The creators added plot beyond Emily trying to run her own place. That's great! I like a rich backstory. This is where the dysfunctional part of my review comes in. Let's get started, shall we?

Emily's second level/job in this game is at Brad's Beach Resort. Brad is a good-looking surfer dude who has no problem catching the eye of many different ladies. Yep, he's a player.

Brad announces to Emily that they should go on a date. Emily has no interest in such a thing. Instead of telling him no, she lets her friend Francois tell Brad that Emily and Francois are dating.

There are two problems with this. One, Francois appears to be gay. Throughout the entire series, the creators definitely give off that vibe, even when he's a kid, which we'll get into in the next section. Maybe I'm wrong, and I've been raised in such a way as to see things stereotypically, but try the game and then come back and tell me differently.

Two, Emily could easily have stalled Brad for the two more days she'd be working there, OR she could have said, "Hey, you're a great guy but I'm not into you. Let's be friends!" or something along those lines.

Perhaps I've spent too much time on Reddit, in the Relationships sub-reddit. There are giant red flags regarding her behavior, as well as all of the gentlemen that she bumps into or dates throughout this entire thing.

So, Brad finds out Emily isn't actually dating Francois, and more drama unfolds. She spends the rest of the game feeling bad for fibbing and then figuring out how to apologize to Brad.

Spoiler alert: they work it out.

In the meantime, the banker, with the appropriate name Mrs Sleazely (that may be misspelled, please don't shoot me. I didn't want to play the game again just to find out her name), harasses Emily throughout the months this occurs, raising interest rates and attempting to sabotage Emily in general.

We never do find out why Mrs Sleazely is such a b word.

So in the first game, we already see signs of Emily not being the most put together lady in the world. Instead of telling Brad not to sexually harass her, she makes the situation worse, before she ultimately fixes it by apologizing and COMMUNICATING!

Her bad habit of not communicating with people comes back to haunt her many times.

I give this one 3.5 out of 5 stars. There are buggy things that could be fixed by the game creators, but after this much time, I doubt they'll get to it. They're busy moving Emily along through her life.

There's no way to change difficulty. I blew through game in an afternoon. Had there been an Advanced setting, that's far less likely. There are normal daily goals, and then an expert goal, but the only difference is how much decorating money you have at the end.

As a bonus, they offer endless cycles at each restaurant in Emily's diary, on Normal and Expert difficulty.

Delicious Emily's Childhood Memories

As close as I can figure, this would be second in the chronological order. Once again, the graphics aren't that great. They're similar to the Tea Garden game.

In this game, Emily's parents are about to sell their farmhouse. Emily and her sister Angela show up to find out why the parents are selling their childhood home.

Each level is a different memory from Emily's life. The first restaurant her dad opened brings us back to when she was a young child, learning how to ride a bike. This is when Emily first starts to develop her love of cooking and serving other people.

We get the back story to how Emily met Francois! I won't spoil that for you here.

We see when Emily's parents have to go to the hospital for Angela to be born. There are other sections with her first date, prom, like that.

Miscommunication comes into play here. Neither Emily, Angela, nor Francois ask the parents why they are selling the house. Instead they discover a notice from the bank. The three of them hold a fundraiser in the last level to save the farmhouse from foreclosure.

Emily meets the family that will be buying the home. The young daughter reminds her of herself at that age, and suddenly she's good with her parents selling the house.

Again, she could have saved herself a lot of work, frustration, and heartache, by simply speaking with her parents. Like an adult would. Like an adult who owns their own business should be able to do.

I give this game 3.5 out of 5 stars. Again, there are bugs that should be fixed. There are random mini-games in each level, including a version of Memory, but they are difficult to click to start because of the bugs. Or, my favorite, when I click the mini-game once, and then any time I tap near that area on the screen, it starts again. Annoying.

Delicious Emily's True Love

I honestly don't know what happened to Emily's Tea Garden. When we start this game, she has a restaurant in a building, and she lives upstairs.

The graphics are definitely better, and there are fewer bugs.

I've done the math. From what I can gather, she's in her early 30's in this game. A letter comes from her first love, who lives in France, but it came 16 years after it was sent. Assuming she was 16 when she went to France and met her love, then she'd be 32.

So, for me, that's a bit of a plot hole. Especially when she's running around like a teenager and falling in love at the drop of a hat. Dysfunctional Emily is at her prime in this game.

Her mother finds the letter that Jean-Paul sent many years ago. No explanation for how it got lost in the mail, or for how it appeared after 16 years. As an audience, we are left to surmise that on our own.

Her mother is obsessed with marrying her off. That also tells me that Emily is probably in her 30's now.

To make matters worse, Emily's younger sister Angela meets some jerk named Jimmy (he's rude throughout the entire game series) and they elope. So the pressure is truly on Emily, if only to get her mother to shut up.

Emily is running her place. Every day Patrick the Florist comes by with fresh flowers. There's obvious flirtation going on. Emily is oblivious, and Patrick never says, "Hey, let's grab coffee."

I get it, if they did communicate, there wouldn't be a story.

Emily reads the letter and has flashbacks to when she was in Paris with Jean-Paul. In these memories, she looks exactly the same as now.

She can't imagine Patrick as a boyfriend, mostly because she's suddenly obsessed with the idea of tracking down someone she knew briefly as a teenager IN FRANCE. I'm assuming she lives in the U.S., though they never really say.

There are many sub-plots in this game, making it more interesting in the long run. Again, had any of these couples communicated with each other, the game would have been far shorter.

She packs up her bags and heads out, without telling anyone, except Francois, where she's going. He's supposed to cover for her and spills the beans immediately. In my world, he's not the greatest friend for that.

She loses her bags and gets stuck in Spain. She helps a mother and daughter reconnect, and helps the daughter find her true love.

Then she takes a train. After the airline left me in Spain instead of France, and lost my luggage, I probably would have considered this option also.

She meets someone who falls for her. He acts like a douche at times, but it's obvious he wants to date Emily. Emily is still obsessed with her brief fling from 16 years ago and doesn't give him the time of day.

She finally reaches France, connects with Jean-Paul, only to discover he's a bit of a womanizer. Did she ever ask him if he was dating anyone? Or did she show up expecting Frenchie to sweep her off her feet? She discovers his duplicity and goes home, heartbroken.

Bear in mind, a lot of this could have been prevented, had she written a letter to Jean-Paul, or, you know, picked up a telephone?

When she reaches home, Patrick announces he's leaving because, hey, why not? There's nothing keeping him in Snuggford. He's going to move to New York and sell flowers there.

It is this announcement that makes Emily realize what was in front of her the whole time. Hearts, kisses, and flowers and the game ends.

Or does it? We get a bonus level with Francois trying to run the place, and destroying it and fixing it instead. Francois may not be the best person to leave in charge.

Aside from the dysfunction, I enjoyed this game! 4.5 out of 5 stars. The graphics are slightly better and there are very few bugs that I've discovered.

Delicious Emily's Wonder Wedding

We must have skipped a year, or two. Emily and Patrick are planning their wedding! Hurrah!

We start out with Emily meeting Patrick's mother for the first time. I'm not going to express my weirded out feeling caused by them planning a wedding before Emily has even met his parents, but I warned everyone about the dysfunction, did I not?

Surprise! Brigid doesn't care for Emily. We find out there was a young lady named Iris that she wanted Patrick to marry. Iris is a good girl from Ireland and Patrick dated her. They broke up before they got engaged. So, yeah.

Brigid is very Irish and very superstitious. For some reason, every time Brigid trips out about bad luck (black cat, lost pennies, etcetera), Emily takes it super serious. Instead of sharing her concerns with Patrick (COMMUNICATING!), she becomes obsessed with dropping a specific penny in a well in Ireland

Francois gives Emily the money to go to Ireland and drop a penny in a well (during the full moon, because duh). For some reason, the entire family decides to go with her, except for Patrick. Patrick wants to use the money for the wedding.

Patrick is the smartest guy in the game.

Eventually he has to go to Ireland because Emily forgot the penny that was so damned important.

Patrick is an easy-going guy, but eventually he gets a little fed up with Emily's crap. They have a fight.

Go figure, Iris is there. She's been showing up at the same well every year on this date since Patrick broke up with her. She throws herself into the middle of their relationship (with the help of Patrick's mother, wtf) and causes chaos.

Eventually, Patrick finally tells his mother, and Iris, off. This could have been done before they left Snuggford, for sweet pity's sake.

The wedding day arrives, and Patrick is missing. Why?

Patrick falls down a well, while looking for a stray dog. You heard me. He's down there for days. Emily leaves Ireland without him, yet still expects him to show up for the vows. Did I mention they'd had a fight? But he promised he'd be there so...

Patrick doesn't show. Eventually Emily goes back to Ireland to find him. Patrick, being the stellar, stand-up guy that he is, plans a surprise wedding in Ireland. He gets the entire family there in secret, and partying ensues.

During this time period, Angela bought Emily's wedding dress out from under her. She wants to wear it for her anniversary with douchebag Jimmy. (I won't spoil all the ways that Jimmy is a jerk. I will say that I have a brother in law named Jimmy and I'm thrilled he's nothing like the jerk in the game).

Vows are exchanged, bells are rung, and Emily still hasn't learned to simply talk to the people she's having problems with.

I know I talk a lot of smack about the plot lines, but I love this game. Mostly for the gameplay itself. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Delicious Emily's Honeymoon Cruise

This game starts immediately after the wedding in Ireland. Like, the next day, from what I can gather. They're still partying down.

Patrick's mother, Brigid, reconnected with his father during the wedding game. They've been divorced for some time. During the overnight that occurred between the two games, he dumped her. Or she dumps him. But that says a lot happens during this game.

Lots of relationships, lots of miscommunication. Yay!

Emily's jerk brother-in-law Jimmy managed to buy a cruise ship while in Ireland. Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently, it was really cheap and he thought this was a great idea.

Emily and Patrick decide a cruise sounds like great fun for a honeymoon. There's no staff on the boat, so their entire families get to come and pitch in! There's a spa, restaurant, kid's playroom, pool area, and a clothing store.

We also have time on an island, where Emily gets to see Brad for the first time since the Tea Garden game. Spoiler, he's still a player, preying on the hearts of women whose names he can't be bothered to remember.

Everything is going great until Patrick has the balls to mention he likes kids and wouldn't mind starting a family soon. Oddly enough, Emily hasn't considered children. Like ever.

Poor Emily. She just got her restaurant up and running. It's a success! And here comes Patrick, telling her she's going to have to give it all up because he wants to start a family soon.

Bear in mind, Patrick didn't say they should start that minute. It was idle conversation and Emily lost her shit. Instead of talking to Patrick and telling him she hadn't thought about children, she tries to go whine to her family.

Everyone has other stuff going on. Dysfunctional stuff. It's a running theme. Emily's parents appear to be on the verge of divorce, thanks to some guy she used to date and who happens to be a rock star performing on the ship being there.

Angela is busy trying to run a clothing store. She's been told she sucks, however, and can't deal with Emily's crap at the moment.

Obviously, Emily can't talk to Patrick's mother about this. Besides, Brigid is busy being a giant B because her heart is broken and she doesn't know how to deal with her emotions.

For some reason, Emily's Uncle Antonio thinks this is hot as hell. He spends his days working as Brigid's cleaner at the spa, while aggressively pursuing a relationship with a woman who seems to be upset all the time.

Emily and Patrick end up having a fight. Surprise! Unfortunately, while they're at port near Brad's island bar, Patrick gets knocked out and fails to rejoin the party on the ship before it heads back out to sea.

No one thought to look for Patrick and it takes them a couple of days to realize he's missing. Seriously.

They have to turn the ship around. Jimmy the jerk brother in law acts like a jerk about this.

Finally, Emily and Patrick get to apologize to each other, and talk. I think it's at this point that Emily realizes she can work and raise children at the same time. I hope this is where Patrick realizes his wife is neurotic and deals with it appropriately by making her go to counseling, but they don't mention that subplot.

I give this one 4.5 out of 5 stars. The gameplay is great, there are a ton of levels, and the graphics have taken a giant step up. I would have given a 5 out of 5 stars but I have issue with the bonus levels. There's no way to skip the credits and you have to watch them or kill the game and restart it to get to the first bonus level.

They must have added a second bonus level after, as the credits have to scroll by once again before we can play a mini-level with an extremely pregnant Emily. Maybe I should have taken away a full star. Either way. The final scene brings us to the next game.

Delicious Emily's New Beginning

It's at this point, GameHouse has been releasing them more or less in order. The graphics continue to improve and there have been far fewer bugs discovered.

When last we left the gang, Emily was hugely pregnant and going into labor. In this game she has the baby, and takes some time off of work.

After almost a year of downtime, Emily decides to reopen Emily's Place. Unfortunately, after being closed for as long as she has, Emily has lost all of her regular customers. There's a celebrity chef who seems to have everyone coming to see his place, and it is hopping!

Emily decides she can run the restaurant and take care of baby Paige at the same time. This is a glorious idea. The baby wanders around the restaurant and can improve customer's attitudes, or she can make their moods precipitously worse.

Patrick is still running his garden/flower shop. Though he works for himself, as Emily does, apparently he can never ever, not once, take charge of their baby during the day. This all falls on Emily's shoulders.

Throughout the game he asks if there is anything he can do to help. Though Emily is constantly feeling overwhelmed, she tells him no. Dysfunctional Emily coming to the forefront again. God forbid she ask for help from her spouse.

The grandparents swoop in to the rescue. Emily's parents will randomly take the kid for the day, so that's nice. And realistic, from what I know of parents who work for themselves with family nearby.

And yes, all of Emily and Patrick's family is there. Em's Uncle Antonio is still dating Brigid. At the end of the Honeymoon game, they were going to open a spa in Snuggford together. This never gets mentioned again, and the two seem to have an awful lot of free time.

Brigid comes in and picks the baby up by the scruff of the neck, often. Similar to how a momma cat carries her kittens. Except with a look of disgust on her face. Not very grandmotherly. She constantly harasses Emily about having Paige at work, which is some kind of special BS, seeing as she's not willing to watch her and day care is expensive.

I had to do some familial figuring out. I practically had to take notes. From what I can tell, Uncle Antonio is Em's dad's brother. They're Italian, as we discover in the second round when they're running an Italian restaurant. They're from Napoli, if I must be specific. In the Wedding game, we discovered Em's mother is Irish, like Brigid, so my deductive reasoning appears to be sound.

Antonio and Em's dad have some serious sibling rivalry going on. Especially when it comes to the baby. Emily never puts her foot down and tells them to act like the adults they are (her job, seeing as it's her family and not Patrick's. Patrick is in charge of reining in Brigid, not that he ever does). Eventually, the brother's one-upmanship games burns down Emily's restaurant.

Yes, you read that right. They burnt the place to the ground. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Instead of having a heart attack and killing the guys, Emily goes to work for the celebrity chef. While doing so, she's constantly hiding Paige from Dainton (the chef).

I don't know why insurance didn't cover Emily's fire damage. They don't explain that. Emily goes to work for a bit in Patrick's garden, before the fire happens. During this period, he's constantly wandering through, but never once picks up a fussing baby. That is all on Emily's shoulders. I thought that was pretty crappy and deserved special mention.

Dainton hates kids, but Emily triples Dainton's profits once she starts working there, and he has no choice but to accept that the baby will have to stay. Richard, a guy who pops up randomly in the game series, is a financier for restaurants, and suggests the two open a place together.

They use Emily's property to open an Asian Fusion place. It goes great, but the two can't get along. In the most mature move I've ever seen Emily pull, she sells her half of the business to Dainton, and eases some of the stress in her own life.

She takes the proceeds and buys a farmhouse wayyyyyyy out in the middle of nowhere (this matters in the next game). The final level is a bonus Christmas round in the new digs.

Instead of telling the family what she plans to do with the place when they ask, she acts coy. This is the cliffhanger meant to encourage us to buy the next game. And buy I did. At $9.99 a pop, I think we can tell where my gaming allowance goes.

I give this one 4 out of 5 stars. This is because this is the only game in the series where the player has to set the menu based on customers. I found this highly annoying and I'm glad they discontinued it in the next game. Speaking of...

Delicious Emily's Home Sweet Home - Collector's Edition

This is the continuation of the bonus level from the last game. Actually, it's the back story to the bonus level of the last game.

Emily and Patrick have used the money she received for selling her half of the asian fusion place to Dainton to buy a house in Snuggford. Previously they were shown driving wayyyy out into the middle of nowhere, but now they're back in a neighborhood in Snuggford.

The house is a complete money pit. When now 2 year old Paige hits a light switch, the chandelier falls through the floor. So, right away you know this house is going to take some work.

Emily opens a garden restaurant, apparently in the front yard. She immediately meets one of her neighbors. Sharon Stepford. She's an overbearing woman, with power trip issues who also happens to have a daughter the same age as Paige, named Grace.

Grace is a beauty pageant baby. So at 2 she's spoiled, and a bit of a handful. Her mother has her booked in all sorts of classes and whatnot, to give her the advantage over the other 2 year olds.

Grace and Paige become fast friends, though their mothers can not seem to get along. Emily and family are not elite enough for our friend Sharon.

Grace falls through the hole in the floor caused by the chandelier in the first scene. The poor thing breaks her leg and Sharon's pageant dreams for this year come crashing down.

Sharon is on the neighborhood council. She runs it, and is more powerful than the mayor. Sharon has decided Emily's house should be condemned because, you know, over-reacting is fun!

Patrick and Emily have 120 days to bring the house up to code, or Sharon's Law will have it demolished 2 weeks after it's condemn date. How exciting!

They can no longer run their restaurant. Different business owners from the neighborhood have stopped in and introduced themselves to Emily. Fortunately for her, they are all in need of an employee in the exact months that she needs them. A camp in the summer, a farmer's market in the fall, a ski resort, etcetera. And all of these things are located in Snuggford.

I now want to visit Snuggford.

Emily appears to have grown up in between these games. Instead of spreading her own dysfunction everywhere, she helps other daughters be honest and connect with their dads.

This game appears to have a moral.

Sharon Stepford is way worse of a B than Mrs Sleazely was back in the Tea Garden game. When she realizes her revenge plans to have their house torn down (over an accident) are about to be foiled, she takes action.

Everyone in town has been wandering in and out of Emily and Patrick's home, at will. No one ever showed them how to lock a door, or something. Sharon sneaks in, and sabotages the repairs.

The woman could have killed someone.

Sharon is forced to reveal her diabolical plan when her own daughter climbs the death trap.

Don't worry, the children are saved. Sharon figures out she's being a total C word, and apologizes and does everything she can to make it right.

The woman is essentially guilty of attempted murder. Had Patrick climbed the scaffolding she sabotaged, he would have fallen and broken his neck. We already know he's fragile from the wedding game, so this is best avoided.

But no one mentions Sharon could have killed someone. They all become besties and have a housewarming party! Hurrah!

Remember the Christmas bonus level in the new house I mentioned? At the end of this one, we see the completed restaurant. It's the same as the Christmas level but doesn't have carpeting, or a number of other things. It would be an expensive remodel for the holidays, but the couple with the young child seem to be doing well for themselves, so we'll call it believable.

Aside from the attempted murder thing, I give this game a 4.5 out of 5 stars. Seriously, I couldn't get beyond the, not negligence seeing as Sharon did it on purpose, but the absolute sociopathy she displayed after her daughter can't compete in pageants for one year.

Delicious Emily's Hopes & Fears

This game picks up where the last game left off. Except things are different.

Remember my mentioning how Patrick never seems to step up and help care for their child? Well, I must not have been the only one noticing this, as Emily is growing weary of Patrick wanting to work on his motorcycle while on vacation, instead of going to the lake with his ladies.