How to Play: Summary
You’re late to the cafeteria and the Lunch Line is closing! All of the food is free, so take whatever you want, but hurry up because you don’t have a lot of time. Above the Lunch Line you’ll see your nutritional needs and your target for the current meal. The closer you come to hitting that target the more points you’ll score.
Roll over food bins to get more information on that food’s nutritional value. You can add that food to your tray by clicking on its bin and selecting how much you want. Remember that the nutritional value listed is for 1 serving. When you see the Lunch Lady appear, she’ll happily make you just about anything you can think of. Just ask her nicely! If you change your mind about anything you’ve added to your tray, drag it off of your tray to throw it out.
To jump around the lunch line, move your mouse to the bottom of the screen and click on the part of the line you want to move to. When you’re ready to check out, click on the register at the end of the line.
Bon appétit!
« Back to the Game
How to Play: Getting Started
The goal of Lunch Line is to pick foods that will fulfill your personal nutritional needs for the day and balance each meal as best as possible.
Before the game beings you are able to customize the nutritional requirements by setting your age, weight, height, and sex. Use the sliders on the scale to adjust your age, weight, and height and the selector switch on the arm of the scale to select your sex. You can skip this step and go directly to the game by clicking PLAY NOW WITH DEFAULTS. Otherwise, when you are done customizing, click PLAY NOW to load your game.
There are over 2000 foods in the kitchen that need to be prepared and analyzed so please be patient while that happens. It will generally take about 10 seconds to complete.
« Back to the Game
How to Play: Planning a Meal
Once your game is loaded you will be presented with your breakfast menu. Take a good look at what’s being offered for that meal and come up with a game plan for which foods you’d like. When you’re ready to begin, click anywhere on the menu to start your game.
Your nutritional requirements for the day will appear at the top of the screen. You’ll be rewarded for how closely you match these at the end of your game as well as for how close you come to each meal’s goals. There is no time limit to each meal but you will be pushed forward constantly. In addition, the lunch line is quickly running out of food and eventually everything will be gone and you’ll only be able to work with what is on your tray. The food bins will quickly empty starting with the Mains at the front.
« Back to the Game
How to Play: Picking Foods
Roll over a food bin to find out more about that food. Note the serving size, the nutritional information displayed is for that serving size only. Certain foods contain stars for certain added benefits like containing no added sugar or lots of whole grains. Foods with these stars will give you a higher score (as well as a healthier meal!).
To add a food to your tray, click its bin. Select the serving type and amount of servings you want and click ADD TO TRAY. You can organize the food on your tray by dragging it around. Note that nutritional information is only available by rolling over the food in the bins and not on your tray.
To remove an item from your tray, drag it off of your tray. When the garbage poof appears, drop the item and it will be removed. Once you remove an item you can only get it back from the bin where you originally retrieved it.
« Back to the Game
How to Play: Cutting the Line
Move your mouse to the bottom of the screen to open the CUT THE LINE map. This map will show you the entire lunch line with bins that are empty appearing RED. Click anywhere along the map to quickly jump to that spot. The different sections will appear highlighted but you can also jump to any spot within those sections by clicking on that exact location. Be careful that you don’t click on the register until you are ready to end the level and check out your tray.
Clicking on the register on the lunch line or on the mini-map will check out your tray and end the level. If you are pushed to the end of the lunch line, this will also force you to check out.
« Back to the Game
How to Play: The Lunch Lady
As an added benefit, the cafeteria’s lunch lady will stop by once per meal. Click on the lunch lady to open a selection box. You can type the name of the food you’d like and she will get it for you as long as it’s in the kitchen. As nice as she is, she has her faults. She won’t be able to provide you with any nutritional information before you get your food, and she will only help you once for each meal. In addition, she won’t wait around forever so make sure you ask for her help before she leaves.
« Back to the Game
How to Play: Scoring
As you add items, your nutrition meters on the top of the screen will update. As the meters get close to your target value they will change from RED to GREEN. The more green meters you have, the better your score will be. All meters carry the same weight on your score, with the exception of calories, which are worth more. To get the best possible score, make sure your calories bar is GREEN before checking out.
At the end of each meal, after you check out, you’ll be given a receipt with your current nutritional totals for the day, a list of all the food you’ve purchased for the day, and your score for the last meal.
« Back to the Game