prepped with enough meals left to run idly in the background so that once players check back on the game, they can collect their tips, prep more meals and still be rewarded for their time invested in the game.
With an adorable art style, the game is made all the richer with its story and easy gameplay. As part of an ongoing saga, there is also Hungry Hearts Diner 2 and Oden Cart for similar vibes to this precious story.
Jordan is a student studying Digital and Print Journalism at the University of North Texas. After discovering how much fun gaming journalism can be, she hopes to make a career in it once she graduates. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys playing games such as Genshin Impact, Ace Attorney, and Fire Emblem or watching Murder, She Wrote late at night on weekdays.
