Cake Mania is a lot like
Diner Dash or
Rootbeer Tapper and games along that line. Customers come in, you serve them and hope you get it done right. You play the game as Jill, whose grandparents' bakery has been basically driven out of business by big business. Since they raised you and sent you to culinary school, it's your job to get in there, make the money needed and save the family store!
The basic premise is this. You have a goal of how much money you need to make for the month. You bake cakes, hopefully don't screw up any orders, keep all the customers happy and make your goal. You begin with one oven and one froster, but as you make extra money, you can buy additional overs and frosters, upgrades to make them both faster, toppers for the cakes, a TV to keep your customers happy, super-fast tennies to make you sail around the kitchen with ease and a cupcake oven to give your impatient customers freebies.
Strategy must be implemented in what you upgrade and buy since you can only do this in between levels and your funds are limited. If you buy the wrong topper and it happens to be the month where another topper is going to be super popular (like the bridal one in June, for instance), you probably won't make your goal.
As you progress through the months, the customers and orders will change. Cupids show up in February, Easter Bunnies in April, Santa during Christmas, little boys during the summer, brides during June, etc. They'll want corresponding cakes such as the egg cake for Easter, the Christmas Tree during Christmas and so on. As your skills improve, so will the orders diversify. You'll go from single layer cakes to double layer cakes, cakes with toppers, etc. You have to select the proper cake design, wait for it to bake up, then frost it with the appropriate color frosting, then place it on the decorating machine for a topper, if necessary. All of this takes time and all the while, more customers are streaming in and placing their orders - well, that is, if you managed to give them a menu.
Each customer has several hearts next to them which indicate their patience level. Lots of hearts means they are not in a hurry. Two hearts means you had better hurry with their order. As time goes by, the hearts disappear. You can add one back on by turning the TV to either cartoons (kids, Cupids and Easter Bunnies like this one), the news (for the guys) and a cooking show (for the gals). Choose wisely because you can't easily switch channels once its on there. You can also ply them with free cupcakes, but this takes time away from food prep.
After you've finished the cake, you hand it off to the correct customer and collect the money and start the cycle all over again. Multi-tasking is the name of the game here though. You must wait on numerous customers at once and it can get pretty hairy at some points.
