Video Game / Love & Pies

Love & Pies is a mobile merge game by Trailmix Ltd. released on September 2021. The game involves merging items to fulfill customer orders, which gives coins to be used to progress the game's story.

Amelia Green is a single mother who arrives with her daughter Kate back at her mother Freya's restaurant, the Windmill Cafe, only to find it has been burned down, and her mother is missing. While trying to discover the culprit behind the arson attack, she uncovers even more mysteries, including that of a mysterious thief known as The Purple Fox, who leaves behind a purple fox figurine at the scene of the crime.

---

Love & Pies includes examples of:

• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: The day after Joe leaves for his two-day baker's retreat, Amelia worries that he might hook up with someone else, which is partially why she calls Yuka over three hours earlier than the latter's usual wake-up schedule to talk about him.
• Abusive Parents: Sebastian Corps, CEO of Global Megacorp and by extension, Clean Bean Café, raised Edwina with "hard discipline", and demoted her from her position at his company to force her to claw her way back up. He's as cold and ruthless in his personal life as he is in business, sending Edwina an email telling her that he was Amelia's father instead of telling her in person, then criticizing Amelia's running of the cafe while framing it as "lessons".
• Accidental Misnaming: On Day 14, Joe accidentally calls Sven "Steven", but quickly waves it off as him getting a headache because he's actually his twin brother Sam masquerading as him.
• Actually Pretty Funny: While Joe's puns often elicit groans from his friends, there's one time that he actually gets a chuckle out of them, like when Eve thinks of writing an article on the café's electricity.
  Eve: Mmm, don't you feel it, Yuka? I could write a story on the electricity in here!
  Joe: Electricity in the air? WATT a SHOCK that would be?!
  Eve: Haha! That was almost good, Joe. I just feel like there's a juicy story in here.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: The price for extra storage space increases every time you buy a new slot. It starts at 50 gems, then 57, etc. The cost of refilling your energy also doubles with every consecutive refill, starting at 10 gems, then 20, then 40, etc., but the cost resets to 10 every day.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Eve likes to come up with alliterative headlines for her articles on the Appleton Times.
  • Her article on the café arson is entitled "Deluded Daughter in Desperate Denial!"
  • When Eve tries coming up with a title for the news that Amelia rightfully owns the café, she suggests "Deluded Daughter Gets the Deed!" and "Kooky Café Cooks Up Conundrum!" However, they're declined in favor of Joe's: "Born and Bread for Success in the Café!"
  • Eve comes up with "Fruitcake Seeks Fake Fortune!" when Amelia tells her about the treasure hunt, albeit jokingly. After the treasure is found, she writes, "Precious Painting Found in Precious Pastry Café!"
  • Amelia suggests "Crash Chaos Can't Curb Café!" for Eve's article about Esme's van crash into the café.
• Ad Reward: In addition to the free daily gift, you can watch an ad to get a free energy box. You can also watch an ad to speed up a timer, get 15 units of energy after you run out of it, pop bubbled items for free, or refresh the marketplace.
• Age-Gap Romance:
  • Joe went on a date with Edwina, who is the same age as Amelia's mother, long before Amelia returned to Appleton. Amelia and Joe were in high school together. After Joe quit his job at Clean Bean Café, his twin brother and replacement, Sam, is rumored to have started dating Edwina.
  • On Day 26, Sebastian tells Amelia that he is her father. Amelia is a bit skeptical of this at first because of his age; he is also Edwina's father and is 30 years older than Freya, making him old enough to be Amelia's grandfather. Sebastian says that her mother didn't care about the age difference. Esme is disgusted, calling him a creep and a slimeball.
• The Alibi: All of the suspects on Amelia's list give alibis for where they were on the night of the arson attack. Some of them even have pictures of them with the burning cafe in the background. In fact, Raj has three: 30 minutes before the fire, he finished a triathlon, then he and his wife had a picture with his trophy outside Global Megacorp 10 minutes before, and finally, he went to the dentist 5 minutes after.
• Almost Kiss: A Running Gag has Joe and Amelia being interrupted before they can kiss, although they do manage to actually kiss a few times.
  • When Joe reveals to Amelia that he canceled his second date with another woman and broke up with her because of his rekindled feelings for Amelia, they almost share a kiss, only for Edwina to burst into the kitchen.
  • After Joe proves that he was innocent of the fire by showing Amelia the picture his mom took of him and his dad at another restaurant that night, they nearly kiss, only for the pie in Amelia's oven to catch fire and set off the sprinklers.
  • On their first date, Joe leans in on Amelia for a kiss, just when the real Joe comes home from his baker's retreat. He and Amelia are shocked by his twin brother Sam pretending to be him to seduce her.
  • Joe and Amelia almost kiss after installing the toilet before they are interrupted by Yuka and Eve, who make fun of them for almost kissing in the bathroom.
  • After hanging pictures in the "romantic date room", Joe and Amelia almost kiss before they are interrupted by Esme and Kate.
    Kate: Eww, Mommy, were you going to KISS Joe?!
• Amateur Sleuth: Amelia isn't a professional detective because she only learned the skills from watching The Mysteries of Miguel, but she conducts investigations in the café to catch the criminals who are out for it and her family.
• Ambidextrous Sprite:
  • Kate draws with both her left and right hands because her drawing animation gets flipped depending on where she is.
  • The Choice Chests are marked with question marks, which get flipped along with them.
• Amicable Exes: Amelia is initially embarrassed when her high school ex Joe applies to work part-time at her café to help rebuild it, but her lingering feelings for him after her divorce lets her consider hiring him full-time to try repairing their lost relationship. Joe then finishes raising enough money for his father's medical bills to quit his job at Edwina's cafe to work at Amelia's not only to help save it, but also to try reciprocating his feelings for her. In fact, they have always been on good terms with each other since they dated a few times in the past before drifting.
• Amnesia Plot: After Joe is pushed and falls from the Windmill Cafe's eponymous windmill balcony, he loses all of his memories of who he is and who anyone close to him was. This puts him out of commission for a couple episodes, and a running plot line for several in-game days after is everyone trying to help him recover his memories.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Items on the board that fulfill a customer's orders are automatically highlighted in green and the customer who ordered them moves all the way to the left, letting you know which orders are finished.
  • If there are any leftover roses by the time Yuka's Date Dash Event ends, she collects them and gives you the next reward if there are enough roses for it.
  • To prevent the game from becoming Unintentionally Unwinnable, certain items can't be removed if you don't have any other means to acquire more of them.
  • To help the player avoid accidentally spawning the wrong items, a cursor appears around the selected generator (except for those that automatically spawn items such as the Functional Beehive and its upgrades) since it needs to be double-tapped to spawn them. This also works on item boxes, coins, gems, and energy boosts since they can be merged to spawn better items and give bigger rewards, and the cursor helps the player avoid opening or collecting them by accident.
• Bait-and-Switch Silhouette: After Esme tells Amelia the story of the Pie Ghost, the latter sees an eerie silhouette peering into the romantic date room muttering "pies, pies, pies..." just like them, but it turns out to be Edwina.
• Befriending the Enemy: After Amelia discovers that Edwina is her half-sister, she decides to invite her to the café for a hangout to know her as a sister rather than an enemy. Edwina rejects her activity ideas first, but slowly warms up to her and gives her relationship advice. By the end of the day, Edwina tries to be a good older sister to Amelia and hopes that Sebastian would improve his relationship with the latter. However, this doesn't mean that their business rivalry would end. And when it's discovered that they aren't actually sisters Edwina immediately goes back to treating Amelia antagonistically.
• The Big Damn Kiss: After returning from the baker's retreat and shooing out his twin brother Sam for deceiving Amelia into thinking it was him, Joe asks Amelia out for their first date since high school 15 years ago. She says yes, and they finally kiss without getting interrupted. Unlike the other cutaways, the scene is partially animated with a flashy fade-in and a pink heart background as they move in for the kiss.
• Big Entrance: Whenever Edwina dramatically storms into the café, her face is lit by evil green light and lightning striking behind her.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Sven is the tallest character in the game, towering over everyone else. His husband, Angus, is very short, barely coming up to his waist.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: When Amelia asks Eve if she suspects that Yuka started the arson, she breaks the ice like this:
  Amelia: So, um, how are things? Yuka? How are things with Yuka?
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: The game can be completed without spending real money, but you can purchase gems to speed up timers, buy more storage, refill the energy meter, pop bubbled items before they turn into coins, and buy new items from the marketplace.
• The Bus Came Back: On Day 12, Joe leaves for the two-day baker's retreat, but comes back the following day earlier than expected because he didn't like it. The trope gets double-subverted because while it was actually his twin brother Sam masquerading as him, the real Joe returns as scheduled, just in time to see Sam about to kiss Amelia.
• Caligula's Horse: In the Rival Season Pass, Betty mentions that Brumhilda the goat was once made mayor of Appleton.
• Calling Card: The Purple Fox always leaves a purple fox figurine after they rob a place. This makes them a suspect of the arson, but since their motive is to steal and then return the stolen goods afterwards, Eve rules them out. However, after she leaves, Amelia discovers a box of Purple Fox figurines while cleaning the kitchen, which was left behind by her mother.
• Canine Companion: Joe gives Amelia a new dog on Yuka's behalf so she'll have a partner like Miguel and his canine sidekick Carmen.
• Cannot Spit It Out:
  • After discovering that her mother is The Purple Fox, Amelia tries keeping it a secret from her friends. Joe is most concerned by her and he tries assuring her that she can tell him anything and that he won't judge TPF for whatever reason for their crimes, but she still refuses to tell him.
  • Sebastian has always wanted to tell Amelia since the day she returned to Appleton that he is her father, but he got worried about her mother when she went missing on the night of the arson.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Every character in the game is visually unique and stands out in their own way. And as the game goes on, even the background characters are revealed to have their own unique backstories and personalities outside of just being set pieces who hang out at the café all day.
• Censorship by Spelling: Amelia and Esme do it in front of Kate.
  Esme: Where is T-O-N-Y anyway?
  Amelia: He thinks he's going on a date with E-D-W-I-N-A, but she's standing him up.
• Character Tics: Mayor Mei tends to wink at the camera or at other people whenever she comes up with a plan.
• Cheerful Child: Kate is always smiling and is excited to see her mom refurbish the café. She's often seen scribbling or playing with her toy T-rex while Amelia's working.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Benny Benson is first mentioned as a low-ranking crook that Eve's trying to write a new article about. It's later revealed that she was writing about him on the night of the fire, proving her innocent, and a previous headline about him has him denying that he knows The Purple Fox. This gives Amelia a new lead on who might be the culprit behind the arson since she theorizes that they set Freya's café on fire as revenge for her robbery as TPF.
• Childhood Friend Romance: A flashback scene showing Joe giving Amelia a giant teddy bear when they were kids reveals that besides Yuka, Amelia knew Joe since childhood. They then dated a few times in high school before drifting, and they're trying to rekindle their relationship when they meet again as adults.
• Childhood Friends:
  • Amelia and Yuka have been friends since they were kids, and Yuka gives her a new dog as an apology for suspecting that Freya started the arson.
  • Amelia's mom Freya and Amelia's consistent antagonist Edwina were actually childhood friends back in the day themselves.
• Collective Identity: Yuka believes that The Purple Fox is an identity shared by multiple people, but Eve shoots it down because TPF always leaves a purple fox figurine at the crime scene. It turns out that Yuka lied about her theory because she already caught Freya as TPF.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Amelia prepares to investigate if Sebastian was the one who cut the brakes of Esme's van, she discusses with her why she suspects him as such:
  Amelia: Obviously Global Megacorp is 'the enemy' of the cafe. He seems like a really ruthless businessman — and he knew Benny Benson. But why would he try to hurt you?
  Esme: Maybe I beat him in an online game?
  Amelia: Focus!
• Community-Threatening Construction: In the Rival Season Pass, Edwina destroys Appleton's historic gatehouse, where Mayor Mei Hong's great-grandmother lived 70 years ago, to build Global Megacorp MegaWarehouse under her father's contract, and Amelia has to help the mayor rebuild the gatehouse.
• Cool Old Lady: Amelia's great-aunt Esme may be a kooky, dirty-minded Fortune Teller who used to be a circus performer, but she's happy to help fix up the café after her van crashes into it. Her old age also doesn't stop her from playing online games such as Battle Dwarves with Kate.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Sebastian Corps, CEO of Global Megacorp, is described by the Windmill Café patrons as a ruthless businessman. He doesn't care how he runs the company as long as he makes a profit, and he tries to manipulate the employees who resigned into returning to work for him. When he offers Amelia "lessons" on how to run Windmill Café, he tries indoctrinating the rules he has for Clean Bean Café such as requiring payment for outside help such as Sven, changing the café's marketing strategy without Amelia's input, and convincing her to fire Joe to streamline profits. He also offers her to sign the documents to make Windmill Café part of the Global Megacorp brand.
• Crush Blush: Amelia and Joe, who have a mutual crush, can't help but blush at each other whenever they're together.
• Crush Filter: Amelia tends to imagine Joe as a Hunk whenever he helps her out at the café.
• Curse Cut Short: On the day of the slam poetry event, Sam decides to give Amelia a "preview".
  Sam: Oh Amelia, I'd like to see ya for a coffee at my place,
  Then I'd hold ya, like I told ya, and I'd kiss you on the face.
  I like to see you smile, yeah I like your style and class...
  But if I'm being honest what I like most is your—
  Amelia: —That's enough, thank you!
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Edwina starts out arrogant and haughty towards Amelia, hoping to drive her mother Freya's café out of business, but over time, she can't help but miss the café because that's where she used to play with Freya. When Amelia finds out that Edwina's actually her half-sister, she invites her over for some sisterly bonding. Edwina rejects her activity ideas at first, but she still watches her fix up the vegetable garden. Edwina then decides to sit with Amelia for the afternoon, and when she realizes that Amelia only thought bad about her, with her past relationship with Joe being the last straw, Edwina slowly warms up to Amelia and tries being a Cool Big Sis to her by advising her that Joe is truly the one for her.
• Destroyable Items: Low-level items can be thrown away to free up space, while some generators such as the Basket of Bread are automatically destroyed after spawning a certain number of items.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: On Day 29, Amelia reminisces out loud the wonderful date night she had with Joe the other day, but quickly says, "Oh no, did I say that out loud?!" because they're at the café courtyard. Joe assures her that he enjoyed the date and hopes to go out on another one soon.
• Did Not Get the Girl: When Eve announces her plans to propose to her long-distance partner, Yuka, who had been crushing on Eve for more than a week, leaves the café, heartbroken. She moves on from her the next day by storing away her mementos of her in her "Eve box".
• Differing Priorities Breakup: Amelia and Joe broke up in high school because the former wanted to study while the latter wanted to travel the world. They didn't consider a Long-Distance Relationship, even if Joe sent Amelia a postcard.
• Dirty Old Woman: Esme is too "interested" in Amelia and Joe's first date and assumes that the birds and the bees happened between them. Amelia reprimands her for wanting the dirty details right in front of Kate, when the date itself was actually innocent. When Joe tells Esme that he wore nothing to the date, she immediately assumes that he and Amelia had "the birds and bees" going on when Joe meant that he wore "nothing important", meaning that he didn't dress fancy for the date.
  
  Esme also thinks that Edwina is "intelligent, successful, and pretty sexy" when she finds out that the latter once dated Joe, to Amelia's disgust.
• Disappeared Dad:
  • Amelia divorced her husband (Kate's father) prior to the events of the game because he cheated on her more than once, and he remains unseen. He also wasn't present for Kate's birth, and Sven and Angus visited her instead.
  • Amelia herself knows that her mother is alive because the latter called her a week after she ran away, but she doesn't know who her dad is. All she knows is that Freya never told her about him because people wouldn't be approving of their marriage, and that all that mattered to her was that she had Amelia. Subverted when Sebastian finally shows up at the café to tell Amelia personally that he is her father. But ends up as a double subversion because it's later revealed he was lying.
• Eating Contest: According to Sven's public records, he was featured in the news for eating the most apple pies in an hour in a contest.
• Eek, a Mouse!!: Joe jumps into Amelia's arms after mistaking a burnt piece of paper Amelia's dog was holding for a mouse. It turns out to be the receipt of Freya's boat trip the day before the arson, proving her innocent.
• Election Day Episode: The Rival Season Pass is about Acting Mayor Mei running for the mayoral election against Edwina, who tries sabotaging her campaign by destroying the town's historic gatehouse, spreading lies about Mei, and leaking her old video of her crying over her gymnastics routine being rated 7 out of 10. Edwina wants to get her revenge on her since the former's father Sebastian used to be the mayor, and she also wants to build Global Megacorp MegaWarehouse as per his contract. However, Mei stands up to her and makes her campaign push through with the player's help.
• Embarrassing Old Photo: The treasure that Amelia and Joe find in the café basement turns out to be an old painting of what seems to be themselves reenacting the story of Adam and Eve, complete with Scenery Censors. When they pose with it for a picture for Eve's new article, Joe covers the painting with his frying pan while Amelia covers Kate's eyes.
• Enhance Button: Yuka runs the photo of Amelia's mom working with Benny Benson and a mysterious silhouetted figure through several apps, revealing the figure's identity: Sebastian Corps.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite her hatred for Amelia, Edwina misses Amelia's mother, Freya. She used to play with her at the patio of Windmill Café as a kid, and Freya used to call her "Weeny" because they were best friends. After she fell out with Freya, Edwina used to babysit Amelia when she was a child, and Freya's aunt Esme still calls Edwina "Weeny", having known her for a long time. Esme also describes her as an "old softie".
  
  As much as Edwina wants Amelia's café to fail, she'd never hurt any of her family members, making her innocent of the sabotage on Esme's van, which crashed into the back of the café.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Sam may be the manipulative brother of Joe, but he wouldn't hurt anyone physically. It turns out that he was blackmailed into impersonating him to try seducing Amelia away from Joe, and that he didn't sabotage the brakes of Esme's van.
• Even the Guys Want Him: When Amelia worries that Joe might hook up with someone else at the baker's retreat, her Imagine Spot shows both male and female chefs admiring him.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite being a Dirty Old Woman who finds Edwina sexy, Esme calls the latter's father, Sebastian, a Slimeball for dating Freya because even if they were both adults when they first hooked up, he's still 30 years older than her.
• Everyone Is a Suspect: Yuka gives Amelia a list of everyone who she says could have possibly been behind the arson attack on the cafe. This list includes all the main characters, even Amelia's family and friends like Yuka herself. The real culprit wasn't on the list.
• Evidence Scavenger Hunt: Amelia searches the cafe for clues about the arson, eventually finding a lighter with the culprit's initials.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Amelia's new dog barks at the door and runs away whenever Edwina drops by the café and also growls at Joe when he returns from the baker's retreat earlier than expected because it doesn't like his new beard, and Kate agrees. This is because it's actually his twin brother Sam masquerading as him.
• Evil Twin: Sam is everything but his identical twin brother Joe. Joe is kind and caring to Amelia, while Sam is obnoxious and arrogant, and he enjoys rubbing his accomplishments as a worker at Clean Bean Café in Joe's face. Joe respects Amelia's boundaries and assures her that he wouldn't leave her for another woman, while Sam constantly harasses her even after he was exposed when he pretended to be Joe to try seducing her.
• Family Business: Windmill Café has been run by Amelia's family for at least 150 years. Its ownership has been passed down through generations, with Amelia inheriting it from her mother in the present.
• Family Eye Resemblance: Everyone in Amelia's family has blue eyes (save for her great-aunt Esme, who has Black Bead Eyes instead), even Sebastian and Edwina.
• Family Man: Raj describes himself as a reliable family man who makes an effort to tend to his children's needs while helping Amelia with her investigations. That's why the man who claims to be Amelia's father assigns him to deliver his anonymous letter to her.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Amelia is disgusted at the thought of Joe once dating Edwina, the latter who's around Amelia's mother's age. She imagines them kissing on the beach in their swimwear, but can't get the mental image of Edwina in a two-piece swimsuit out of her head.
  • Sebastian's proposed changes to the Windmill Café posters show a sexualized Amelia lying seductively on top of an apple pie. Amelia and Betty both agree that the design doesn't suit the former, although Joe still likes it.
• Firemen Are Hot: Some of the firemen rescuing the victims of the café fire are shirtless Hunks.
• Fitness Nut: Attorney Raj always goes for a run in his fitness clothes whenever he drops by the café. One time he visits, he's in the middle of a 5k run, with 2k more to go.
• Food Fight: The beginning of the Pie Pass event shows everyone throwing pies at each other.
• Foot Popping: Amelia raises one of her feet when she kisses Joe during their date night after her sisterly bonding with Edwina.
• Forbidden Love: Two ancestors of the rivaling families, John Green and Edward Corps, are revealed to have been in love with one another. However, because of the values of the time and them both being men, Edward's family 'disapproved' of their relationship and they couldn't be together.
• Forgotten First Meeting: According to Sven and an old photo of one of Amelia's childhood birthday parties that he dug up, Edwina apparently knew her from a fairly young age, and even babysat her aside from being in attendance at the party. Though seeing as Amelia was only around three years old at the time, she has no recollection of this in adulthood.
• Fortune Teller: Esme is a traveling fortune teller who can predict bad things in their future if "they meet [her]".
• Freemium Timer: Gems can be spent on instantly clearing the timers on the energy meter, which slowly refills with 1 unit of energy every 2 minutes until it reaches 100^note so it takes 200 minutes or 3 hours and 20 minutes to wait until it's fully charged; item generators, which have a cooldown after spawning a certain number of items; and item boxes, which take time to be opened to get rewards.
• Freudian Slip: When Joe mentions the places he traveled to learn how to cook, Amelia gets smitten by him and says that she'd love to travel with him, but quickly backtracks and corrects herself that she'd love to travel in general.
• Frying Pan of Doom: When Sam tries seducing Amelia after serenading to her that he's better than Joe, she whips out her frying pan, presumably to hit him for it, just when Joe walks in on them.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Joe's special order to find Freya's cat, Marshmallow, can still be completed even while he's at the baker's retreat, and Amelia wouldn't notice the difference between him and his twin brother Sam if completed while he's visiting during Days 13-15, only doing so when the real Joe comes back just when Sam is about to kiss her.
  • After Amelia's friends leave the romantic date room, she and Joe remark that it's been a while since the last time they've been alone together, and they decide to open it to customers the following day, after their date, even if there are guests in the room.
• Gene Hunting: Amelia has always wondered who her father is since she was a kid, and inspired by The Mysteries of Miguel, one of her first investigations involved finding him. She's overjoyed when Sebastian finally drops by her café to tell her that he's her father, despite her family and friends' suspicions that he's behind all the attacks on the café.
• Gentle Giant: Sven is a huge, Viking-looking man who towers over every other character. He's also a very nice and friendly guy who makes toys for needy children.
• Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter: When Esme tells Amelia that the former had a "particularly memorable evening" in what used to be the café's stockroom (which is now a romantic date room) when she turned 20, Amelia asks if it's an "inappropriate story" about her love life. Esme says it's not and she reprimands her for having a dirty mind.
• Ghost Story: Esme tells Amelia the story of when the former met the Pie Ghost on her 20th birthday, who was eating the family's very first pie in the café's former stockroom (which is now a romantic date room). Amelia doesn't believe her, but Esme warns her that she might hear a ghost say "pies" three times in the date room.
• Gigantic Gulp: Clean Bean Café's quadruple shot latte with extra sugar syrup is twice the size of Esme's head.
• Girlish Pigtails: A flashback scene shows Amelia wearing pigtails as a child.
• Graceful Loser: If the player wins Edwina's Cash Dash Event, she smiles at them, accepts defeat, and gives them the highest rewards, but says that she'll try beating them next time.
• Grew a Spine: Sebastian tries making Amelia more assertive as part of his "lessons" for her on how to run her café:
  Sebastian: You say 'um' too much. You need to be more assertive!
  Amelia: I am assertive — I'm just shy.
  Sebastian: Shyness is weakness!
  Amelia: I'm not weak.
  Sebastian: Of course not. Now — onto lesson two.
• Group Hug: Sven, Amelia, Kate and Esme have one after Amelia refers to Sven as the best uncle in the world.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Sven has long, flowing blond hair and is more than willing to help his niece Amelia in restoring the café. He's such a kindhearted man that Amelia feels bad for him since he's one of the suspects of the arson.
• Hairpin Lockpick: Esme uses her decorative hair pins to pick a lock on a treasure chest.
• Half-Sibling Angst: Edwina finds it hard to connect with Amelia after finding out that the former's father Sebastian married her former best friend Freya and had Amelia. Edwina also mentions a half-brother who's around Amelia's age, but they never bonded as much as siblings. Despite this, Edwina tries to be a good older sister to Amelia and hopes that Sebastian would improve his relationship with the latter. Things change later on when it's revealed that Sebastian lied about being Amelia's father.
• Happily Married: Sven mentions being in a happy marriage with Angus for a few years despite having a few bumps in the way, and Amelia teases that they have been together for 21.
• Harassing Phone Call: An anonymous caller who claims to be Amelia's frenemy occasionally calls her to try stopping her investigations, threatening that she'll be in more trouble if she continues it.
• Haunted House: In the Rival Season Pass, Yuka mentions that the Corps Family Mansion is haunted when Edwina claims that the "true" mayors of Appleton live there.
• Heartbreak and Ice Cream: On the day of the fire, Eve stayed at home crying and eating ice cream because she was robbed by The Purple Fox.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Amelia's new dog given as a gift by Joe (but was actually an Apology Gift from Yuka that he passed on to her) can be named by the player anything, even a traditionally masculine name.
• Hidden Villain:
  • When Amelia answers Freya's call and tells her that she caught the culprit of the arson, Freya warns her that they're "just a puppet" and that someone else is "pulling the strings". However, Freya doesn't tell her their identity because she believes that it would put Amelia in danger.
  • The anonymous caller who claims to be Amelia's frenemy and was the one who sabotaged Esme's van refuses to reveal their identity because it would be "a lot less fun". While it's not Edwina because she was in the same room as Amelia when the latter received the call, Yuka at least knows that they're from Global Megacorp because the threat letter they sent to Eve was made of high-quality paper, had "beautiful" ink on it, and had the company's logo ripped from its top.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Raj's dentist is named Dr. Lady Dentista.
• Holiday Mode: During Halloween, Edwina makes her mostly-white hair frizzier and wears fangs and fake stitches for her Cash Dash Event. She also gives out Spooky Chests as rewards.
• House Fire: The plot begins with Amelia's childhood home being mysteriously burnt down. Amelia and her friends turn the house into a bakery and gradually remodel it as time goes on.
• Hypocrite:
  • When Edwina thought she and Amelia were half sisters, a part of her disgust over the matter is that father hooked up with her former best friend, who was the same age as her. This in spite of the fact that at one point she was romantically pursuing Joe, who is the same age as her former friend's daughter.
  • During one of Amelia's mystery solving sprees, she ends up having to broach the idea that Eve might be a suspect. Eve is severely offended that Amelia would even suspect her for something that she is certain she didn't do and leads to a feud that lasts several days. This in spite of the fact that Eve openly suspected Amelia's mother of burning down her own building to her face and even wrote articles badmouthing her family for a scoop.
• I Am Not My Mother: After learning that her mother is The Purple Fox and that she ran away from her café because of her mistakes, Amelia declares that she won't repeat them and that she'll refurbish the café without letting the haters get to her.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: Sam has pierced ears and a mustache, while his identical twin Joe does not.
• I'm Standing Right Here: When Sebastian tries convincing Amelia to fire Joe to streamline the café's profits, Joe tells him that he was standing near him when he said that.
• Infinite Stock For Sale: Averted. The marketplace sells six different items at a quantity of five each (with the exception of generator upgrades, of which there's only one in stock per upgrade), all which are bought with gems. The market refreshes every day, but you can refresh it instantly with gems or by watching an ad.
• Insists on Being Suspected: When Amelia is looking for clues about the arson attack on the cafe, Yuka gives her a list of possible suspects. She includes herself on the list because Amelia has to suspect everyone. When Yuka then asks Amelia to investigate her if she's the culprit behind the fire, she claims that she either started it so Amelia could come home, she wanted to look for aliens in the basement, or she wanted to attract Eve's attention so she could write an article about it. Yuka then confesses that she was busy setting up a trap for The Purple Fox when the fire happened, proving herself innocent.
• Insult to Rocks:
  Esme: Saw that rat of an ex-husband outside, Amelia.
  Amelia: You shouldn't call him that. It's not fair on Kate.
  Esme: Not fair on rats, more like.
• Intergenerational Rivalry: Edwina is around Freya's age and they knew each other in school, but Edwina expresses her resentment towards Freya's daughter Amelia, wanting her to lose just like Freya. Amelia likewise stands up to Edwina's insults, hoping that she can save her mother's café. This turns out to also be a Sibling Rivalry after Edwina's father Sebastian tells Amelia that he is her father.
• An Interior Designer Is You: After raising enough money at certain points in the story, you can choose between three different customization options for each part of the café as you help Amelia rebuild it. They can be changed any time by long pressing on a café section.
• Intrepid Reporter:
  • Eve is tired of writing articles about Global Corp Clean Bean Café and hopes to write more interesting ones. She gets excited when Amelia finds the treasure, so she cancels her article about Clean Bean Café's Zero Muffin to report on it.
  • Eve's coworker Yuka describes her job as "basically stalking people with [her] camera, which isn't cool at all."
• Inventory Management Puzzle: You can have up to 63 items on the 7x9 grid, and the primary way of clearing them is by merging them and serving them to customers. You can also store up to 30 items in the fridge, but you start with five free slots, with additional ones costing gems, which can be bought with real money. Additionally, you can sell high-level items for a small amount of coins or throw unneeded items away.
• Item Crafting: The gameplay involves merging materials to create item generators, and then merging ingredients spawned by them to make products, mainly food and drinks, to serve to customers. Items can be merged in chains to create higher-tiered ones.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • When Sam tells Amelia that Joe once dated Edwina, Amelia get worried that Joe might cheat on her for Edwina like what her ex-husband did to her. When Amelia tells Edwina about her relationship worries, Edwina, who's just slowly warming up to her, advises her that she should let go of her past because Joe is truly the one for her and Edwina trusts him that he won't cheat on Amelia. While it's true that Joe dated Edwina, it was long before Amelia returned to Appleton, and it was just a short fling.
  • After Amelia's ex returns, Joe breaks up with her thinking Kate should be with her real dad. Thankfully, she wins him back a few days later.
• Jerkass:
  • Edwina revels in putting Amelia down and making sure the latter's mother's café goes out of business.
  • A few days before he leaves for the baker's retreat, Joe tells Amelia that his twin brother moved into his house and played loud music in his bedroom, to his annoyance. After Joe leaves, Sam pretends to be him to seduce Amelia, and after he gets caught by the real Joe and leaves, Joe says that it's the worst that Sam had done so far. Sam then moves out of Joe's house the next day, not wanting to face him for what he did, but he occasionally drops by the café to continue harassing Amelia.
• Kick the Dog: In the Rival Season Pass, Edwina prepares her slingshot to hit a bird's nest, but Mei stops her because it's illegal to harm Appleton's animals. Edwina then claims that she was just going to scare them away before she can build Global Megacorp MegaWarehouse on where she destroyed the town's historic gatehouse, but Mei fixes up the clocktower and relocates the nest there instead, frustrating Edwina.
• Kid Detective: When Kate loses her toy, she becomes a detective like Amelia and investigates where it is. She also makes Amelia's dog her sidekick.
• Kids Love Dinosaurs: Kate always wears a dinosaur costume and is sometimes seen playing with her toy T-rex at the café.
• Lack of Empathy: Sebastian never claimed to be a sentimental man because he believes that sentimentality "keeps people back in life". He doesn't care how he runs his company as long as it's making a profit and is cold towards his daughter, Edwina, only sending her an email telling her that he's Amelia's father instead of telling her in person like Amelia herself.
• Lame Pun Reaction: When Joe's puns are acknowledged, it's usually about how bad they are.
  Joe: I thought this waffle maker would be WAFFLEY GOOD for the cafe!
  Yuka: That joke was so bad that I'm going to leave. See you later!
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • At one point, one of Amelia's friends asks why she sometimes changes out the flooring in her in-progress rooms without moving aside some of the actual junk that should be in the way (which are usually cleared with later currency actions). Amelia has no explanation for this herself.
• Yuka questions how all of the background characters seen constantly mulling about in the café to give the impression of the cafe's many customers seem to be able to spend all day there and never seem to go to any jobs or anything.
• Large and in Charge: When Sebastian finally shows up in person, he's roughly as big and broad-shouldered as Sven, showing that he's the boss of Global Megacorp.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Esme wants to give whoever cut the brakes in her van a "swift kick in the b— well..."
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Esme comments that it feels like it's been a whole week since the day prior. Which is how long it takes a new episode to come out.
• Limited Wardrobe: Everyone wears the same clothes all throughout the game, and Kate notably wears her detective outfit on top of her dino costume. Esme has also been wearing the same head feather, glasses, and purple-and-blue outfit since Sven was a kid.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Amelia's close friends and family already know that her mother is the infamous thief, The Purple Fox, but they didn't tell her sooner about it for various reasons.
  • On Day 12, Sven confesses to Amelia that he didn't tell her about the debt she inherited from her mother and that she was The Purple Fox because he once caught her returning to him the golden axe trophy that she stole, because he didn't want Amelia to think badly of her, no matter what she did.
  • On Day 13, Yuka admits to Amelia that she also wanted to solve the mystery behind The Purple Fox, so she spread a rumor that she hid a "super valuable" gemstone in the former's house to lure them into her trap. When she took a photo of them in the act, she was going to use it for her article, but was reluctant when she saw that TPF was Freya.
• Lost in Transmission: When Freya calls Amelia for the first time since the fire, she uses the payphone because she lost her phone. She warns Amelia not to investigate The Purple Fox, but is suddenly cut off before she could tell her what else to do due to poor reception.
• Love Confessor: On Day 10, Amelia calls Yuka over to admit to her that her old feelings for Joe resurfaced. Yuka tells her that it's okay since she was bad at hiding it, anyway, and also reveals that she herself can't hide her feelings for Eve either. Yuka then advises Amelia against having a Workplace Romance with Joe since "it'll end in doom and gloom."
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Amelia gets an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be her dad and asking to meet. The title of the task where they finally meet is actually called "I am Your Father". It's Sebastian. Subverted later when Freya reveals it's not the case.
• Ma'am Shock: Esme hates being called "Great Aunt" Esme, and she'll sic her pet turtle Randy on anyone who addresses her as such.
• Malicious Misnaming: Edwina deliberately calls Amelia "Anya", "Annie", or "Andrea" to try convincing her to give up the "dump" that is her café.
• Man in a Kilt: Sven's husband Angus wears a kilt.
• Manly Gay: Sven is a hairy, Top-Heavy Guy who partakes in woodwork, a traditionally masculine hobby, and is Happily Married to Angus.
• Mayor Pain: In the Rival Season Pass, it's revealed that Sebastian Corps, the corrupt CEO of Global Megacorp, was the former mayor of Appleton before Mei. He approved of the construction of his company's warehouse, not caring if it means destroying the town's historic gatehouse first.
• MegaCorp: Windmill Café's competitor Clean Bean Café is owned by Global Corp, which uses underhanded marketing tactics to try driving Windmill Café out of business. It serves food that is deliberately bland such as the Zero Muffin, claiming that they have zero calories, and its CEO abuses its employees and tries manipulating those who resigned such as Joe to return to working for the company.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Some of the elderly characters such as Betty and Esme are half as tall as the adults, only reaching up to their waists.
• Missing Mom: Amelia's grandmother, who is Freya and Sven's mother (and by extension, Esme's sister and Kate's great-grandmother), is long dead before the events of the game.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Raj's wife, Gita, hires Yuka to follow Raj's movements because she thinks he is cheating on her. It's later revealed that Raj was acting strange because he was secretly building a two-seater bike for him and Gita.
• Mrs. Robinson: Before Amelia arrived in town, Edwina was very interested in Joe and even went on a date with him before he ended things to be with Amelia, not minding that he's as young as her (former) friend's daughter. Even after the fact she still makes several flirtatious comments to him and even about him to Amelia. Even though he's made it clear he's no longer interested.
• Never the Obvious Suspect: When Amelia decides to investigate if Edwina was behind the fire, Joe (actually his twin brother Sam masquerading as him) lampshades the trope by saying that "the real villain is NEVER the person [she thinks] it'll be." He was right, Edwina didn't start the fire because she believes that Windmill Café is already falling behind, so she didn't feel the need to sabotage it. In fact, she and Sebastian were at a board meeting for their company when the fire happened, also proving the latter innocent, and Edwina also phoned the fire department out of legitimate concern.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The "All Kinds of Love" ad shows Kate being a Bratty Half-Pint on her highchair and throwing her mac n' cheese at the camera. She's nothing like this in the game itself.
  • One ad is done in the style of Gardenscapes' ads, where the player hilariously fails at picking the right utensil to help Joe bake a chocolate cake for Amelia. It then shows a short clip of the actual gameplay at the end.
  • One ad shows the actual gameplay, but instead of the player helping Amelia rebuild the café by merging ingredients to cook for her customers, it shows them rescuing her from being imprisoned by a villain, when this doesn't happen in the story proper.
• Nice Guy:
  • Amelia's uncle Sven is the nicest person to have a main role in the game. He is always happy to help Amelia with restoring the café. He and his husband make toys for children in need, and Eve describes him as a "sweetheart". Amelia feels awful that she has to even consider him a suspect in the fire, and when she subtly interrogates him about it, he reveals that he knew that Freya was The Purple Fox, and that he loaned her his money for the café but she ran away and never paid it back. He helps Amelia rebuild the cafe because he wants her to succeed, not to get his loan back.
  • Joe means well when he checks in on Amelia's café despite working at Edwina's because he needs the money to pay for his father's medical bills. Once he's done, he quits his old job to work full-time with Amelia to help save her café and prove her mother innocent of the arson. In fact, he used to hope that Amelia's café would fail, which was why he was a suspect, but he quit after paying for his father's medical bills. He also cancels his second date to help Amelia find the treasure to pay off all her debts.
• No Animals Allowed: Sebastian hates pets running around in establishments, so he tries convincing Amelia to get her dog out of the café.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Implied when Raj says that he's lucky that he and his wife live near his parents, but "maybe less lucky" that his in-laws live near them, too.
• Obviously Evil: Edwina, the owner of Global Corp Clean Bean Café and rival of Amelia, is arrogant and snobbish, and often insults her to crush her in the business competition. She wears a white suit to go along with her mostly white hair and dark eyeshadow, and Amelia's new dog runs away from her whenever she visits Windmill Café. She also laughs evilly at the player whenever they fail her Cash Dash event.
• Off to Boarding School: Sebastian suggests that Amelia send Kate to boarding school, claiming that she'd do well there. Amelia objects because Kate's just four, but Sebastian claims that it's "never too early" for her to start. Esme, on the other hand, wishes that Sebastian was sent to boarding school when they were kids so she wouldn't have had to look at him during sports class.
• Old Shame: Yuka admits that she had a fight with Amelia when they were 13 because Amelia lost Yuka's favorite Mysteries of Miguel book. Yuka still regrets it and believes that she was a "terrible" friend to her, but Amelia reassures her that she's long gotten over it.
• On the Rebound: On the first day of Joe's full-time job at Amelia's café, she struggles with her rekindled feelings for him because it has only been a week since she signed the divorce papers. She tells herself to focus on her work and try not to let romance distract her in the meantime and insists that she and Joe are in a Strictly Professional Relationship. She also worries about rushing into the relationship after nearly falling for Sam when he pretended to be his twin brother Joe.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After Amelia catches Edwina helping Kate find the latter's lost toy, she notices that Edwina called her by her real name instead of deliberately misnaming her and didn't flirt with Joe, hinting that Edwina is more than just her rival who wants to put her down.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Joe leaves at the end of Day 12 for the two-day baker's retreat, but returns the next day because he didn't like it. Amelia's family and friends then start noticing how weird he's been acting: Sven points out that he didn't wave back to him when he saw him, while Amelia notices that he isn't good in massaging as he normally is. On their first date, Joe criticizes The Mysteries of Miguel as a "juvenile" show, to Amelia's dismay; dodges Raj's questions about the message Joe sent to him from the bus home and the prize he told him that he wanted to win; and declares that family is "overrated". It's then revealed that he's actually Joe's twin brother Sam masquerading as him, and the real Joe arrives just in time to see him about to kiss Amelia.
• Parental Substitute: Because Amelia never knew her father, she was raised by her uncle Sven besides her mother, and she's glad to have him in her life.
• Parental Title Characterization: Edwina used to call Sebastian "daddy" as a kid, but he insisted that she calls him "father" instead for formality's sake. He also insists that Amelia calls him "father" when she calls him "dad" for the first time.
• Parent with New Paramour: Kate is happy to see her mother fall in love with Joe and sometimes teases them about it.
• Permanently Missable Content: The generators that produce items for special orders such as Joe's order to find Marshmallow the cat are automatically destroyed after the orders are fulfilled. This means that if they're not fully upgraded when the orders are completed, then you'll never see what their final upgrades would look like since their components will no longer be in stock at the marketplace.
• Perverse Sexual Lust: Amelia and Yuka both have a huge crush on Miguel, the eponymous protagonist of The Mysteries of Miguel, to the point that Yuka requests a cardboard cutout of him for her special order. She then thinks of taking it home with her, but Amelia suggests putting it on display at the café. Amelia herself also used to imagine that Miguel was her father until she developed a crush on him, and she doesn't want to imagine that anymore.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Despite her hatred towards Amelia and her café, Edwina helps Kate find the latter's lost toy and gives her a dinosaur balloon as a gift. Amelia doesn't understand why Edwina's being nice towards the former's daughter but not her.
  • Edwina's father Sebastian gifts Amelia a cherub statue for her romantic date room, even if Yuka initially suspected that it was a trap. Amelia finds this strange, but she accepts it, anyway. This is because Sebastian wanted to reach out to Amelia, his daughter.
  • The plot behind the 2023 Halloween event is that Amelia can't find the older Halloween decorations to put up with Kate around the cafe. When Edwina catches wind of this while visiting for her own reasons, she offers to help them make new decorations for the holiday. Both because she never gets to do so at her own cafe due to her father's regulations, and because she doesn't want to see Kate upset.
• Player Nudge: If you don't make a move in a few seconds, the game will hint on which items to match or store in the fridge and which item boxes you haven't opened yet.
• Play Every Day: The marketplace gives you a free gift every day, which gives you some low-tier items. Its stock also refreshes every day, but it can be refreshed instantly with gems or by watching an ad.
• A Plot in Deed: Amelia discovers that Freya had always planned to pass the café on to her, and Raj confirms that the deed was legitimate and that she's the true owner after Freya ran away. However, this means that Amelia also inherited her debts.
• The Pollyanna: Amelia keeps her chin up as she works to maintain her mother's café, and despite the looming mystery behind the arson and the debts she inherited from her mother, she doesn't give up.
• Premium Currency: Gems are used to speed up timers, buy more storage, refill the energy meter, pop bubbled items before they turn into coins, buy new items from the marketplace, and instantly refresh its stock. They can be earned for free from item boxes and event rewards, or they can be purchased with real money.
• Pubescent Braces: Amelia and Joe are shown sporting acne and braces as teens in a flashback photo showcasing their prom night.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
  • After listening to Sven's story about his craftsmanship and home life with Angus, Eve says that "That's... the... cutest... story... EVER!"
  • After Yuka suggests starting a Mysteries of Miguel fan club with Amelia for her special order, Amelia says that "That... would... be... AMAZING."
• Pungeon Master:
  • Joe constantly makes puns. They're usually terrible.
  • Edwina makes Halloween-themed puns during her Halloweeny's Cash Dash Event.
    "I suppose you think you're pretty fangtastic?"
• Put on a Bus: Towards the end of Day 12, Joe tells Amelia that he'd be going on a two-day baker's retreat. She gets worried about how the café would do without him, but he tells her that he'll only go if she's alright with it. He reassures her that her friends and family will take care of her while he's out, and he hugs her before he leaves.
• Queer Colors: In the "All Kinds of Love" ad, the Progress Pride flag can be seen behind Eve as she has a video chat with her long-distance partner, who goes by they/them pronouns and whom she's planning to propose to.
• Randomly Generated Loot: Item generators can be upgraded to spawn more than one kind of item, and sometimes, it's the only way to get certain items.
• Rapid Hair Growth: Joe returns from the two-day baker's retreat earlier than expected and sporting facial hair and says that while his hair has always grown quickly, this is the fastest it has grown. This turns out to be a lie made by his twin brother Sam while masquerading as him.
• Read the Fine Print: In the Rival Season Pass, Edwina shows Mayor Mei the contract to build Global Megacorp MegaWarehouse, which was approved by the former's father. Amelia points out that there's fine print underneath that says that Appleton's historic gatehouse would have to be destroyed in order for its construction to proceed.
• Repetitive Name: The low-ranking crook that Eve's struggling to write an article about is named Benny Benson.
• The Reveal: Benny Benson is the culprit behind the fire. Amelia finds the lighter with his initials on it and turns it in, and after he's arrested, he confesses to all his crimes, including the arson he committed as revenge for getting food poisoning from Freya's pies.
• Rewards Pass: The game hosts one-time events that run for 30 days and have unique story arcs. The player progresses with the story by completing sidequests to earn points, reaping the rewards along the way. They can buy a golden ticket with real money to receive additional rewards and exclusive storylines.
• Rugged Scar: Benny Benson, a low-ranking criminal, has two scars on his face: one on his left cheek and another running down the left side of his lips.
• Sand In My Eyes:
  Amelia: I never knew my dad. But I always knew I had the best uncle in the world.
  Sven: Oh! Excuse me, there is something in my eye.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Raj wants to get out of an awkward situation, he makes an excuse to tend to one of his children, but when Amelia tells him that she felt creeped out by Sam massaging her while pretending to be his twin brother Joe, Raj uses the same excuse, but changes his mind halfway through and just says he wants to leave, and then gets out of the café.
• Secret-Keeper: So far, Sven, Amelia, and Yuka are the only ones who know Freya's identity is that of the Purple Fox.
• Secret Room: Amelia, Joe, and Kate discover a trapdoor hidden under the old oven while cleaning it out. It leads to the café basement, where they believe the treasure is, but it turns out to be an embarrassing old painting of what seems to be Joe and Amelia reenacting the story of Adam and Eve, complete with Scenery Censors.
• Serenade Your Lover: Sam sings a love song to Amelia when she calls him over to interrogate him about the sabotage on Esme's van. She's not impressed because he just bragged about how "better" he was than Joe in song.
• Shipper on Deck: Yuka is supportive of Amelia and Joe's relationship when Amelia tells her about her crush on him, and towards the end of Day 13, Yuka tells her that she and Joe need a kiss after the stressful days she's had.
• Shirtless Scene: Joe sometimes accidentally loses his shirt, exposing his toned pecs.
  • On Day 7, he somehow ends up burning his shirt by thinking back to his date night. Luckily, he always brings a spare one in case that happens.
  • When Amelia's Great Aunt Esme crashes into the back of the café, Joe rescues her from her van, getting his shirt ripped in the process.
• Shout-Out: In the Rival Season Pass, Edwina comes in like a wrecking ball by riding on it with her legs raised to destroy Appleton's historic gatehouse.
• Show Within a Show: Amelia and Yuka loved reading and watching The Mysteries of Miguel when they were kids, and inspired by it, they work together to investigate the arson. Amelia, especially, is such a big fan of the show that she used to decorate her bedroom with posters of the eponymous character when she was in high school. Joe teases her if she just likes Miguel's abs, but she claims that she just admires his detective skills.
  
  Freya was also a fan of Mysteries of Miguel and ran the Miguel fan club in town, and for Yuka's special order, she thinks of starting her own with Amelia, hoping that the actor for Miguel would visit if they attract enough fans.
• Sibling Seniority Squabble: Joe takes offense to being called "baby brother" by Sam, even if the latter's two minutes older than him.
• Sibling Triangle: Amelia falls in love with her Childhood Friend Joe after she divorced her husband. They rekindle their lost relationship over the course of the game, but Joe's twin brother Sam pretends to be him to try seducing her while the real Joe is at the two-day baker's retreat. Sam still tries pursuing her after he's exposed because he claims that fell in love with her for real, but she's having none of it.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Amelia and Joe have always been sweet towards each other, but back in high school, they used to kiss right in front of Yuka, to her disgust.
• Single Parents Are Undesirable: Upon learning from Amelia's phone call with Eve that the latter is a single mother like the former, Amelia's friend Yuka, who has a crush on Eve, decides to leave them alone.
• Slimeball: Esme describes Sebastian as one since she knew him as a bully and a creep in school. She says that he's still scummy to this day, and Amelia has every reason to suspect him for attacking her café because he acts unusually nice to her while abusing his daughter, Edwina, and running his company with an iron fist. Amelia is also shocked to find that Sebastian's in cahoots in her mother while Esme thought they hated each other.
• Strictly Professional Relationship: Yuka believes that dating a fellow co-worker is awkward and inappropriate, so she initially advises Amelia against dating Joe. This is because Yuka is projecting her own insecurities on her since she herself is reluctant to ask Eve out.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Kate is like a miniature version of her mother Amelia, sporting the same hot pink hair and blue eyes as her.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Raj drops by during Amelia and Joe's first date, he apologizes for interrupting their picnic. Amelia tells him it's fine, but Joe denies that anything "important or romantic" happened during it because it's actually his twin brother Sam covering up his overt flirting with Amelia earlier.
• Tattooed Crook: Benny Benson, a low-ranking criminal, has a snake tattoo on the left side of his neck.
• Temporary Online Content:
  • Edwina's Cash Dash and Yuka's Date Dash Events are two recurring events that run for three days each. They involve raising as much money and collecting as many roses from completed orders, respectively, within the time limit, and then reaping the rewards based on how much you've gained.
  • The Tip Jar, which was introduced in the v0.14.4 update, gets filled with gems each time you complete an order. Upon reaching 150 gems, you can buy them with real money, but you can fill the jar all the way up to 300 and pay for them at the same price. However, once the jar's full, you only have two weeks to buy the gems before it empties.
• Terrible Artist: Kate's drawings are what one would expect from a kid: simplistic and not properly colored in.
• Thinker Pose: One of the statues Amelia can decorate the patio with is a statue of a customer eating a slice of pie while sitting exactly like The Thinker.
• Too Smart for Strangers: Parodied when Amelia catches Edwina helping Kate find her toy. Amelia tells Kate not to talk to strangers and she retorts that Amelia talks to Edwina all the time.
• Treasure Hunt Episode: Day 9 focuses on Amelia and her friends finding the treasure to pay off her debts after she found the map while cleaning the kitchen. Yuka and Eve leave halfway through to document Clean Bean Café's Zero Muffin, while Joe nearly does the same since he scheduled a second date with another woman, but he cancels it at the last moment to support Amelia in finding the treasure. Amelia then opens the trapdoor under the old oven and finds an old painting of what seems to be herself and Joe, and while they're embarrassed about themselves being naked in it, they call Yuka and Eve back to have it donated to the local museum for its appraisal.
• Treasure Map: Amelia finds one of Appleton while cleaning the walls, gives it to Sven, and asks him to find the treasure with it, hoping that it'll pay off all her debts. Sven is concerned that the treasure hunt might fail just like when his father (Amelia's grandfather) tried to find it, but Amelia is confident that she and her friends can do it.
• Trickster Twins: Twins Sam and Joe used to pull pranks on others when they were kids. This carried on to Sam's adulthood, when he pretended to be Joe to trick Amelia into kissing him.
• True Craftsman: Sven describes himself as "a simple expert craft maker and woodsman". He lives in a cottage in the woods that he hand-built with Angus and once whittled his own canoe and won a golden axe trophy from a crafting contest. He also uses his craftsmanship to help Amelia rebuild the café.
• Twin Switch: While Joe is off at a baking retreat, his identical twin brother Sam pretends to be him to go on a date with Amelia. He claims that he recently grew his facial hair and got ear piercings to throw her off, and Amelia was fooled because she didn't know much about him since he went to a different high school from Joe's and hadn't lived in town for years.
• Twin Test: When Joe arrives to see his identical twin brother Sam impersonating him to date Amelia, Sam claims that he's the real Joe while Sam was out at the baker's retreat. Amelia then quizzes them on where they have been for the past three days, and the real Joe proves himself by showing her the prize he won at the retreat.
• Uncatty Resemblance: Esme's pet turtle Randy has the same color scheme as Esme. He also wears the same head decoration and pink glasses.
• Unpleasant Parent Reveal: While cleaning the kitchen, Amelia discovers that her mother, who went missing on the night of the arson and whom she believes is innocent of it, is the infamous thief known as The Purple Fox. Amelia theorizes that while Freya is still innocent despite this, the culprit set her café on fire as revenge on her for robbing them.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Edwina used to be a Nice Girl in her childhood, playing with Freya and Sven and giving them flowers and presents, respectively. She was best friends with Freya growing up, but had a falling out as adults, which is why she's antagonistic towards Freya's daughter, Amelia.
• Vehicular Sabotage: The brakes to Esme's van are cut, causing her to crash into the walls at the cafe. It was the anonymous caller, who read Eve's article about the crash, who did it.
• Verbal Tic: Mayor Mei tends to address people with "hun", hun!
• Villain Respect: Sebastian, Corrupt Corporate Executive of Global Megacorp, praises Amelia for doing well in the business competition between her mother's and his daughter's cafés. He also offers to help Amelia because he cares about her mom, no matter his job title or if Edwina acts callous towards Amelia. She still doesn't trust him, but he tells her to believe him when he says that he's on her and Freya's side. This is because Sebastian is Amelia's father, and he's favoring her over her half-sister, Edwina.
• Villains Never Lie:
  • Despite Amelia refusing to believe her, Edwina makes it clear that she knew Freya in school, and she's not as innocent as Amelia believes since she used to do anything to beat Edwina, even with dirty tactics. Amelia then starts questioning if Edwina was right after discovering that Freya was The Purple Fox.
  • When Amelia confronts Sebastian for being the corrupt CEO of his company, he apologizes for hearing that and admits to her that he never hid his identity and has been always open with her.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Amelia usually remains hopeful throughout her investigations, but she suspects that Sebastian sabotaged the brakes of Esme's van. Her suspicions fly out of the window when he tells her that he's her father, and she refuses to believe that he's actually the culprit. However, Esme warns Amelia that she might be too optimistic for her own good because "[she] can't trust ANYONE. Everyone here has a secret."
• Wingding Eyes: Several characters tend to become heart-eyed when they're in love:
  • When Joe and Amelia are having a romantic moment, they get hearts in their eyes.
  • Yuka gets heart-eyed in her Date Dash Event whenever you receive a reward from her.
  • Joe's brother Sam gets heart-eyed whenever he tries flirting with Amelia.
• Working with the Ex: Despite his lingering feelings for Amelia, Joe finds it awkward to work with her because he already arranged for a date night with another woman beforehand. This causes tension for Amelia, who likewise has feelings for him, but she reluctantly helps him prepare for the date, anyway. Joe then falls in love with Amelia for real and breaks up with the other woman to be with her.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: For all of Edwina's many flaws, she does still have a soft spot for children. Despite her animosity toward Amelia, she goes out of her way to be kind to her daughter Kate and tries to not be overtly cruel in her presence, evenb allowing Kate to call her by her childhood nickname "Weeny."
• Wrong Genre Savvy: As she investigates the fire and interrogates the suspects, Amelia thinks that she's acting out her favorite episodes of The Mysteries of Miguel because she recognizes the plot beats, but sometimes, the endings don't turn out to be just like them.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Yuka feels insecure of herself after finding out that Eve is already planning to propose to her partner and tells herself that she's "nosey, secretive, and [she] should never have fallen for her". Amelia cheers her up by telling her that she's "spontaneous, inquisitive, and fun to be with", and that she and Kate love her as a friend. This helps Yuka move on from her crush the next day.

---