When it comes to more casually-oriented games that I remember playing quite a lot back in the day, Diner Dash remains one of the ones I’m most fond of. Just because it could get more difficult as you’d need to begin plotting out your routes, or the order of what you’d need to do in order to optimize service, didn’t make it less relaxing for me to play. Since that time I’ve seen quite a number of similar waiting sims come and go, but on a general level none have been as good at balancing what was ultimately a simple core design with thoughtful stage layouts that managed to keep things interesting. 

The Way of the Tray absolutely shares some of that core DNA conceptually, but has added a few challenging layers to the mix as well. Right off the bat, before you get started, you’ll be introduced to the main change, which is a new step in the process of you collecting your food to be served in the kitchen. Your dishes will fall from the top of the screen, and you’ll need to catch them on your tray, but there’s an added layer of complexity to this as well, because aside from simply moving right to left you’ll be able to reposition your hand under the tray, causing it to tilt and redistributing the weight. Throw in more layers with little spirits that can infect food, which some patrons want and others don’t, and getting your orders together can get quite hectic and challenging indeed. Now add in a skill tree where you’ll have the opportunity to shape your abilities to make you more viable and there’s quite a lot of choice and complexity here to contend with indeed.

The thing is, reflecting on a title like Diner Dash, which I’d consider a distant ancestor from this game, I do end up struggling with the question of what audience this is really for? Well-made casual-friendly titles have a great deal of overlap with the cozy gaming crowd, and though the charming look and broad feel would seem to work for cozy gamers the complexity very likely wouldn’t. Coming from the other direction, I’m not sure that your typical twitchy and challenge-loving gamer would latch onto it, possibly assuming it would be too simple, or not thinking that a waiting sim would be their speed. Perhaps if the complexities had introduced themselves more slowly over time the experience would work out better, but since you’re hit with almost everything very quickly to start out, it could be scaring away or frustrating the people who’d be most likely to enjoy it in the end. I think there’s a good game here, but without some tuning it’s hard to put a finger on the people who’ll clearly enjoy it.