Art, like the rest of the world, evolves over time. As new mediums are invented, new artists find new ways to push new modes of expression out into the world. While song and painting are likely the earliest forms of art (the first of which surely had to be “Rock Music”, made by Cavemen), cooking, naturally, is perhaps one of the earliest, if not the earliest.
We, humans, have been eating, after all, since before we were, well, even human! With every new advancement in technology, new art forms were created because anything that allows for expression can be art. Yes, memes can be considered art. Movies. Photographs. Drawings. PlayCroco Casino. Even math has its own beauty to it… when it’s not causing you to pull your hair out in frustration. So is it so weird that in our modern world, people would want to combine one of the newest and most successful industries to one of the most long-standing professions and artform in existence? (No, I do NOT mean prostitution, BRAD!)
Let’s talk about some of the best (and worst) attempts at combining cooking with… video games!
1) Overcooked
Out of all the games on this list, Overcooked is perhaps the only one I have played nearly to completion- and I’ll explain why I didn’t complete it later.
The gameplay is fairly simple. You and up to three of your friends must work together to fulfill orders in a tiny kitchen in increasingly difficult circumstances. One level will have you scrambling around to make sure that each and every ingredient your friends need gets on and off a conveyor belt before it falls into the trash, while another level will have you scrambling to get out of the way as the pirate ship you’re on rocks back and forth, and the oven goes flying from one end of the deck to the other. It’s chaos, it’s madness, and you have the patience of a saint if you’re not shouting at your friends by the end of it. It’s insanely fun! Depending on how many orders you fulfill within the time limit determines how many stars you’ll get, and you must earn a minimum number of stars in order to unlock later levels.
This isn’t so much of a problem early on, but the levels get progressively harder, and we (I played through this game with my little brother) ended up reaching a point where we simply got stuck. Perhaps you’ll have better luck than I do, but I have a feeling that this is most people’s experience with this game. You pick up, you play for an hour or two, and then put it down when it starts getting too hard.
That said, I still highly recommend this game. Not enough games are made these days with Couch Coop in mind, and sometimes it’s really nice to have a game that can be pulled out when friends are over that doesn’t require four laptops, headsets, and copies of the game to play.
2) I am Bread
This game has some infamy to it. Remember how I said art is anything that allows one to express themselves? Well, this game will definitely cause that… by causing you to spew so many profanities, the FCC will pay your house a visit.
“I Am Bread” is exactly what it says on the tin. You play as a slice of bread, trying to make its way across the room to be toasted. To do so, you have to flip, flop, and climb across the room to the toaster, all while avoiding touching the floor lest you become unedible.
How does a slice of bread climb vertically up refrigerators? Not very easily, apparently, as this game’s controls will have you screaming in rage whenever you’re a little slice of not-yet toast seemingly gives up and falls all the way back to the floor after fifteen minutes of painstaking climbing.
“I am Bread” is not an easy game. Some would say (me) that it’s not a fun game. It’s a rage-inducing challenge that is probably best enjoyed by watching someone else play it on YouTube. I recommend Markiplier.
3) Brunch Club
After the successful release of “Caveblazers” and “Drink More Glurp” (and the not-so-successful and unreleased “Yogventures”, oof), Yogscast Games released “Brunch Club”. This game takes the chaotic, coop nature of Overcooked and combines it with the frustrating gameplay of “I am Bread” to create… a frustrating, chaotic coop bananza.
Maybe that’s an unfair judgment. All I know is that when my brother and I sat down and tried to play this game, we couldn’t even get past the first level. Maybe we just need to “get good”, or maybe the game just isn’t all that good. Which sucks because I really do like the Yogscast and would like nothing more than to praise their work. Oh well.
Still, if you happen to pick up Brunch Club, like I did, in a charity bundle, you might as well grab a friend and try it out. Perhaps you’ll have a better time than I did, or perhaps you’ll be down a friend by the end of it. Roll those dice!
4) Cookie Clicker
Ah, how could I forget this nostalgia-inducing game in a list of video games vaguely related to cooking and food? I remember many a day in the computer lab, back in middle school, when I would alt-tab my way into this game whenever the teacher’s back was turned. Ah, good times.
If you don’t know it, Cookie Clicker is a clicker-game (as if that explains anything, haha). If you google it, you’ll find a webpage with a giant image of a cookie. You click on the cookie, and a score starts ticking up. You can spend your score on extra cursors, grandmas, and bakeries to generate more cookies automatically every second. You literally just keep clicking to buy more things to generate more clicks until you grow bored.
To bring back some more memories, I decided to google this game just to see if it’s available. Several minutes later, I’m sitting here with a half-finished article and about four thousand cookies generated and producing over one hundred cookies per second. This game, despite its simplicity, it’s a strangely absorbing time-waster and a quick and simple thing to have running in the background while you do (or pretend to do) some real work.
5) Cooking Simulator
I couldn’t make a list of video games about cooking without including the game that tries its darndest to simulate cooking. Can’t be bothered to go to a real grocery store, pick up ingredients, and throw them together for dinner? Waste hours doing exactly that in a video game!
Sorry, that’s unfair of me. This genre of games is for a certain kind of player- a kind that I am not. So while I have to admit that this sort of game is not for me, I can say that there is an audience out there for this more casual but persistent gameplay (I would call it tedious but to each their own). If you’ve ever wanted to run your own kitchen with professional ovens, ingredients, and recipes, then this is the simulator for you.
6) Candy Crush
Last but most certainly not least, I have to mention perhaps the biggest food-based video game of all time. Yeah, its gameplay might have nothing to do with food other than the visuals, but it’s impossible to deny how immensely popular this game is. Candy Crush Saga was the first free-to-play mobile game to earn over a billion dollars- and this was back in 2012! And it’s still going strong, having earned $1.2 billion dollars in 2020, with over 270 million users around the world.
If you’re unfamiliar with this juggernaut in the gaming world, the gameplay is very simple. You are presented with a grid of various cakes and candies and have to move them around to match 3 in a row. Then, ka-ching, they flash away and vanish, your score goes up, and new candies move in to take their place. There are numerous powerups, abilities, and levels which each add their own slight twist, but the core gameplay remains the same.
Some gamers scorn Candy Crush Saga (and most mobile games), and its players for not being “real” gamers. It was a sentiment I shared for a long time. When people think of video games, most people imagine sweaty, teenaged, Call of Duty players shouting profanity and hurling controllers at their monitors (a not unearned reputation, mind). Perhaps it’s no wonder that there’s a divide between “those” gamers and Candy Crush Saga players, whose audience is 64% women. Ironically enough, women above the age of 18 make up one of the largest groups of “gamers” in existence because of the ever-increasing popularity of mobile games like Candy Crush.
So whether or not you like the game or not, you cannot deny the impact it’s had on the entire gaming industry. While the more iconic video games, like Call of Duty, League of Legends, and Dota, are still dominated by males, women are becoming a significant portion of the gaming market thanks to mobile games like Candy Crush.
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