The Café Pop-Up in Café Remix

Recently, Café Remix has introduced yet another event type for players to wrap their cooking puzzle skills around. Such a happening is always festive, but for this new event, there is some cause for concern due to the way things are implemented. So it is that the new event type is called Café Pop-Up, and it's also "popping up" a few other elements that might become a total challenge for any player participating in the event.

The event's overall structure more or less follows the format of Outdoor Tea Party, with it also using the Slow Cooking framework (and it seems One-Minute Cooking may not be a concern anymore for that and this one). Players go through the puzzle stages to earn points, fill up gauges, and get item and Pokémon rewards. That sounds innocuous enough, but beyond that, there lies a whole lot of quirks.

For starters, one can only play the puzzle stages five times for free each day, using a special item called a "food storage box". After that, one has to spend 1000 Golden Acorns each time for one box and thus one play. On the upside, the point earnings from each play are also higher... but then the gauges need to be filled with more points, thereby offsetting the efforts. In a way, it's supposed to be like a pop-up restaurant with limited resources.

Because the number of plays can be limited, the event includes a "stage redraw" feature that can be used to re-select food stages to try to get ones that can result in possibly higher scores. The first few of these each day are free, and the rest understandably require payment of Golden Acorns, up to 20 in total each day. This may or may not be able to be implemented in regular Outdoor Tea Party for its usefulness.

Meanwhile, the limited play and scoring perhaps also factor into an additional paid element - this time by proxy of real money - called a Mighty Menu, which will increase scores and invite Pelipper as an extra Pokémon. Five choices are available, with the most expensive having the best effect. This comes alongside the Premium Pass, which likewise will increase scores for this event and others during the month that it is purchased for.

With all of that, it is somewhat clear that the Café Pop-Up is a rather extreme attempt at monetizing things, whether it's to buy Golden Acorns that would then eventually be used to attempt further plays each day and/or to redraw food stages, or directly for the purchase of a Mighty Menu for increasing scores immediately and getting a few bonuses alongside. It's a bit regrettable that all of this is made evident through the new format.

Concerns over its monetization are the obvious challenge of the event, along with the usual one of using Pokémon to clear stages (complete orders) and get all the things - or as many of them as possible - from the event. As festive as they are, the Café Pop-Up event type and the new elements that it also "pops up" may still leave some nags for players with regard to the time and effort (and possibly money) for all that is needed to make the occasion a success.

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