Cook, Serve, Delicious!

I almost posted this in the Upcoming indie games thread, but decided against it because (1) it's not upcoming; it's available now, and (2) it deserves its own thread IMO.

Official site: http://www.vertigogaming.net/blog/?p...

Cook, Serve, Delicious is a hardcore restaurant sim

Yes, you read that correctly.

Earlier tonight I watched the Giant Bomb quick look and was immediately interested, so I went to the game's website (after googling it) to find out more. At the moment, it's available directly from the developers (at the link above), GamersGate and Desura. The price is $9.

Not on Steam (yet), but it is on Greenlight. Also, the Greenlight page says: "If we get on Steam via Greenlight, everyone who bought the game will receive a Steam key for free!"

There is also a demo available from the official site. After playing the demo for about half an hour, until I couldn't continue, I immediately went back to the official site and bought the game. I then proceeded to play for nearly another 4 hours straight, only stopping because it was getting kinda late (1 AM). There is a surprising amount of challenge, progression and decision-making in this game, and it's easily worth the $9 price tag. After almost 4 hours, I feel like I've barely scratched the surface on how much this game has to offer, such as new food items to serve, food upgrades (yes, you can upgrade the food, including the beer, which was the first upgrade I bought), new equipment, new events and probably other stuff I don't even know about yet.

Cook, Serve, Delicious is the most unexpectedly enjoyable game I've played since Botanicula back in April.

This game... is my job... it is a game about what I do for work... and I want to buy it... with money that I make from that job.
This game... terrifies me.

Also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...
f*ck that guy right there.

This is relevant to my interests.

I don't know if I'd play this game, but I for damn sure enjoyed that quick look. Hilarious.

Yeah, I got immediately interested after watching the Quick Look. I thought they were going to make fun of another dumb casual game but this definitely doesn't seem to be that. Very interested to try it out.

I would hate to play this, and I loved to watch this- thanks.

That actually looks kind of awesome.

I went ahead and grabbed the whole pack of games from the developer for $15. Some of the emails you get in CSD are absolutely inspired.

This is actually a pretty good game. I'm enjoying it. Gets rather frantic.

psoplayer wrote:

I went ahead and grabbed the whole pack of games from the developer for $15. Some of the emails you get in CSD are absolutely inspired.

Me too, then I e-mailed customer service about getting Desura keys for the 2 games they have on there. One of CSD's devs got in touch with me directly in a matter of hours and hooked me up.

I am currently experimenting with a restaurant that serves only beer, wine, and pretzels. I call it a "bar."

Any chance it has a mode that kids could play?
I try to jump at any opportunity to get a game for the kids which isn't based on fighting.

My wife may actually play this and enjoy it.

Looks kind of like tapper on steroids.

It seems pretty intense for kids. There are more kid-friendly food-preparation games that you can play for free on The Internet™. The Papa Louie games come to mind.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I am currently experimenting with a restaurant that serves only beer, wine, and pretzels. I call it a "bar."

HA!

I don't serve soda either. During the first few in-game "days" there were a couple times where the only thing that caused me not to have a perfect day (for which you get a $250 bonus each time) was one minor mistake on a soda order. Considering there are 5 soda choices and 3 sizes (4 if you upgrade), I quickly ditched the soda fountain.

Upgraded beer is the only drink I serve.

Speaking of sodas, for some reason I can't make myself add the soda to the cup first then ice, but I'm pretty sure that's because I always go ice first at my real job. :-S

It's rational to put the ice in first. That way you know exactly how much soda to put in.

The foods I use the most are salads (super easy -- don't make a lot of money, but almost instant turnover once you know the keys), beer, and wine. Those never leave my menu. Wine is slow and annoying, and I've missed a few perfect days because of it, but fully upgraded it can hit $50/serving, so I think it's worth it, overall. I typically swap salad and fish as my featured item, because they're both easy and quick.

The other foods I swap in and out are fish, steak, chicken, pasta, and burgers. I don't like pizza and nachos because the keys are all wrong for the names... u, v, and m for olives, and, um, two other things I forget. Whatever they are, they don't start with U, V, or M, so I can't easily type the recipe out like I can with most foods. And soup's kind of similar, plus the prep is so complex that I've just avoided it completely. Ice cream is okay, easy and quick, but it's very low-profit, so I almost never use it.

Three-star restaurant, upgraded as far as I can be in the foods I use. Had about $10K in the bank, but blew $2500 on a wash improvement, but haven't gotten it yet. Have won most of the Crazy Dave bets, but lost the most recent one -- with seven active lanes, it's right at the limit of what I can handle. Not sure what I'm going to do with 8.

LobsterMobster wrote:

It's rational to put the ice in first. That way you know exactly how much soda to put in.

Agreed. I just find it funny that I can't let go of my logic for an (albeit minor) speed increase.

Oh, by the way, this is not a 'hardcore restaurant sim' -- there have been some of those, and this isn't like that. There is some strategy involved, but this is primarily a game about juggling conflicting priorities, using a great deal of finger dexterity. I suspect that being able to touch type will be a huge advantage.

Lasagna, for instance, requires you to hit the lane number, and then to build a bunch of layers... the starting recipe is PSCR, PSCR, PSCR -- the same four keys, repeated three times, to put down layers. Your first upgrade adds a meat layer, so the recipe becomes PSMCR, PSMCR, PSCR. The second upgrade adds veggies, so that variant is PSVCR, PSVCR, PSCR. The final(?) upgrade is a combo -- first meat, then veggies, then the top layer, so PSMCR, PSVCR, PSCR. Then you hit Enter to start cooking it. When it's done, and 'dings', you press the lane number again to serve it to the customer.

When you first get the recipe, all you ever do is the basic triple PSCR, but as you upgrade, you can be asked to make the old or the new. You have to look at the name of the recipe to know which to do, and you learn to scan for the key word in the recipe name. No matter which version they order, though, you get to charge the upgraded price, so even basic lasagna is suddenly worth 50% more.

The only food that violates that is wine -- in that one food, they pay for what they order, so it might be any of 5 price levels, from the $8 cheapie to the $50 luxury model.

Fish is a really good food, because you can charge a lot for it when it's upgraded, but the prep is nearly instant, even at level 4.

Malor wrote:

I don't like pizza and nachos because the keys are all wrong for the names... u, v, and m for olives, and, um, two other things I forget. Whatever they are, they don't start with U, V, or M, so I can't easily type the recipe out like I can with most foods. And soup's kind of similar, plus the prep is so complex that I've just avoided it completely.

Baked Potatoes have the same problem with the keys for chives, olives, spices, etc. I also dislike that the cooking time is up front, which really messes up my quick mental prioritization of the orders based on when they came in. I've actually started keeping soup on the menu all the time. There are only two patterns it at lvl 1, and I've actually been able to memorize those and get it cooking almost as fast as I can send out a salad. (KWUY-chop, SWUY-chop T-chop A-chop)

Also, f-king robberies. Until now I just didn't pay much attention to the game unless it was the middle of a rush, watching or reading something on another monitor while I wait for orders to come in. Suddenly there's a sketchpad on my screen and I have no idea what is going on. Then negative income for the day. >:(

psoplayer wrote:
Malor wrote:

I don't like pizza and nachos because the keys are all wrong for the names... u, v, and m for olives, and, um, two other things I forget. Whatever they are, they don't start with U, V, or M, so I can't easily type the recipe out like I can with most foods. And soup's kind of similar, plus the prep is so complex that I've just avoided it completely.

Baked Potatoes have the same problem with the keys for chives, olives, spices, etc.

I refuse to serve foods with ingredients in which the hotkey is a letter that isn't even in the word.

I also dislike that the cooking time is up front,

Hamburger are like that, too... if there's meat on a burger, you have to cook it first. After it's cooked, it's highlighted in blue, as opposed to the yellow for food completion. Blue status doesn't seem to last very long, so you can't leave a burger sitting long at all.

But, the actual burger-building is all with sensible keys, so you can slam them out pretty fast.

So, next year Rabbit is going to need to do an article on this game/dev- yes?

Why would we want them to have to shut down?

Well, if the idea is to torment the man, this would be a poor game choice. It's really quite good.

Purchased. I had little choice in the matter, my wife established that 'we' needed a copy immediately.

This is the sort of thing I wish I could invest in. You just know that as soon it hits IOS, these guys are going to be sipping cocktails with the Angry Birds and Plants Vs Zombies creators.

Malor wrote:

Well, if the idea is to torment the man, this would be a poor game choice. It's really quite good.

While the game may be good, I'm not sure if you've heard Rabbit talk about being good at games. Per his estimation, he is not. Like Dark Souls (poor comparison because it amuses me) this seems to be a game that requires you to bring yourself up to the level of being good.

Hell yeah! I just had a perfect day as a 3-star restaurant with 7 serving stations (5 active menu items).

IMAGE(http://s15.postimage.org/kxspjopxn/image.jpg)

That's a lot of beer, Meatman.

It was the daily special.

I hit a perfect on a "date night". I was pretty proud of myself for that one.