Little Dragons Cafe - Release Thread

All other video games not related to the main farming series - Pokemon, Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and other indie-developed games.

Which version of the game are you picking up?

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RMiller
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Post  Posted:

Kikki, thank you so much!

Not dumb at all. But, can I tell you what is? I didn't even know the game gave you a hint of what to do next. I thought that the "Story" option was just a repository for old cutscenes. I'm such a doofus! I've been playing this game for so many hours now, and I had no idea! Haha, oops!

I really appreciate the help.

I also discovered that I am INDEED in Chapter 7! I was basing my numbers off the Main Menu's "Story Progress" screen's boxes. Double oops?

I feel like I've tried what it's telling me to do next, but, like you said, maybe I wasn't specific enough. I'll try again! I just wanted to post this thanks and make the correction about how I was wrong about chapters.

And to answer your question above:
Spoiler:
I got my dragon flying at exactly the same time as your dragon.
And Ronin19, I noticed, too, that the progress bar stops moving during chapters. But I think it might just be a visual mishap? After a chapter ends, the bar goes up an insane amount. Like, maybe it HAD been keeping track during the chapter and then adds it on all at once at the end. My outside-chapter bar growth is in minuscule increments compared to the post-chapter catch-up. But if anything makes the satisfaction go down, I have no idea!
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Kikki
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No problem, RMiller :) Hope you find what you were stuck on.

I have for a while been suspecting that the reputation bar has very little to do with anything you do, but is instead directly related to story progress. I have gotten BIG increases in the bar on days where I did very little to help out and the cafe only did 'okay', but they were all story progress days, usually at the beginning or end of a chapter. I'm starting to wonder if you could almost entirely ignore the cafe and still complete the game as long as you're getting all the recipes and their ingredients.

I'm gonna do a bunch of foraging now that I have new areas open. I'll ignore the cafe (unless I run out of ingredients and then I'll change the menu) until I have gathered any new bits up.

I've also been keeping my dragon mostly my preferred colour (teal) but he changes SO fast, with just a few meals, that I've decided I'm not going to bother any more. Dart will be whatever colour he happens to eat and I no longer care...I can't afford to waste ingredients on trying to maintain a specific colour. So he'll get whatever I happened to make that day, and that's that.

This game would be great if they made the character movement smoother (so that they don't get stuck on rocks and walls and things all the time...and the fallen bird meat doesn't get stuck on cliffs, so you don't constantly get pushed around by your coworkers, and etc) and introduced a monetary system, and if you could use your money to upgrade/customize your cafe. And on the foraging part, I'd LOVE if they had teleportation points. One to the field, one to the forest, one to the far bridge, one to the purple hills...that sort of thing. Just a point to zap yourself to in every major region, to make stocking up on far-away ingredients more possible and giving you enough time in a day to both take care of the cafe AND forage for what you need.
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ryume
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Kikki wrote:I'm getting a bit less enthused as I play more. I want to be a big bundle of bubbling enthusiasm, but while I don't hate it, only read on if you want a totally honest opinion...
Spoiler:
I couldn't play yesterday, and now that I could pick it back up if I wanted to, I find I'm already losing interest. It's not a bad game...way better than Hometown Story...but the thing that always gets me about Wada games is getting me with this one, too...there's just not enough variety of things to do and I get bored quickly. I'm afraid it's going to take some willpower to get me to finish this one. I'm definitely going to finish it, but I wish I were enjoying the process more instead of thinking of it like an obligation.

I think I'll like it more when the dragon can fly and I can go straight to the foraging areas I need to without being interrupted by slacking staff and mealtimes, but I think it takes quite a while to get a dragon who can fly...chapter 8 or 10 or something? Also, now my staff are slacking even when it isn't mealtimes...I guess now that there are more customers, they come even outside of lunch and dinner. I got a slacking notice twice in one day not at meal times...one at about 10 AM and one in the middle of the afternoon. How on earth could I get ANY ingredient gathering done if I went back for all the slacking and mealtimes? It takes too long to walk out to those areas with the good stuff in the first place...there's barely enough time to gather what I need as it is. Thank goodness for the garden and the fish trap, anyway. Even if your foraging time is REALLY short, you can always get a good handful of stuff as long as you have enough manure to feed to those two areas.

It's so cute, and the characters are good, but if sales warrant it and they do make another game, I don't think I would buy it unless more was added to it (a little cafe and character customization would go a long way in perking up my motivation), and some of the more annoying traits were removed or reduced. I also want my character to be able to walk through all cafe employees during business hours...or at least when carrying dishes!

EDIT: Finishing up chapter 5, and with having so many customers now, lots of specific, infuriating gripes have arisen: getting stuck on obstacles and people in the cafe with barely any room to move and getting pushed back and having your tasks slowed way down SO SO SO OFTEN. Everyone slacking constantly! Sometimes every single worker at once, including your own sibling. Ipanema slacked off THREE TIMES at dinner this last time. Three times in one meal she had to be told off! It would be weird to have to tell an employee off even once a day, but three times per meal?! And the random nature of foraging...you can never be sure of being able to get ingredients back in stock in any reasonable amount of time, and some ingredients take so long to get to that you can't possibly collect them every day, and even when you do, you get only 3 of them. Too hard to control your ingredients...you kind of have to resign yourself to continually changing your menu to whatever is on hand. Honestly a lot of this game feels like the devs never played it themselves cuz if they realized how infuriating these features they've built in are, they'd have tweaked it to work better.
A lot of what you said was in a lot of the reviews I read, so you're definitely not alone in your feelings, especially on the points you made in your first paragraph.
Guest
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Post  Posted:

Bluie wrote:^There is an update but it doesn't seem to be required to play.
A day 1 update? Why?

Anywho, I'll take a leap and buy it. If it doesn't work without an update, well... I'll play it when I put my Switch online, eventually.
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Shan O 123
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Ugh this game looks really good......
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Ronin19
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Anonymous Fish wrote:
Bluie wrote:^There is an update but it doesn't seem to be required to play.
A day 1 update? Why?

Anywho, I'll take a leap and buy it. If it doesn't work without an update, well... I'll play it when I put my Switch online, eventually.
There's nothing as to what the update does. I think you'll be fine.

I made it to chapter 8
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ryume
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@Bluie: My dragon was born orange. I'm trying to turn him green and he's currently a bright shade of yellow. He was definitely more notified pmarigold colored about 4 meals ago. Eating LOTS of green salads. So maybe you need to go orange than back to green?
Spoiler:
Image
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CeciliaCrescent
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A question before I decide whether to buy this or not. Everyone here so far has said that the characters are charming and whatnot but can anyone tell me about the interaction with them? I know this game doesn't have relationships/marriage which disappointed me greatly, so what else can we do with them?

The pre-release info just kept on saying that we can "Listen to their troubles" and such, but does that mean that it's like only a one time cut scene or something and that's it? No affinity or bonus whatever for spending time with your favourite character? Is there even some sort of affinity friendship system? Can you even spend time with them outside of the scenes or working with them in the cafe? Or are they just that? NPCs with cut scenes and nothing more?
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Kikki
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@CeciliaCrescent (My very last paragraph may answer your questions sufficiently if you'd like to skip my usual long-windedness.)

I am now on chapter 8 and I feel like I've seen enough to say that this game is *nothing* like Harvest Moon. Or SoS. Unless just being charming and rural and wholesome means it's the same, because the gameplay is nothing alike, imo. It is entirely story-driven. You don't get to choose what you can do with characters. You're basically a foraging machine with a dragon attachment, supplying the cafe with ingredients as you progress from scene to scene, stopping only once in a while when the cafe gets busy to help them take orders and stuff. So to ask what you can 'do' with the characters...I'm not really sure how to answer. It's the same as any game, though more directly so. You follow along with the story, and as you do, each character's story is revealed step by step.

It's this, basically (very generalized):
Spoiler:
-Wake up one morning and go down to the cafe. Something unusual happens! And a new guest appears in the middle of it and Luccola gives them some food and they decide to stay at the cafe's inn.
-Wake up another morning, do your usual thing, head outside...hey, there's the guest, pondering, or doing something. Find out a little more about why the ended up at LDC.
-Continue your days as usual, gathering ingredients/helping out at the cafe. It will happen at different times of day, sometimes indoors sometimes out, but scenes with the guest will continue to trigger until you find out the full of what has brought them to you and what is holding them up in their lives.
-Some nostalgic recipe associated with some other part of their life will always be what they long to taste, to help them get their mind in order and move on. Find the fragments of it, put them together, and make sure you have the ingredients and make it. How *well* you make it doesn't matter at all, as long as it's not a complete failure. (Complete failures turn into failed dishes, not the recipe you're aiming for.)
-They eat what you've made, and a resolution scene will occur where the guest themselves realises what their problems are and pulls themselves together, making a decision about how to continue on.
-Next morning, they happily leave LDC, glad to have met you and ready to carry on with their life with a greater sense of purpose and clarity. (They will occasionally return for meals ever afterward.)
-Raise your cafe's reputation sufficiently (always happen in one day of tending restaurant, for me, so I think it may be automatic) and the next day, the next guest will arrive. Rinse and repeat.
It's very formulaic, but the characters are very interesting, and the way the game makes you start out disliking most of them and end up liking most of them is kind of neat. I don't like all of them, but even in those cases, it's always sort of sweet. It sounds boring, but...well actually, some people DO find it boring. But a lot of people are finding the characters worth the price of admission, so to speak. I can't vouch for whether you would, or not. I find the world pretty and foraging with your dragon as your main tool is interesting, helping out at the cafe is a diverting change once in a while, once you get used to how you have to move in order to avoid getting stuck on furniture and other characters.

It's a cute game, and it feels cozy and nice. I'm quite curious about how it's all going to wrap up as concerns our twins and our main helpers, Billy, Ipanema and Luccola. And the old man and the dragon and mom. But it's not exciting, and it's not really even a sim, not by my standards. You don't get to put anything of yourself into it, imo, unless you feel like being able to choose which recipes go on the cafe's menu counts. You have no say in how the game turns out...it's the same story for everybody. There is no relationship system of any kind, afaik.
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Bluie
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ryume wrote:@Bluie: My dragon was born orange. I'm trying to turn him green and he's currently a bright shade of yellow. He was definitely more notified pmarigold colored about 4 meals ago. Eating LOTS of green salads. So maybe you need to go orange than back to green?
Spoiler:
Image

Interesting. I was trying to turn him pink for funsies and failed, making him turn back to red. I'm gonna shove a tons of salads down his throat and see if that does anything.

Also, i'm stuck in chapter 6 because I can't find Miso. Does anyone recall the general area of the map to forage it?
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Kikki
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Bluie wrote:Also, i'm stuck in chapter 6 because I can't find Miso. Does anyone recall the general area of the map to forage it?
I know where miso is, in general.
Spoiler:
If you go out to the forest of mushrooms, through the log(s) and onward as far as you can go toward the ocean, then look to your right to see yellow pillar-like islands rising up out of the water. A near one has a tree on it and a rock at the end. That rock contains miso. I'll post a screenshot or two soon.

EDIT: Let's get more specific than just a description. Here are some images...
Fly straight ahead to go though the open log you can just sort of see ahead.
Image
Now you can see the ocean. Head that way, a bit to your right. You're aiming for that grey tree with the teal bluish leaves.
Image
That rock you can see on the island...that contains miso.
Image
Also got to mention that I hate that you can't save when you want to in this game.
Last edited by Kikki on Aug 28, 2018 4:36 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Bluie
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Thanks!

Oooone more thing if you know, where's the dragon manure after the dragon get's big? I need that stuff lol.
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Kikki
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Post  Posted:

Dragon poopins still available!
Spoiler:
Go up to the third floor on the elevator, then climb the ladder on the third floor to go to the dragon's new room. :)
Pictures now added to previous post, too.
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Bluie
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Thanks again! Ima' go get dat poop.

Also, I just unlocked 2 recipes that can make your dragon black. They're
Spoiler:
Tacos and Scotch Egg.


If my yellow dragon doesn't pan out, black looks like a cool colour too.
Tiptoze
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I got the limited edition version for the Switch but I've been so busy with school I haven't had time to sit down and play it yet aaaaaaaaa!!!

I'll take pictures of the box n stuff if anyone's interested, it's all really cute.
/Unless someone's already posted pictures.
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