• Price: $7.99 USD
• Developer/Publisher: Ddraig House Game Studio
• Release Date: April 21, 2022

A review code was kindly provided by Ddraig House Game Studio. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Ddraig House Game Studio is the Welsh game studio behind Dragon Caffi. I was first drawn to the game due to its trailer:

It looked vibrant and wholesome, and relaxing games like this are always incredibly appealing to me. In addition to the trailer piquing my interest, I happen to be half Welsh, so finding out that the studio behind Dragon Caffi was located in Wales made me pretty happy.

And speaking of things that make you happy, the game opens with a cute animated scene in which a woman is writing a letter to her student (that’s your character, Margo) about her task of learning new recipes to add to her cookbook. The goal is to learn how to cook new dishes, but also to spread joy and have fun! It’s a lovely opening, and it’s even voiced (I only wish there were subtitles there – but you can read the letter in your room once the cutscene ends).

Apparently, Margo “parked” her Dragon Caffi (café in Welsh) in an area where she’ll have to pay for staying in that space. You can also pay for “parking” in the other areas you visit. Paying for a place to park your Caffi will result in them providing you with a map of that area, which then allows you to fast travel between areas with your Caffi. (I love the design of the Caffi with the dragon wings!) To acquire funds for parking – as well as ingredients – you can make some food to sell, or use your ladle to attack the bushes and get coins there.

I ended up going to the Hill Top Mill and then I destroyed the large amount of bushes there over and over again, simply going inside the mill, going back out and destroying the reloaded bushes, and repeating. You don’t necessarily receive a ton of coins that way, but sometimes star fragments will appear after you destroy a bush, and those are worth 100 coins each! ⭐️ 🌟 💫🤩 💰

You can use your funds to purchase some of the necessary ingredients for the recipes you acquire. There’s milk chocolate, white chocolate, milk, eggs, caramel, and more for you to use. Some ingredients are exclusive to one area; you may acquire recipes that call for those ingredients early on, but you won’t be able to make those dishes until you can access those areas. Don’t worry – you’ll find everything in due time!

Once you acquire the right ingredients for a recipe, you’ll be able to cook the dish. This involves a mini game in which the letters corresponding to the X/A/Y/B buttons are displayed on the screen. You’ll need to add the “good” ingredients to the dish when they float across one of the letters by pressing the corresponding button. Accidentally adding the bad ingredients that float across the screen will lower the dish’s star rating. (My only real complaint is that you can’t seem to pause the game while you are making a dish.) It speeds up a bit for later recipes, but it’s not too difficult to create a three star dish. If you make a three star dish for someone that requested it, you can earn a coveted “Sky Train Token,” of which you will need 100.

The dishes you can make look absolutely adorable, with cookies and tart shells shaped like dragons. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🐉 You can earn more recipes by going around and talking to people, helping them out with band practice or some other task to earn another recipe. Completing their side quest earns you the recipe, which you then make a 3* version of to fully complete the quest and earn their token.

What I really liked was that they included a picture of the person that gives each quest under your quest log, and once you receive their recipe it will also show an image of that dessert to help you remember who needs what. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gone around in circles in other games trying to find who gave me a quest and where, so this was great for me. (It may have been nice to have a “finished” versus “unfinished” section for further ease of use, but that’s just a suggestion.) You need to earn a certain amount of the tokens from the quests to access other areas, with some requiring 14 tokens for entry and others needing around 70.

Eventually, you’ll learn spells in addition to the recipes you find, which can be used to help you acquire ingredients, complete chores for someone, and more. Some berries may need you to water them in order to make them fall from their trees, or use a sunshine spell to melt them off of the trees. I would try to get about 30 of each berry or ingredient at a time so I would not have to backtrack to acquire more.

As you travel around the different areas in Dragon Caffi, you’ll end up talking to – and helping out – a lot of people. There was not an option to speak with some people, but they did still add to the overall experience. It was cute to see the animations of kids going down slides even though they didn’t have any dialogue. The only character you really have a lot of interactions with would be the one that sells you parking space for your Caffi. While you don’t forge bonds with people at the level of, say, Persona, the dialogue is often amusing and adds to the game’s backstory (some characters like to tease you about past issues with your dishes, for example).

Musically and graphically, the game is vibrant and whimsical, and each song and background are appropriately tailored to the environment they’re used in, from a spooky village to a winter wonderland. The artists/composers involved really did a good job tying everything together.

I’d love to see some keychains or other merchandise similar to the above “Sailor Moon Crystal Sweets Mascot” Keychains. I think that would suit the art style of the desserts in the game because they’re incredibly cute. 🥰 I can even see a sequel to Dragon Caffi – perhaps a mixture of this game, with recipe gathering and then a business simulation aspect where you run your own storefront? I certainly hope to see more from Ddraig House Game Studio in the future!

Switch it ON or Switch it OFF? Dragon Caffi is a wholesome game full of sweetness and sweets. While there isn’t necessarily a “plot” to the game outside of building up Margo’s cookbook and skills, if you like cute, creative games where you help others and make them happy with pretty pastries, this may be the game for you! 8.5/10