The day my Nintendo DS stopped working

I had a ton of free time on a particular rainy Saturday afternoon. It was a perfect day to be lazy in the chilly weather. I decided to first warm myself up with some food. I cooked some hot soup and braised some pan-fried tofu, having them over freshly cooked white rice. It was just perfect for the day as I warmed up over lunch, making it more comfortable to stay in and laze around.

I took out my Nintendo DS from my drawer and headed for the couch. I made myself comfortable and then started the only game I have played on the DS over the past year, Cooking Mama. Cooking Mama is this cooking simulator game where a character instructs you how to prepare ingredients and cook dishes. It is a very casual game that I can just start and not worry about stopping as most dishes can be completed in a short time. I still have quite a number of dishes I have not started cooking in the game and so I got going in my quest to complete the game.

An hour into breaking eggs into a pan, stirring ingredients in a mixing bowl and grilling fish in the game, the low battery light flashed. I quickly got the charger ready and the moment I plugged it to the DS, it just turned off. No matter how I tried to turn it on again, it just wouldn’t respond. Its dead, and I have no idea why.

Well, I need to fill the rest of the day with something else and I wanted a little bit more Cooking Mama. What else to do but scour the internet for some cooking games. The first game I found was a boiling egg game. I get six pots of water with a clickable button each which controls the flame. The goal is to cook as many eggs as possible in the correct temperature window for the desired doneness. Each time a button is clicked, the heat indicator goes up a little. So, spam clicking the buttons is required to keep the eggs in the right temperature window. The experience is really quite similar to Cooking Mama. I spam clicked and managed the temperature of six different pots which just tire out my finger. Well, it is a casual game and it is quite addictive. After a couple of rounds where I try to beat my previous high score as much as possible, I looked for another game.

There are not many games that focus on the process of preparing ingredients while cooking. But in this website where I found the egg game, there were quite a few restaurant simulators. I opened a random one out of the list and played a little. In this game, I just manage the customer flow into and out of the restaurant as the only waiter there. I click on tables to guide customers there, clicked the kitchen to get food and pass them to the customers, collect payments from them and then clear the table. There is a revenue target for the restaurant each day which have to be met within the time limit provided. The game was quite addictive and I spent the rest of my day advancing through the game, trying to hit the ever increasing daily target every time.

Overall, a sad day for my Nintendo DS, but quite a rewarding time discovering some new games to play. Though, I still need some Cooking Mama and there is no substitute for that.