Too Many Cooks offers a refreshing take on the cooking simulation genre. Its endearing, minimalist visuals adds a much-needed charm to the overall gameplay. The game may be a bit difficult to play at first, but with some practice you can beat time and earn rewards, such as medals and coins.
You can learn the basics from the tutorial at the beginning, but you may have to practice the solo mode before trying out “party” and “online” co-op modes. With the help of this Too Many Cooks game guide, you will learn how to get max tips, use boosters, upgrade kitchen tools and play the “Party” mode.
Table of Contents
Get Maximum Tip at the Beginning of a Level
You will have to be very quick in serving food to guests to get max tips from them. You can try this trick in solo mode if you want to get the highest tip from guests at the beginning of a cooking level:
Before pressing the “Tap to Start” button in Solo mode, note down the requirements of guests and prepare those food items well in advance. You can then serve them to one of the customers right away after pressing the start button to get max tip.
The timer does not activate until you press the start button, so you can prepare some food items well in advance. This trick is applicable only for one of the first guests. Check out our Too Many Cooks gameplay tutorial below to know more:
Example: If a guest wants a plate, rice bowl and chopped salmon, tap on the food crate to get the salmon and then drag the salmon to the cutting board in the preparation phase. Before pressing the start button, tap on the board repeatedly until you get chopped salmon. Now tap on the food crate until the rice bowl appears on it. In case the plate is dirty, you can wash it in the sink. Tap on the sink multiple times to clean it.
Now press the “tap to start” button. This will activate the timer. Since you have already prepared the salmon and brought the rice bowl on the food crate, you just have to drag the salmon, bowl and plate to the customer and earn the highest tip.
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Guest Tip Depends on the Emoji Status
Customers will tip you more if you serve them faster, but it all depends on their mood denoted by cute emojis. These emojis range from heart-shaped eye emojis to extremely angry emoji.
A customer will tip you the highest (7-8) when his emoji has heart shaped eyes. So, if you serve him exactly when his emoji status is that of heart eyes, you will score max points.
However, the amount given by him decreases as the emoji changes expression and you may receive anywhere between 5-1 points as the emoji’s expression changes from the happiest (heart-shaped eyes – 7-8 points) to sadness (1 point).
When serving food items to customers, make sure the green circle around their emojis do not reduce to 50 percent if you want to get anywhere between 5-6 points.
Complete the Easiest Requirement first to get Max Points
A customer ordering a plate and 2 rice bowls can be served quickly than a customer who orders two chopped salmons and a rice bowl. Orders are randomly generated, but you will have to choose the easiest one between the two to get maximum tip. If an order contains two rice bowls and a plate, it will be faster to serve those than the ones that involves chopping salmons and then serving them.
Note: Even when you are not tapping on the sink or the chopping board, these tools will continue to work albeit very slow. So, a chopping board will continue cutting salmon automatically, but slowly even when you are not tapping on it. To speed up chopping, you must tap rapidly. You can also consider upgrading this tool to increase its chopping speed, whether manual or automatic.
Serve At least One Food Item to Restore the Emoji Meter
The emoji meter is the green circle around a smiley. It displays the patience of the customer and continues to decrease until you serve him the required food items. As it diminishes, the customer’s emoji changes from happy to sad. Depending on the emoji’s expression at the time to serving food items, customer’s tip you.
A customer may order multiple food items. And with the emoji meter ticking away, you would want to restore it to some extent to get more points. What you can do is serve any one food item from his order and the green meter will increase a bit. Do the same from the next customer until you prepare the other food items.
For example: If customer A orders a plate and two salmons and customer B orders 2 rice bowls and a salmon, you can quickly hand over the plate to customer A and see his meter increase a bit. You can then give the rice bowls to customer B and see his meter also increase. You can then start with the salmons. Make sure you serve the single salmon order to customer B to complete his order and then complete the order of customer A.
Upgrade Tools to Increase Their Speed
In Too Many Cooks game you can unlock and upgrade tools, such as the chopping board, grill and the frying pan. Upgrading tools not only increases speed, but also allows you to unlock new themes.
You will need certain components, such as knives, spatulas, oven mitts, ladles as well as coins to upgrade them. Earn coins from cooking levels and by completing certain tasks.
Once you acquire the required items, go to “Tools” and then tap on the “upgrade” button beside each tool. You will notice that button is pink in color and an exclamation mark also appears beside the tool, indicating that it can be upgraded.
How to Get Components for Upgrading Tools
Each component is connected to a specific kitchen tool. For example, you will need the faucet to upgrade the sink, tongs to upgrade the grill and spatula to upgrade the frying pan.
You can get components from the Promotion section at the “Store”. Collect gems and spend 25 of them to purchase a components pack, which includes knives, spatulas, ladles and other components.
This special pack is available on certain days and since the store refreshes with new items every 24 hours, check this section every day to get new offers.
You can also obtain components when you complete certain “Tasks”. Under Tasks, scroll down and note down the quests that grant these components upon completion.
Obtain components from the market. You may have to spend gems/coins or watch a video to obtain them. Items are randomly listed on the market so make sure you upgrade the market to refresh listings.
Get bonus components if you gain 3 or more stars in Solo or Online mode. These items can be used to improve your cooking equipment.
Pay attention to certain missions that appear in some levels.
For example, in the “Amber Mission” in solo mode, you will have to earn four stars twice in the first level (Upstream Battle) to get the faucet and knives.
Obtain Items from the Market
Once you reach level 5, you will unlock the “Market”. The Market lists random stuff, including components. You can get components for upgrading tools, costumes, skins, new faces and even kitty boosters from the market.
You can open the first two empty spaces in the market as soon as you reach level 5, but to unlock additional spaces, you will have to reach level 7, 10 and 13.
Each space has a random item, which can either be earned for free by watching a video or you will need to spend gems or coins to purchase them. Once you acquire an item from a market, you can tap on “upgrade” market to refresh listings.
At first, you can upgrade the market for free to refresh listings, but later, you will have to watch a video to upgrade it or even spend 100 coins to upgrade it and refresh the list.
How to Unlock a New Theme
New themes allow players to cook different food items and throw various new challenges. In solo mode, the first theme will be “Sushi”.
To unlock the next theme “Soup”, you will have to complete certain conditions, such as upgrading the “Cooking Pot” tool to level 1 and completing the “New Oppor-Tuna-Ties” level in the Sushi theme. You will need the ladle to upgrade the cooking pot.
There will be three levels in the Sushi theme and to unlock the third level, i.e. “New Oppor-Tuna-Ties”, you will have to earn 3-3 stars each from the first two levels, “Upstream Battle” and “Dishin Dirty”. Once you complete the third level, you can unlock the new theme, but you will also need 15 gems to start playing the Soup theme.
There will be certain conditions to unlock a new theme. Usually it will always be upgrading a particular tool relevant to the new theme (Example: Upgrading grill to level 1 to unlock the Burgers theme) and completing a certain level in the previous theme, along with spending gems.
To check these conditions for every theme, tap on “Solo” in the home screen and then tap on the ”>>” button on the bottom. Next, press the “Unlock” button to know the requirements for opening a new theme.
How to get Gems
In Too Many Cooks, gems are used to purchase boosters at the Store. You will also need gems to purchase components used for upgrading cooking tools such as the chopping board, sink, cooking pot and frying pan.
These materials will appear under “Promotion” at the Store on certain days.
Here are a few ways to get them:
From presents in the home screen. You will find two cute kitty dolls placed on the table in the home screen. One of them grants a present every hour and the other gives a present when you watch a 30 second video.
From the Store, under Buy Gems > Free. Watch a video to get 5 gems. You can watch up to 5 videos to obtain a total of 25 gems.
Complete tasks. Finish certain quests under “Tasks” to earn them. These are all game-related tasks or quests. Pay attention to a quest and complete it to get your rewards.
You might get gems from a level. But the conditions are kept “top secret”. Try things out to find out how to get them.
Make the Most of Booster Kitties
These cute booster kitties or charms can be very helpful during a cooking level.
Before you start an online, party or solo mode, make sure you have a look at the level and then choose a booster that’s appropriate for that level.
You can add a booster as soon as you tap on “Cook” and then select a level in a particular theme. You will find three “+” symbols appear just above the “Play” button. This means that you can add up to three boosters. Just tap on a “+” button to add one.
There are nine types of boosters, also known as” charms”. Each cat charm has a unique persona and you will find that each booster looks different from the other. There will be cat holding a stopwatch, a kitty holding a knife etc. Here’s a list of boosters and their benefits:
Reputable Charm (Blue Cat holding a medal): Earn fifty percent more EXP or reputation. EXP helps you level up.
Relaxed Charm (Cat holding a stop watch): + 5 seconds time. More time, more servings, more tips, more rewards.
Patient Charm (Cat with a kettle): Recipe +5 percent rewards.
Prospered Charm (Cat with a Coin): +100 percent extra coins in a level in which it is used. Get bonus coins at the end of a level.
Chopping Charm (Cat with a chopper): Increased level of the chopping board.
There are 4 more charms, each temporarily increasing levels of certain kitchen tools and cooking methods, such as grilling, oven, steaming and washing:
These are grilling charm (cat with tongs), Baking Charm (cat with oven mitts), Boiling charm (cat with a ladle) and finally washing charm (cat with a tap).
Adding any of these boosters will increase the performance of certain kitchen items such as the grill, cooking pot, sink and the oven.
Booster kitties are consumables. If there are 4 boosters of the same type and you used one, then you will have 3 boosters remaining with you.
How to get Booster Kitties
You can obtain booster kitties by completing certain “Tasks”.
Get them from the store. Scroll down until you reach “Buy Boosters”. Get 2 free boosters each day by watching 2 video ads.
You can also purchase them with gems at the store.
Get them from the Daily Market. The market unlocks when you reach level 5. Items randomly appear in the market and when a booster kitty appears, you can get it for free but sometimes you may have to watch a video or spend coins to purchase the booster listed on the market.
There are also chances of acquiring boosters from those cute kitty dolls kept on the table in the home screen. The one of the left grants a gift which contains a random reward when you watch a video and the one of the right grants a random present every 1 hour. Once you get your present, make sure you tap on the timer and then tap on “Notify Me” to let the app send a present notification so that you won’t miss on any rewards.
How to Play the Party Mode
In Too Many Cooks game, there are three modes: Party Mode, Online and Solo mode. Of these three, both Party and Online are co-op modes, which means that you and other players will have to help each other while serving food items to customers to score more points for rewards. But there is one difference between party mode and online. The latter is played between random players from around the world whereas the former is played between a group of friends or relatives who know the 4-letter code. Here’s how to play:
In Party Mode, minimum 2 players and maximum 6 players are needed to start a co-op game.
Decide who will host the party – Could be you or one of your friends/relatives.
Tap on the pink “party” button and then tap on “Host” if you are hosting a game. Note down the 4-letter code on the top-left corner of the screen. Send the code to your friends or relatives.
Your friends will then tap on “Party” > “Join”. They will then have to enter the 4-letter code sent to them.
Once your friend(s) join, you will see their avatars on the screen. You will also notice green checkmarks on the top of the screen showing how many are ready to play the game right now.
As a host, you will have to tap on “Cook”. Those who have joined will wait until you tap on the cook button.
Next, choose a game level of your choice. On your screen, tap on the “Play” button. Your friends who have joined the party mode will have tap on the “Ready” button. Both you and your friends can choose boosters before start of play.
Since both party and online are co-op game modes, it will be all about helping each other in achieving goals. You won’t have access to all kitchen tools as these will be divided among all players.
For example: If you are playing a 2-player party mode, then one of you will have the food crate and the other will get the chopping board.
To complete a food goal, both you and your friend will have to send items to each other.
If your friend has to prepare chopped salmon and a bowl of rice and if he gets the food crate, he will have to tap on the crate to get salmon.
Next, he will have to drag the salmon and drop it to your portrait, which would be located on the left side of the screen. You will immediately receive the salmon on your smartphone screen.
You will then start cutting the salmon using the chopping board. Now you can send the chopped salmon to your friend by dragging it towards the friend’s portrait on the left side of your screen. He will receive the chopped salmon. It will appear on one of the empty slots. Now he can just drag the chopped salmon on the goal board along with the bowl of rice to complete his objective and acquire tips.