Sample the sweet taste of entrepreneurial success in this delightful baking sim!

If you’re a baker like me, you may have toyed with the notion of starting your own bakery, only to balk at all the time and money that entails. Now, thanks to talented solo developer Éloïse Laroche of Cozy Bee Games, gamers can experience the joys of bakery ownership without the bankruptcy! Her single-player baking simulator, Lemon Cake, is equal parts Stardew Valley, Overcooked, and Potion Craft. Tend plants and animals to produce ingredients, prepare and serve a variety of treats, and maintain the cleanliness of your café in this Montreal-made game that’s as addictive as it is adorable.

GRAPHICS 9.5/10

Lemon Cake’s cartoony graphics look good enough to eat!

This game’s brightly colored visuals seem to pop right off the screen. Everything has a cute, chunky art style that perfectly balances simplicity and detail. Human characters are big-eyed with unisex bodies and rounded limbs, and your own avatar’s hair, skin, eyes, and clothing can all be customized from the main menu. The baked goods are oversized and pared down to their defining elements, but this doesn’t diminish their mouth-watering appearance. The bakery itself is also chock full of charm thanks to some expert shading and textures. From the foliage-filled greenhouse to the cozy storefront café, every part of the shop is aesthetically pleasing.

SOUND QUALITY 9/10

Cheerful music and soothing sounds help you keep a cool head when business heats up.

Upbeat music by Matthew Harnage keeps you energized and alerts you when it’s time to shift gears. Morning prep is the only part of the game when the clock isn’t ticking, and the relaxed yet bubbly music in the background underpins that pace. The tempo ramps up with chugging bass and horns when the lunch rush begins, then winds down with a calming guitar and piano track when it’s time to close up shop. Limited sound effects include the sizzle of your wood-burning ovens or the pop of someone making a purchase; but the swish of your sprinting avatar and kaching of experience points as you tackle numerous tasks around the bakery are especially satisfying.

GAMEPLAY 9.5/10

Become a master multitasker and watch the time and flour fly!

This game is essentially a cute crash course in multitasking. You start with only one oven and three essential recipes in your repertoire, but more ingredients, recipes, and appliances become available as you level up. Frequent additions to the menu and upgrades for your bakery create easily attainable goals, making Lemon Cake hard to put down. Each day in the café only lasts about ten minutes in real-time, but the manic gameplay makes it fly by!

The biggest challenge is managing not only time but space as well. Once you pick up an item—whether it’s the broom, an ingredient, or a freshly baked pastry—you’ll need to find somewhere to put it before you can pick up anything else. A severe lack of counter space early on prevents you from preparing large quantities of baked goods in advance, so most of your food will be made to order. Extra ovens and window displays, a sprinkler system for your greenhouse, and coffee to tide over waiting customers ultimately increase your efficiency, resulting in higher profits. Just don’t forget to mix up your daily menu for maximum tips!

CHARACTERS 8.5/10

Ghostly guides help keep your bakery in tip-top shape, but also throw some sand in the gears.

Besides the droves of nameless customers who visit your café every day, two specters have also been spotted inside the bakery: the former owner, Miss Bonbon, and a food safety officer called Inspector Mustache, who stops by every few days to make sure your establishment stays pest-free. Miss Bonbon helps you reopen her long-abandoned bakery in the hopes that you will soon be skilled enough to make her favorite dessert, the titular lemon cake.

Expository characters can be stereotypically annoying in video games. At first, Miss Bonbon was a welcome exception to that rule. She only appeared when I unlocked an upgrade or wrapped up another exhausting day in the kitchen. However, when I finally earned enough money to hire a waitress, Miss Bonbon surprised me by volunteering for the position. Although she made short work of clearing tables, her service style immediately threw a wrench into my fairly efficient delivery system. Instead of bringing treats to the pick-up window, serving coffee to reset a seated customer’s patience bar, then plating the order for a perfect score, Miss Bonbon would steal my prepared sweets and place them in the window display where walk-ins could take them to go. Our once-amicable relationship began to sour like so much buttermilk, but Miss Bonbon remains blissfully unaware of my grievances against her.

OVERALL 9.1/10

Lemon Cake’s luscious graphics and smooth-as-silk gameplay will have you hungry for more, but the controlled chaos isn’t exactly relaxing.

This game may have thoroughly shattered my idealist visions of how fun it would be to own a bakery, but it also allowed me to experience how a professional pastry chef must feel at the end of a hectic yet productive day. Lemon Cake’s easy-to-learn crafting mechanics, cute characters, and continuous upgrades will satisfy any casual gamer’s sweet tooth. However, if you’re looking to de-stress after a long day, this high-pressure food-service simulator may not be the best option. Managing all of your bakery’s moving parts is a monumental task, but at the end of the day, nothing satisfies like a café full of happy customers.

Lemon Cake was released for PC on February 18, 2021 and is available on Steam, itch.io, Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5, and Xbox Series X. The version reviewed was released on April 25, 2021. The reviewer purchased this game at a discount.

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