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The Monetization: Fair or Foul?
No modern mobile game review would be complete without addressing the elephant in the room: monetization. Cook & Merge is free to download, but like most games in this genre, it offers in-app purchases to speed up progress or gain advantages. The good news? The game isn’t aggressively pay-to-win. You can absolutely enjoy Cook & Merge without spending a dime, though progress will be slower.
The premium currency, Gems, can be earned through gameplay or purchased with real money. Gems are used to buy power-ups, unlock new kitchens, or revive failed levels. The game also features ads—mostly optional reward videos that give you extra coins or Gems. These ads are unobtrusive and don’t disrupt the flow of gameplay, which is a refreshing change from some other titles that bombard you with pop-ups.
That said, the grind can feel long. If you’re not willing to spend money or watch ads, some of the later levels might take hours of repetitive merging to complete. The game does a decent job of balancing free-to-play and paid options, but players who dislike the grind might find themselves tempted by the "Buy 1000 Gems for $4.99" offers. It’s a classic mobile game dilemma: the game is fun enough to keep you playing, but the monetization is designed to nudge you toward spending.
The Community and Social Features
One of Cook & Merge’s underrated strengths is its community. The game includes a leaderboard where you can compete with friends or global players, adding a layer of friendly competition. There’s also a co-op mode where you can team up with others to tackle special events, though this feature is somewhat limited in scope.
The game’s seasonal events are another highlight. Limited-time challenges, such as holiday-themed recipes or special ingredient hunts, keep the game feeling dynamic. These events often come with exclusive rewards, giving players something to look forward to beyond the standard progression. The developers also seem to listen to feedback, as evidenced by regular updates that introduce new dishes, mechanics, and bug fixes.
On the downside, the game’s social features aren’t as robust as some other titles. There’s no guild system or deep multiplayer integration, which might disappoint players looking for a more communal experience. Still, the existing features are enough to foster a sense of camaraderie, especially if you’re playing with friends.
The Verdict: A Must-Try for Puzzle and Foodies Alike
After spending dozens of hours with Cook & Merge, it’s clear that this game is more than just another cookie-cutter merge title. It’s a labor of love—a game that understands the simple joy of cooking and translates it into a satisfying puzzle experience. The art, the sound, the progression, and even the monetization are all well-balanced, making it a rare gem in the mobile gaming world.
Who is Cook & Merge for?
Foodies who appreciate the art of cooking, even if they can’t boil an egg in real life.
Casual gamers looking for a relaxing yet engaging experience.
Players who enjoy progression-based games with a clear sense of achievement.
Who might not love it?
Hardcore gamers who prefer fast-paced, competitive titles.
Players who dislike grinding—if you’re not into repetitive tasks, the later levels might feel tedious.
Those who hate monetization—while not predatory, the game does encourage spending to speed up progress.
Final Score: 8.5/10
Cook & Merge isn’t perfect, but it’s darn close. It’s the kind of game that sneaks up on you—you start playing to kill time, and suddenly it’s 2 AM, your virtual kitchen is overflowing with gourmet dishes, and you’re wondering how you got there. The blend of merging mechanics and cooking themes is executed so well that it feels fresh, even in a genre saturated with clones.
If you’re on the fence, give it a try. The first few levels are free, and the game’s charm will either reel you in or leave you indifferent. But for those who fall in love with it? Cook & Merge becomes more than just a game—it becomes a little daily ritual, a moment of calm in a chaotic world where even the simplest merges feel like a small victory.
And let’s be honest: who hasn’t dreamed of running a restaurant where the only thing standing between you and success is a well-timed tap? Cook & Merge lets you live that dream, one burger at a time.
There is a particular kind of mobile game that doesn’t announce itself with a trailer full of explosions or a celebrity endorsement. It sits quietly in the puzzle category, wearing pastel colors and a cartoon chef’s hat, and it waits for you to be bored on a train. Cook & Merge from the London studio Supersolid is exactly that kind of game, and I have been circling it for longer than I’d like to admit. After a few weeks of living in its beachside town of Bakers Valley, I think it deserves a proper write-up, partly because it does so many things well and partly because the things it does badly are the exact things that make merge games such a divisive corner of mobile gaming.
The premise is as cosy as they come. You are helping Kate, a talented chef, renovate her Grandma’s Cafe, and in doing so you are drawn into saving an entire town from developers who would happily bulldoze its charm. The villain is Rex Hunter, who has just moved into the mansion on the edge of town and who plays the part with the full soap-opera relish you’d hope for. The twist that won me over early is Granny herself, who turns out to be a retired spy and the keeper of the family’s secrets. I did not expect a merge game to hand me an elderly ex-spy and a mystery built around a recipe book, but here we are, and the tone lands somewhere between a gentle cosy mystery and a daytime drama. There’s gossip, there are plot twists, and there’s a dog named Buddy who I would defend in a court of law.
For anyone new to the genre, the core loop is deceptively simple. You tap generators, appliances, and ingredient sources on a board, and out come low-level items that you combine into higher-level ones. Two eggs become something better, two of those become something better still, and eventually you’ve got cakes, pies, burgers, and the sort of international dishes that make you hungry at inappropriate hours. The developers say there are hundreds of foods to discover, and the more you play, the more recipes you unlock. That progression is the quiet engine of the whole thing. Each merge chain has its own visual logic, and there is a real, small pleasure in watching a pile of humble ingredients resolve into something that looks edible. Orders from the story characters give the board a purpose, because you aren’t merging in a vacuum, you’re cooking toward something someone needs.
The other half is the town. Every completed order feeds into renovations, and the renovations are where the dopamine really lives. You restore Kate’s cafe, then move outward through restaurants and buildings across Bakers Valley, and the game keeps adding new venues as the story progresses. The recent chapters have given us an underwater sushi restaurant, a science lab for Rex’s suspicious experiments, a music festival, a fire station, a toy shop, and a glamping site, and the latest update promises Don opening an adventure park with go-karts and crazy golf. It’s a steady drip of new places to fix up, and each one comes with its own little subplot. There is a running rivalry involving a character named Teddy and a contest called TripRiz that threads through several chapters, and I’ll admit I started caring about the outcome of a fictional travel-review competition far more than any adult should.
The cast deserves a mention because it carries more of the game than the merging does. Kate, Don, Rin, Ben, Blake, and Maya form a believable friend group with believable friction. The romance between Maya and Blake has gone through enough ups and downs that I’ve caught myself muttering at my phone. Writing in this genre is usually an afterthought, a paragraph of dialogue bolted onto a puzzle, but Supersolid seems to treat the story as a genuine reason to return. The developer cadence supports that, with new chapters arriving roughly every few weeks. That regularity is the difference between a game you finish and abandon and one you keep open as a background habit.
