Hobbies And Interests
Travel and Locations
Because travel is very expensive, travel only when necessary at the beginning of the game. Always make sure you have enough money for the return flight. If you do not have enough money for a return flight, but need to travel to a location to fulfill a quest, avoid locations without shops. These locations are: Falkland Islands, Gobi Desert, Las Vegas, Reykjavik, Uluru and Xunantunich. If you get stuck in a location with no shops to sell your chocolate to earn money, you must start a new game.
Ingredients
Keep an eye on ingredient prices at various ports. Prices fluctuate depending on the port, time of year and the shopkeeper's mood. Always stock up on basic ingredients (cocoa powder, sugar and truffle powder) when you notice a drop in price. If you haggle with the shopkeeper and his prices go up, the prices remain that way until you leave the port and come back at a later date.
Xunantunich has the Honduran Cacao ingredient for sale, but the port selling it does not unlock until you're close to finishing the game. Don't worry about not unlocking it in time--the recipe calling for it, Blended Varietal Cacao Dark Truffles, is not required to win the game.
Secret Test Kitchen
In the Secret Test Kitchen, players create their own recipes to add to the cookbook. As soon as the Secret Test Kitchen becomes available, fly to start filling up your cookbook--user-created treats are much more desirable and profitable by your customers than the game's recipes. There are 12 spaces inside the cookbook for user-created recipes.
Spaces unlock as you fulfill orders and complete errands. Use these spaces to your advantage by creating recipes with the most expensive ingredients you have available. Expensive ingredients make the recipe more profitable, earning you more money to progress through the game faster.
The last quest before you're awarded the "Master Chocolatier" title requires you to create 200 cases of each of your 12 Secret Test Kitchen creations. If all of your recipes require expensive ingredients, this quest could be overwhelming. Keep this in mind when creating recipes--expensive and profitable recipes get you to the last quest faster, but cheaper, less profitable recipes make the final task easier.
Quests and Factories
When asked, always accept each quest or errand, even if you already have several requests in your queue. Fulfilling quests and errands progresses you through the game faster and is the only way to unlock new recipes and ports.
If time is running out on a request, upgrade a factory to create additional products. When initially unlocked, each factory can create one product. These products are as follows:
Cape Town: creates coffee
San Francisco: creates truffles
Tokyo: creates infusions
Toronto: creates coffee blends
Wellington: creates exotics
Zurich: creates chocolate bars
Factory equipment upgrades cost $1,000,000 for each additional product type, so only upgrade when pressed for time.