Recipe Statistics Analysis

In Facebook Restaurant City, how easy a recipe can be upgraded to level 10 depends on how easy you can collect the required ingredients. In my last article, I have computed the frequency of each ingredients in the menu, finding that cheese is the most important one. I will use that result to analyze the difficulties of each recipe.

The difficulty of a recipe can be measured in many ways. For simplicity, I have defined the following measurements:

• Score Sum = Sum of (required ingredient * count of ingredient in menu * ingredient star level)
  
• Menu Sum = Sum of (required ingredient * count of ingredient in menu)
• Star Sum = Sum of (ingredient star level)
  

The higher the Score Sum, the more difficulty a recipe should be. Score Sum multiplies the star level because it may affect the chance an ingredient appears as a daily prize. For example, Yakibuta Ramen has slightly lower Menu Sum than Pork and Apple Chops has because Noodle is less useful than Apple. Once we also consider the star levels of both Apple and Noodle, Pork and Apple Chops should easier to complete.

Menu Sum is included because in practice, the count of ingredient may be a more important factor.

Star Sum is a quick indicator of the overall star levels of the ingredients of a recipe.



According to the data, the recipes I have finished (lamb skewers, pork and apple chops, exotic fruit skewers) are quite easy. But it also suggests that Tiger Prawn Platter is also easy to make. For me, prawns are rare for me. I seldom draw that as a daily prize, and I seldom see my friends having it. Thus, it looks like this spreadsheet is not as useful as the last one on ingredient counting.

Restaurant City的路邊小販令食材變得不珍貴

終於完成Mapo Tofu! 總共學成五個食譜. Chili的確難找, 我用了$27000向路邊小販買入三條chili才可以快速完成麻婆豆腐, 幾天後小販又有chili賣, 而且還平$1000! 新增的路邊小販, 只會減低遊戲的娛樂性, 理由是遊戲本身賺得是接近全自動化的, 不需要太多投入; 收集食材卻難得多, 要加快收集便一定要找別人交易; 現在有了路邊小販, 只要你有錢要多少他有多少(儘管小販每日只提供三款東西). Restaurant City的錢不算難找, 現在只要有錢便可以買到食材, 這樣食材便不再珍貴了.

Ingredient Statistics Analysis

Collecting the ingredients you want is one of the most challenging parts of the Facebook game Restaurant City.

My impression is that ingredients like tomato, cream, and lobster are some of the most difficult to obtain, while lime, lamb, and saffron are easier.

One reason may be that, some ingredients are required by many more recipes than other ingredients. For example, only one recipe requires saffron, but many recipes require tomato. If an ingredient is required in many recipes, then the chance of people seeking it will be higher; in other words, they are less willing to trade it out.

In order to understand what ingredients are most useful in a more scientific way, I have prepared a spreadsheet to analyze some statistics on the ingredients of the Facebook game Restaurant City:



The data are sorted by the column "Menu Total" in a descending order. The column "Menu" is the number of times an ingredient appears in the menu, while the column "Recipe" is the number of times an ingredient appears in a recipe. For example, cheese appears in 6 different recipes while it appears 9 times in the menu (as Cheese Board requires 3 cheese). The higher the number, the more useful an ingredient is.

It is no surprise that cheese is the most useful. But quite surprising is that, flour and potato are more useful than tomato. For me, the daily prize gives me flour and potato more often than tomato and cream. One thing for sure is, Sweetcorn is useless. Perhaps PlayFish should introduce more recipes like Grilled Sweetcorn with Lime/Garlic Butter, Braised Pork Rice in Sweet Corn Sauce, ...

My Restaurant City

最近迷上了玩Facebook的Restaurant City. 以Facebook遊戲來說, Restaurant City算是做得不錯. 有幾好玩? 其他features應該很多人已經說過了, 不再說; 可以說的是, 我有個朋友, 一直都沒有玩facebook, 突然因為Restaurant City而玩facebook, 你話有幾好呢?

用了很多時間才把菜色升至10級. 先是最簡單的主菜Pork and Apple Chop, 之後是甜品Exotic Fruit Skewers, 最後才是前菜Lamb Skewers. Pork, Apple, Onion都是很易到手的食材, Kiwi不太易, 而Mango, Lemon當時卻很困難才換到. 而最想升的Pomegranate Parfait終於今日升到了! Cream的確是很難找到的. 下一步是要升Mapo Tofu... Chili又是難找...