Tag: Cook Serve Forever | A Banana Peeled

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When to say it’s done

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

For the past two posts, I have been talking about the game, Cook, Serve, Forever by David Galindo. There are three games in this series. Cook, Serve, Delicious!; Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!; and, Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!. The first game was released in 2012, and the series has only gained in popularity since. My personal favorite is the second by a hair over the first, and the third is my least favorite. It’s not a bad game by far, but I just like the second game the best.

I will say that the third game got me through the beginning of the pandemic when it was released in Early Access. I spent many, many hours happily pounding away at my keyboard in order to make my orders. The fact that the last act of the game completely fell apart is a shame, but it doens’t erase the fact that it’s a highly-addictive game for the first two-thirds of it.

But the second game was my favorite because you could design restaurants. It was pretty basic, but it was fun. I was not able to 100% that game, but that’s ok. Begrudgingly. I played that game months after getting out of the hospital because I wanted the plat. I was physically unable to get it, but I got really close.

Here’s the thing. Series can go on for way too long. I noticed when I used to read mystery series that they got worse as they went on (in general). The problem is that you can’t stray too far from the formula because that’s why people are reading the books. But then that gets stale in a hurry. I used to read Sue Grafton’s alphabet series. She set them in real time, starting in the 1980s, so even when we got to book V is for Vengeance, which was released in 2011, the technology was still from the ’80s.

When I first started reading the series, there was nothing else like it. It was fresh and exciting to me, especially since it starred a female private detective. Kinsey Millhone was a tough, no-nonsense, take no prisoners kind of gal who had terrible taste in men. And she cut her own hair. She made sure to say that in every book, which signified part of the problem.

It was fresh and exciting for roughly ten books. M is for Malice was the best of the series, but then it went downhill from there. By the time I got to W is for Wasted, I could barely read the books any longer. I felt like I had to because I had gotten that far, but I wasn’t enjoying it. She died before she could write the final one, so the series ended with Y is for Yesterday. I feel like I need to read X (no is for) and Y is for Yesterday, but I haven’t thus far.

The problem with series

Posted on May 17, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

Yesterday, I brought up the new game, Cook, Serve, Forever (David Galindo). It’s in Early Access, and I had been stoked to play it because I love the series. But, alas, it’s not to be. I’ll get more into it in a second, but I do want to give major props to a few aspects ofthe game. One, the music. The music has always been slamming in the games, and it continues to be so in this one. It’s fantastic, and it really bolsters my spirits as I play.

Also, the graphics just make me smile. Somewhat cartoon-y and lots of vibrant colors. The characters are varied in size, color, genders, and age. I just love the whole design vibe of the games. I like that you are a talking character in this game. You haven’t been in the past. You have loved cooking since you were a young girl and you grew up to be a cook in a food truck. You live with your (Asian!) girlfriend, and you have aspirations to be a great chef.

The conceit of the game is that there is a competition in which you want to get three stars like the famous chef, Rhubarb. She is the only one to have ever done it, and you want to be like her. I love that there’s a story and the characters are voiced. The two robots were voiced in the last game, but that’s it.

I love the voice actors in this game. They are great! I’m not crazy about how stereotypical the men are (they are the shopkeeps for Nori, the main character)–racial/nationality-wise. The main shopkeep is Baz from Australia, and it makes me wince that all his comments are very g’day mate-like.

But aside from that, I really enjoy the characters in general because they are fun and quirky. Ok, one other exception. The pastor in the church, but that’s because I have a bad history with churches. I don’t want to listen to a sermon while I’m playing a game.

But I do love the style of the game in general. Each game has iterated and done better than the one before. This is the best lookswise, and I’m impressed with how much effort Chubigans (the name he uses for Twitter) has putinto updating the look and feel of the game. This is eleven years after the first one was released, and I can really see the growth in the design of the games.