Cooking games have been the popular choice for casual game design. They are normally based around the gameplay of performing multiple tasks as quickly as possible with games like Cooking Mama and Diner Dash. No matter how fast paced the games would get; they were still considered basic and aimed at casual markets. But Cook,Serve, Delicious!: the latest title from Vertigo Gaming looks to change that with what they describe as a “hardcore restaurant sim.”
Culinary Challenging :
The buzz the game has been getting from sites like Giant Bomb, led me to trying out the demo and what I saw was very interesting. Cook, Serve, Delicious was inspired by the Japanese title Ore no Ryouri, which the developer made a fan sequel based off of it. With Cook Serve Delicious (CSD), this is currently the most complete version in terms of gameplay on this type of design.
CSD’s gameplay is split between restaurant management and cooking. The management part of the game is where you’ll decide what items to put on your menu each day, along with how you spend your money.
Every item that you can cook or serve comes with a base amount that people will pay and positive and negative characteristics. Soda for example, is an item that you can have on your menu every day without people getting tired of it. However, you won’t receive any tips from people ordering soda.
“What stands out to me in CSD is how the two systems are intertwined both in terms of progression and difficulty.”
Money can be spent on either new items to serve, equipment to cook with, upgrades to your restaurant or upgrades that may make the item more challenging, but raise the amount of money you’ll earn. As you complete each day, you’ll earn more money and unlock more potential upgrades to keep things interesting.
Food (and Finger) Rush:
The cooking side of the game is where things get intense. Every day operates from 9 AM to 10 PM, with lunch and dinner rushes in between. Each item on your menu is prepared and served using different key commands. Lasagna requires the player to type the same key order three times which is translated to building each layer of the dish. While serving ice cream is just placing the flavors and toppings by pressing the respective keys.
In between you’ll also have chores to do, which their length and occurrence is based on your menu items. During the rushes, you’ll have constant orders to take care of forcing you to prioritize and quickly complete orders.
One of the many different items you can have on your menu.
The demo teases future goals and challenges with progressing from a one star restaurant, all the way up to a five star. You can also participate in catering challenges and even an Iron Chef parody.
What stands out to me in CSD is how the two systems are intertwined both in terms of progression and difficulty. The more orders you successfully complete means more money for expanding your options along with satisfying the conditions for moving up in stars.
Every day you have a “buzz” rating that determines the general pacing of the day. The higher the buzz means more people are going to visit and vice versa. The better you are at the game; means that your buzz will go up quicker making the game more challenging. But if you’re having trouble, the buzz will go down and the game’s pace will be less severe.
What you have on your menu also factors into difficulty. The more complex items will earn you more money for making them, but are more demanding. A full menu of hard items can easily overwhelm a player during the rushes, but the rewards will be far greater. This is a great way in my opinion to cater (no pun intended) to different audiences without making the pace of the game too slow or too fast.
Pizza is one of the harder items to prepare due to the # of ingredients.
There is also strategy in deciding what items to have on your menu based on their advantages and disadvantages. Beyond the difficulty factor of the different items, they can also have an effect on your buzz .
Customers will get tired of the same items on the menu with exception to “staple items”, requiring you to change up what is available.
Certain types of food can also impact your buzz rating such as having too many unhealthy items at once. This further requires the player to carefully decide what items to have and to plan ahead.
A Fly In the Soup:
The only real complaint I have about the game from the demo has to do with some of the harder orders. For most of the items, the keys to perform the task are based on the first letter of the word. Ketchup would be K, and mustard M for example on a corn dog.
But for items that have more ingredients like soup or pizza, the keys don’t always match. For example with pizza you have to press the M key for sausage and the N key for onions. Mixing up the letter requires an extra mental check when performing complicated orders that aren’t needed.
Currently you can buy Cook, Serve, Delicious! from Veritgo Gaming and they are also in the middle of trying to get enough votes for Steam Greenlight. If you like the game you can further help the developers out by voting for them. Cook, Serve, Delicious! is an interesting take on a genre that we normally don’t see. And if you like the demo, there is a lot more to the game for you to enjoy.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3V8tLmG3uU[/youtube]
