When I first demoed Cuisineer at , I quickly became convinced that, with a bit more time, I could become an absolute 🍰beast at this game. I was immediately taken by the gameplay loop of romping through dungeons on extended murder sprees to collect ingredients, and later setting up my restaurant for maximum efficiency and profit when using those ingredients to make dishes. It’s a mix of Hades and Diner Dash, a mash-up of genres which turned out to be as compelling as i☂t was unexpected. I’ve recently been playing a world-exclusive preview build of the game, though, and the more I discover, the more I like it.
I’ve put quite a few h𒉰ours in, and every time I feel like I might want to put down my controller and do something else, I find a new mechanic or thing to try out that sucks me right back in. I couldn’t tell this from the demo build I played at Tokyo Game Show, but Paell reminds me of Stardew Valley in more ways than one. I’ve got time to talk to the citizens of my hometown, and many of them have requests for me. Some ask me for resources, some for dishes, and some for ingredients, but all of them promise me a mouthwatering recipe in return for my hard work. The game is developed by a studio from my hometown of Singapore, which means many of the game’s recipes remind me of home in some way. The more I build my recipe collection, the more food I can make, and the more money I can reinvest into my little restaurant.
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There are other similarities, too. There’s a calendar listing people’s birthdays – except in Paell, the♊y give you gifts on their special days. It’s unclear to me as of yet if you can gift-bomb people into falling in love with you like you can in Stardew, but I’m perfectly happy taking gifts and minding my own business for now. Each person in your hometown also has their own schedules, meaning that trying to hunt people down can be a bit of a pain, but it certainly makes the town seem that much more alive.
Like I mentioned earlier, the preview build kept surprising me with each new mechaniඣc. Unfortunately, I forgot that I’m completely garbage at roguelikes (I had to play Hades on God Mode), which means I didn’t get as far in the dungeons as I would have liked, but I’m compensating by being absolutely killer at restaurant management. I love the meditative aspect of serving customers – it almost reminds me of being a barista and going on autopilot during slower shifts.
The roguelike gameplay and the restaurant upgrade mechanics feed into each other surprisingly well. If you want to make more dishes, you need more equipment, which means you need a bigger💜 restaurant. Upgrading your restaurant requires money and materials, which you get by opening the restaurant and dungeon-delving respectively. Rarer ingredients, obtained in later levels of each dungeon, let you make dishes that cost mo𝄹re.
You also need more furniture to fill up your restaurant as it grows, and you guessed it, you need resources and money for that too. The game pushes you to keep engaging with the gameplay loop in a way that feels natural, allowing you to continually mitigate the factors that keep your business from running smoothly. Not enough space? Make more space. Not enough ingredi🌳ents, or not the right ones? Get a better weapon, more equipment, and get what you need. The more complex running your restaurant gets, the more fun it is to open it up and watch the coins come in.
I’m pretty bad at combat, but it’s still very fun to upgrade my equipment and work my way deeper into each dungeon. The first time I completed an arena without dying, I cheered. Your equipment can be upgraded to mix and match differently flavoured effects, which stack increased damage on your enemies. I’ve only just unlocked the second dungeon, the Mala Caverns – mala hotpot is a mouth-numbing comfort food from China for many Singaporeans, including myself – but I’m exci🌠ted to see how different effects adapt to different types of enemies, especially considering the Mala Caverns will probably be full of spicy monsters.
There’s still much to learn about Cuisineer, and very little about it that I’ve experienced already and didn’t enjoy. While I wish there were quality of life additions like a map of the town and being able to sell equipment to vendors, mostly because I accidentally bought two prep tables and I don’t know how to get my money and resources back, Cuisineer is shaping up to be one of the more compelling indie games I’ve played this year. Not only is it fun as hell, but it’s a product of the Southeast Asian culture I grew up steeped in. I’ll be playing it when itಌ releases in November, and I hop🐷e you will too.