2-4-1 Cake Mania and Sally's Salon

I don't like to stereotype the sorts of games that people like to play, but I'm going to stick my neck out now and say that a 2-4-1 game about cakes and beauty salons is definitely something that should get the thumbs up from the majority of female mobile gamers.

Not that it should be a game that purely attracts the attention of the fairer sex, because at least 50 per cent of this game presents a challenge that anyone who likes a good management game will enjoy. The other half isn't quite such a tough challenge, but it's a good game to while away a couple of hours on nonetheless, whether you've got a vested interest in hair straighteners and manicures or not.

Cake Mania and Sally's Salon share the same genre and a lot of the same gameplay features. Both have you trying to run a successful business by serving customers quickly, and trying not to upset them - either with a bad hairdo or a shoddily decorated cake - so they give you lots of money that you then use to upgrade your business.

Luckily, they're also distinctly different games and there's no danger you won't want to play one after playing the other.

In Cake Mania you're running a busy bakery. Customers queue up at the counter and declare what kind of cake they want - what shape and colour and so on - and then you have to bake it in the oven and ice it at the icing station.

As ever with these types of games, things get a bit fraught when you have three or four customers to serve at once. It's multi-tasking hell.

Get it right, though, and you get enough cash to buy upgrades for your cake shop. From go-fast ovens to treats your customers can nibble on while they're waiting to shoes that make your character move quickly around the kitchen. It's a neat structure, with the upgrades giving you incentive to work hard in each game-day.

It's a good thing then that Sally's Salon uses a very similar structure itself, even if the gameplay and set-up are pretty different.

As customers come into your salon, they take a seat and decide what they want doing. When they decide, it's a case of clicking on the customer then on the area of the salon you want them to go to. There are seats for washing, blow drying, cutting, manicures and more.

When it comes to cutting hair, you have to decide on the do that best fits what they're asking for. Meanwhile, you also have to juggle moving customers from one station to the next so there are no backlogs, and making those in the waiting room coffee so they don't walk out in a huff (and still with bad hair).

Just like Cake Mania, an effective upgrading system lets you buy all sorts of new equipment for your salon until you can barely recognise it from the slightly rubbish Sweeney Todd style set-up it starts out as.

The problem with Sally's Salon is just that it's not that difficult. Yes, it's addictive, but it's rarely challenging and you'll hardly ever lose a customer if you're halfway accomplished at playing this type of game. It's a shame because with a slightly better difficulty curve, it would be a great game.

Cake Mania is better, though, and the two paired together mean great value for money for anyone who fancies a spot of business running on their mobile phone, if they can just overlook the cutesy pinkness of it all.

2-4-1 Cake Mania and Sally's Salon

This 2-4-1 pairing up of two great games means that anyone who fancies downloading hours and hours of management gaming, and isn't adverse to cakes and hairdressing, is in for a treat
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Kath Brice
Kath Brice
Kath gave up a job working with animals five years ago to join the world of video game journalism, which now sees her running our DS section. With so many male work colleagues, many have asked if she notices any difference.