Delicious – Mansion Mystery

All games belonging to the Delicious franchise are not only beautifully designed, but also have the most heartwarming stories among all titles published by GameHouse and can be played individually. The latest installment in the series changes the vibe from fluffy-cozy to an exciting mystery-murder (attempted murder), but it’s equally entertaining and well done as all the previous games.

In this episode, Emily and her bestie Francois are summoned to help organize an engagement party at the Jenkins mansion, one of the wealthiest families in town. When the bride-to-be is poisoned after eating a quail, Francois is determined to play detective to find the culprit and get to the bottom of the mystery. The story unravels bit by bit as Emily and Francois find various clues while servicing the guests arriving for the party. The narrative is thrilling, full of plot twists, and it culminates with a very unpredictable and surprising ending.

The gameplay remains consistent over all GameHouse games, with no changes compared to the previous installments in the series. It’s a time management game in which you have to optimize your actions in order to fulfill all customer orders before they lose patience and leave. The orders are a mix of items that you pick up from around the level and ones that have to be prepared under a timer, while for some requests you will also need to play a short minigame. The items served are automatically upgraded to better ones (that give some bonuses) when a certain threshold of orders for that specific item is reached. Additionally, with the coins gathered during a level you can buy various upgrades for that specific location (bigger tray, improved movement speed, less impatient customers, etc.) to facilitate the gameplay during later levels.

Delicious games are always fun to play and never disappoint. The extra tasks that you have in a level, together with finding the hidden mouse in each of them keep the gameplay consistently fresh. There is a good balance between easier and harder levels, and new items are gradually introduced in each location after the player gets well-accustomed to the placement of the existing ones. There are 91 easy achievements to unlock (which takes roughly 10-12 hours), and as long as you complete all the locations (including their tasks, getting three stars and finding all mice) you shouldn’t need to do any extra work aside from replaying a few levels.