I have been moaning about the glut of mediocre games on Steam in the last–well, several months if not years. Steam Next Fest has become a drag. I’m not saying there aren’t good games in the Steam Next Fest; I am saying that it’s really hard to find that gem. That’s why I depend on groups likke Wholesome Games to give me a heads up on what’s new in cozy gaming. In this case, they had a trailer for a game called Creature Kitchen (The Rat Zone). I have included it down below. I don’t usually go for the crunchy pixel look, but there was something endearing about this one. I don’t know what it is, but I was drawn in.
Then, I found out it was a cooking game, and I was sold. I didn’t even need to know the story or anything else. Me cooking for different animals*? Hell yeah! There was a demo, so of course, I installed it. I didn’t have much of an idea what to expect, so I went in with an open mind. I did love the fact that the game had an eighties feel to it. It’s in first person, but for whatever reason, my nausea remains at a very low level. It’s manageable, and I only had to take a break once.
I can’t overstate how charming the game is. And how it leads you gently from point to point. For the most part, I had no problem figuring out what I was supposed to do. Only once did I get stuck, and it was a glitch in the system. Meaning, it was a fault of the game–not anything I’d done.
By the way, my biggest complaint–and it’s not even that big–is just a bunch of small QOL issues. Such as it doesn’t constantly save, and you can’t auto-save. Which means that you can lose a small bit of gameplay. Like, a minute or so. It’s not great, but I’m also not too pressed about it.
Another small complaint–the frying pan mechanic is really frustrating. You have to cook a piece of food on one side for a few seconds before flipping it to cook the other side. Much like you have to do in real life, yes, but you have to flip it at a certain angle that is counterintuitive to me. And if you don’t do it just right, then it falls out of the pan and into the fire. And you have to cook it again. As someone who has awful dexterity in my fingers, this is agony to me. And it doesn’t add anything to the gameplay experience.
I sympathize with devs who want to include mundane activities, especially in a cozy cooking game, but–by the way. THis has been called a creepy-looking cozy cooking simulator. I may be missing something, but it’s not creepy at all. I mean, there’s