A Nostalgic Look Back on the Papa's Franchise

As of today, Flipline Studios has developed 14 different Papa’s games, and despite there not being any actual competitive element, our classes at school always got competitive.

I, like most other students I know, got discouraged by my teachers from playing computer games in school. In fact, I’m pretty sure everyone had to deal with those dreaded website blockers that for some reason think it detrimental to learning that students play Animal Jam during class time.

This meant that I would have to turn to the more “education friendly” game sites: CoolMathGames, Ducksters, and the one most prevalent at my elementary school, Hooda Math. While in reality, none of these game sites had any real educational value, they had math in the name and education in the tags, so they didn’t get picked up by the blockers. The Papa’s series became by far the most successful game series on the sites.

The Papa’s series followed you, a cartoon human, as you tackled owning restaurants of varying types. From wings to hot dogs to burgers, fifth grade me really felt like he had taken down the restaurant industry. Each process of cooking had some little time management issue or mouse movement mini game where users had to evenly distribute the condiments onto the meal, and at the end, the customer would give a score, a tip, and if you did well enough, a ticket to some other mini game where you could win decorations for the shop.

So what differentiated this from any other game on the site? As of today, Flipline Studios has developed 14 different Papa’s games, and despite there not being any actual competitive element, our classes at school always got competitive. Fifth grade clout got measured by who had the most ornately decorated “Cupcakeria” and who managed to achieve a perfect score. I distinctly remember getting in trouble because my friend and I went wild after he finally managed to get that last piece of decor for his perfectly themed and furnished restaurant. Our teacher didn’t understand it the way we did; this didn’t feel like a game, it felt like a grown-up job. Not to mention the full on debates we’d have on which game ranked as the best: I stayed firmly set in the “Hot Doggeria'' camp, but I think deep down, I knew that “Freezeria” reigned as the true king.

Did the Papa’s games have any educational content at all? Did I learn anything useful while playing them? Yes and no. I’m not sure I ever learned math from any of these games, despite the pitches of the sites where the games could be accessed. Nor did I truly learn any business skills; the games never prioritized that. However, I think that the Papa’s franchise did teach me a few lessons. First, it takes a lot of hard work to get to the top of the heap: those at the top have to painstakingly remember patterns, keep track of the time it takes to make your meals, and understand the proper distribution of cheese on top of your taco to truly reach the end. Second, the friends you make along the way hold just as much weight as the status you hold. Most of my best memories from those games come from racing my friends, attempting to speed run a day or see who could earn the most tip money—not the original point of the game. Finally, the most important lesson: I dislike Papa’s Pastaria and believe it should not get associated with the rest of the franchise.