So I Tried… Papa’s Freezeria Deluxe

Each edition of So I Tried… I will try a game that I have never played before. Will I find something new to love? Will I find something new to despise? I'll take a full half hour to see if this is the game for me, no matter how bad it gets or how badly I do, to see if this is the game for me. This time I decided to go and play Papa’s Freezeria Deluxe. I admit this was an impulse buy because I saw a few streamers playing it, and I decided to give it a go.

The Papa’s Gameria series (yes, that is the official name) developed by Flipline Studios were time management games played on browsers, all about running a restaurant — an ice cream shop for Papa’s Freezeria Deluxe — and serving customers their incredibly specific orders in a reasonable amount of time. To my shock, I found out that it’s a spin-off of a series of platformers featuring Papa Louie as the main protagonist instead of your boss.

You’d think the Papa’s Gameria games were done first…

Anyways, after the death of Flash, the series’ fate was left in the air until a paid version of Papa’s Freezeria came out on Steam on the 31st of March 2023. So… let’s try it out.

What I thought it was

I’m fully expecting it to be like any other flash game I used to play as a kid: fun for only the duration of a computer lab session. It’s primarily targeted at kids, and a lot has changed in gaming since the days when Flash was popular. Is a game like this worth the price tag? Or am I just paying for the chance to feel like a kid again when something like this was available for free?

What it actually is

It is… pretty okay. It won’t surprise you all that much, but I found myself enjoying what it had to offer. It’s mesmerising to watch toppings pile into the cup, it feels nice to nail orders, and it’s satisfying to get the maximum tip. 30 minutes of playtime translated to about three days in the game, but there’s still a lot to unlock, from upgrades and decoration to your shop, to more ingredients and toppings. Plus, the mini-games between each day help break up the monotony and remind me of all the other flash games I used to play. I still question what the heck that purple onion is supposed to be, and coconut sprinkles remind me too much of toenails, but overall I had a good time here.

Will I keep playing

I’d say yes, at least for a little while. It’s definitely a nostalgia trip, where I would be at school spending my class time playing a game like this on one of the few websites that weren’t locked out. Nowadays, it’s just a nice game to wind down to where your only worries are accidentally missing the cup when adding the toppings. It also feels nice to be able to have a save file instead of restarting from scratch every time I boot it up.

It’s not the most complex or the most challenging game on the market, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s nice to slow down and make some ice cream.