Board 8 > Anyone here into cooking games like Cooking Mama and such?

(+) Yeah! (+)

My studio's (as in I work there) upcoming game is holding an open playtest starting the 29th
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/37d3336d.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2df35e95.jpg

Our main inspirations are Cooking Mama and Good Pizza, Great Pizza. And MML series for the art style.

If this sounds like your cup of tea, consider trying it out! I wrote the story too.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3357960/KuloNiku_Bowl_Up/

I'm a Cook Serve Delicious fan so I'll look into this.

swirIdude posted...

I'm a Cook Serve Delicious fan so I'll look into this.

Thanks! I played it for a bit too as research for the game. It's got a really solid loop, the rush hours can get intense lol.

Looks really good actually

i have a friend who i've only known to play the sims and the cook serve delicious series. i have no idea if they'll like this one, but i'll give them a heads up on the 29th!

Looks fun! I'll check it out when the playtest goes up~

Probably not my type of gameplay but the art style is incredibly cute!

Will check it out!

Thanks everyone!

I wanna share a little insight to the dev process. Around last month, the game's director wanted the tone to be more comedic, so I edited and rewrote a lot of the dialogue. Previously it was meant to be more 'wholesome' and 'heartwarming'. And I still want some of it to come through (even though you won't see a lot of the story in the playtest), so it's pretty tricky balancing that.

Looking forward to see if people enjoy it on Tuesday!

I never play these types of games but I'll wishlist and try it out to support.

Thanks so much everyone!

The playtest is live now until May 5!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3357960/KuloNiku_Bowl_Up/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/kuloniku-bowl-up-takes-up-the-mantle-from-mama-dishing-out-tasty-treats-in-a-super-cute-way-playtest-impressions/

Woot we got covered by Vice!

Impressions

- art is badass, especially the shadows
- I can't tell if the style is more Pokemon or more Toriyama, which I guess is a good thing
- I like how an ultrawide screen gives you a sort of advantage
- being able to choose the seasoning amount to taste is very cool
- customizing your kitchen layout is cool
- is that ketchup and mustard on my dining tables? weird thing to have in a noodle shop
- the "one type of restaurant" rule sounds awful lol, it would guarantee that a megacorp would maintain monopoly of all types of food
- the writing is very snappy and fun, I do think it's better than the typical saccharine wholesome dialogue
- the characters are a bit flat though, just exhibiting their archetypes, I wonder if they will start to have more conflicts/dimensions later (your rival is pretty interesting right off the bat though)
- the characters are also a bit sycophantic when you serve them a good dish, but I guess that fits the dating sim vibe?
- the brawl was super confusing to me, but after playing it once, I think I get it how the turns work? I like the extra mechanics, nice way to change the pace of the game
- I think I got a 7 in the brawl, but it looked like a 1, but I won so I think it was a 7? could be more clear
- I'm wondering how to get a better score there, should I add extra ingredients or seasoning or something? can I use my real life cooking instinct to enhance the dish? or does it require the crowd bonus to get 10/10?
- the "small town bumpkin" gimmick that Mami has is fun, but it can come off as overly dumb without justification, which can make it feel mean instead of charming (like when she doesn't know what an airplane is, but then mentions doomscrolling, which means she's very plugged in to the internet, so she would obviously know about planes, especially because of the Malaysia flight... if she had a sort of "terminally offline" gimmick instead, it would make sense that she didn't know about airplanes)
- Ume came in after the brawl and said she watched it... but she was actually the customer in it, so that seems like a mistake
- the cutting mechanic is amazing
- Ume asked for Zesty Noodles which required vinegar powder (and she liked it), but in the brawl it said that she hates vinegar powder, so that's a bit weird... I wonder if there's a way to make every character's preferences more consistent, which would help enhancing their character and remembering their order (e.g. always skip vinegar for Ume)
- would love to be able to read the order/recipe while washing dishes since it is otherwise mindless

Stopping just before the 2nd brawl now, it's super addictive and I definitely want to play more!

Thanks for the very detailed impressions! It's really insightful.

Some points I want to comment on:

• Yeah the brawl system was finished last minute (we had to go through a lot of iterations, including using physical cards to simulate the gameplay), so we hadn't had the time to put in a proper tutorial yet, oops! It's definitely on the top of our to-do list.
• For Mami yeah, the angle I wanted to go with her is that she's dazzled by the (unrealistic) big city image she sees on social media, but good point about that particular line not making much sense. I'll rework it.
• And yeah the taste of the characters when they're judges aren't yet synchronized with their day-to-day orders -- good catch, will raise it to the designer.
• As for the customers a bit sycophantic, yes, it's initially meant to be rewarding when you get their order mostly correctly, but as of now it's quite easy get it right (especially for people used to cooking games/games in general). So you see the lines a bit too often.
• To get better score in the brawl, you can: add extra ingredients that the judge likes, match the taste profile the judge favors, follow the recipe, and get crowd points. I think the highest score I've seen from the people trying it is 9 so far.
• And yeah, the characters being flat and the rule being exploitable will be addressed a bit later on

Thanks once again.

Raka_Putra posted...

For Mami yeah, the angle I wanted to go with her is that she's dazzled by the (unrealistic) big city image she sees on social media, but good point about that particular line not making much sense. I'll rework it.

That makes sense. I guess it's the difference between seeing something online and actually experiencing it IRL, so she would have a bunch of misconceptions about it.

Also, I don't think the brawl needs much of a tutorial. It's fun to figure it out yourself and it feels like there's a high skill ceiling that you can achieve over time. The key thing I was missing is that you NEED multiple turns to finish your dish (I was confused when I couldn't do it all in 1 turn) and that adding things to the recipe is encouraged. If I knew that then I would've spent a lot more time thinking through my actions and plan, instead of just trying to make the basic dish as fast as possible.

downloaded, hoping to play tomorrow

foolm0r0n posted...

Also, I don't think the brawl needs much of a tutorial. It's fun to figure it out yourself and it feels like there's a high skill ceiling that you can achieve over time. The key thing I was missing is that you NEED multiple turns to finish your dish (I was confused when I couldn't do it all in 1 turn) and that adding things to the recipe is encouraged. If I knew that then I would've spent a lot more time thinking through my actions and plan, instead of just trying to make the basic dish as fast as possible.

Yeah, it's a balance for sure. A lot of feedback also mentioned they didn't know if they should prioritize making the recipe, following the judge's taste, or the crowd point. Which is a valid concern. I suggested that we don't include the crowd meter yet in the first duel, but we'll probably discuss it further after the playtest closes.

Johnbobb posted...

downloaded, hoping to play tomorrow

Awesome!

https://x.com/sheapgamer/status/1918559624875458850?t=Bp7r9-KBpk9mrPAtnH-nCQ&s=19

I sent a press release to this Thai media, and they finally tweeted about it and got good engagement. So we got a lot of Thai feedback, which is nice, but I have to Google Translate them lol

Most of them complain about the translation, which was done using MTL for the playtest version. We plan on working with professional translators for the full version of course.

Played a good bit of it, and it has a ton of personality and I love the art style, so most of my feedback is more mechanical notes I took while playing

• Even with mouse sensitivity on the highest setting, it seemed like the cursor movement was a bit slow.
• Menus/popups could maybe benefit from a back or X button; took some trial and error to figure out how to close out of menus.
• The directions box seemed to jump from the top of the screen to the bottom pretty rapidly at very slight mouse movements, which was distracting
• In general I wasn't the biggest fan of moving the entire screen up and down with the cursor; I kind of wished there was a way to lock the screen in place so that the whole screen didn't move when I went to reach for an ingredient
• On the first day or two, it might help to specify why money is being deducted, I thought I was messing up rather than just product being expended.
• I was also a little confused by some of the requests, like on day 2 a guy said he wanted noodles, meatballs, and nothing else, which I took to mean he didn't want broth, but then questioned why I forgot the broth when I gave him the order
• It didn't seem like the Auto text option was working for me; every time I clicked it it would be unclicked in the next text box (I only really used it during the brawl though)
• During the first brawl, I think the action system was kind of confusing; it was suggesting to perform three actions in order for bonus points, but that didn't seem to be possible with only two actions per turn.
• The hotpot minigame in the brawl should probably specify to hold the house button; I was trying to rapidly click at first given the symbol it showed)

So like I said this is all small technical stuff but maybe it'll be helpful! The personality of the game is definitely the highlight for me so far

Yes thanks so much! They're definitely helpful. The brawl balancing is definitely something we need to experiment on a bit more to make it not feel overwhelming.

And I love the UI/UX notes too.

Last call, we'll be available for around 9 and a half more hours!