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Zombie Cafe Optimization

In this game, one has a stupid zombie staff that one gets to serve disgusting meals to idiotic customers.  Naturally, it was my favorite.



Once a zombie chef finishes preparing a meal, they place the serving dish on a counter.  From there, zombie waiters can obtain one serving of a meal to deliver to a seated customer.  Since the amount of time it takes for a single customer to be served has a trickle down effect on the entire restaurant (quickly serving customers yields higher tips, rapid turnover increases profit and prevents customers from leaving angrily due to inadequate seating, extended service times increase the overall number of waiters needed to serve a steady flow of customers, etc.), obviously it is crucial to optimize this factor of game play.

One element of the serving process that greatly affects service time is the location of the serving dish, since this modulates the amount of time for a stupid zombie waiter to obtain a disgusting dish, bring it to an idiot customer, return to obtain the next dish, etc.  So, to determine what serving dish locations were optimal, i ran several trials where i placed meals at different locations, then counted how many dishes were served from each location for each configuration.  Locations were determined by numbering each tile on the grid, starting with the leftmost, then counting up and to the right.

The best locations to place Gnasty Gnocchi, Wonton Goop, Misfortune Cookies, etc. are, in order, 5, 4, 2, 38, 3.

Conclusion:  i have taken a waste of time (Zombie Cafe) and found a way to waste more time thinking about the game than actually playing it.

Revelation:  by blogging about this, i am wasting even more time.  I am so meta right now!

Warning:  this is not the last Zombie Cafe Optimization post.
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Location: Austin, TX 78741, USA

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