Very interesting idea. It hard to comment without spoiling it so... nice work. :)

I have no idea why, but neither the 32 of 64 bit versions are working right for me. When it gets to where I am supposed to move the character, no buttons actually make the character move. :shrug:

the start was annoying when you had to write. I was stuck after that, because i could not figure out how to enter the house. I liked the dark theme though

@mrpiedpiper @kenn50games Have you tried WASD and arrow keys? If so, then I’ll try to figure out what’s going on. Sorry it wasn’t working so well!

@peet-cooper I’m glad you liked it!

Aw man, I seem to be having the same problem as the others right at the point "Enter the house." I will check back to see if there's a fix, or you can @ me when it's ready.

I liked the first sentence of the game, hehe. Mood setting is great off the bat as well, I wish I could have seen more to have a better picture of the whole.

The sound of each letter appearing could maybe be less aggressive in your ears when it fires in quick succession, since it does go on for several sentences.

@firebug Yikes, this is an issue! I’ll be fixing that as soon as I have time. Thanks for the feedback!

@firebug @kenn50games @mrpiedpiper Fixed the issue! Sorry about that! The movement should now be working as normally.

I wish to play on Mac OSX.

@smuhlaci I have been having some technical difficulties with Unity and can’t build to Mac (and before anyone says it, i do have the build module installed). I’ll try to get it working so that you can play, but don’t count on it. Sorry.

@smuhlaci **Correction:** I've fixed it! One extra large Mac OSX version with no onions and a lot of spice, coming right up! Will that be for here or to go? And do you want some sauce with that? No? Alright then, have a great day!

@koala-squad I can move now, but other than that, I don't seem to be able to progress. After the initial scene, it says "Enter the house". Then I can move around and look at stuff, but nothing actually happens. :<
(Tried 32 and 64 bit)

@mrpiedpiper Whoops again! This time, I fixed it and tested it to make sure nothing else was wrong! Sorry about this buggy mess I posted! Basically, here's what went wrong. I have a couple of developer buttons in the Unity editor that let me skip certain parts of the game to test it more easily. I happened to press one of them without realizing while I wasn't running the game, which changed a few of the settings on some of the objects ever so slightly. Those changes were just never reset. Now, they are. Thank you for the tips, and hopefully, you can play the whole game now!

Welp. That was quite the "game". XP
You definitely win the award for one specific category in my books. Not sure I can really say much more than that for this comment without spoiling anything.

Truly a job well done. Nice! :thumbsup:

@mrpiedpiper I’m glad you liked it, despite the repeated tech issues!

I was able to play it now! I'll try to talk about it in more detail without spoiling anything.

First off some small issues I haven't seen mentioned in the comments yet. I like how the character floats toward the target on click, but when I stood above the target, I floated through it. I also suggest to create slightly more contrast between the door and the wall. The color values seem very similar and some people aren't able to see color hues.

The concept is intriguing, especially the whole package. The ending is satisfying and gives a sense of relief for tension that has built up while playing. The part shortly before the end segment suffers a little bit, because by this time I already "know the drill" and am seeking the next step to progress the narrative, but there are quite a few sentences to get through.

"Innovation", "Theme", and "Mood" are definitely strong points of this game to me. "Graphics" and "Audio" are effective, especially since I can appreciate the use of silence where appropriate. I'm generally not a fan of the category "Humor" (I feel it should emphasize clever writing to suit more genres, and otherwise merge with Mood) as your game does better under the viewpoint of wit rather than LD's definition "humorous dialogue". I did believe to detect some reference jokes, but I could be wrong, haha. "Fun" is perhaps the weakest link. The player's tasks are limited and don't require thought or agency, which suits the game but not the "Fun" category.

I hope this was helpful!

@firebug Thank you for the comprehensive feedback! I’m glad you managed to give this feedback without spoilers too!

Good to know! Minor improvements noted, and will probably make it into a post-jam, if i make one.

I do tend to get a bit wordy with my writing, and I see what you mean. Thanks for the tip! I’ll try to make everything more meaningful or just remove the meaningless sentences.

Glad to see that you liked the mood (the one massive draw to the game, lol), and thought that it was innovative! This theme was pretty specific, so I’m glad I managed to distinguish the game! I’m also glad that you liked how the audio and graphics fit! I too really appreciate the value of silence, especially when it comes to being creepy (although nothing sets the mood like a powerful ambience). Plus, some of it came out of necessity, so it just kinda came together perfectly if it’s own accord.

Oh, whoops! Meant to opt out of humor! Although I might leave it now....

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the humor category, and your consideration of dry wit as a humor thing is something that I had never really thought of before! I’m not sure it’s not a reason, however, to include the humor category for rating in this game. Everyone typically thinks of humor as either slapstick, jokes, or something along the lines of glados, and it’s really hard to change that perception, so I’d rather just avoid a category that is, for the most part, completely random. Still, I’m leaving it open now that you mention that, as I hadn’t realized that the dialogue was funny in its own dry way, and that it garnered rating because of that.

Yes, the mechanics aren’t fun, but that’s not the point. It’s much more about the atmosphere from a passive perspective, and the fun factor does indeed take the fall for it. I suppose it’s designed as a different kind of fun, just as an action game is fun in a different way than a horror game.

Yep, you got the reference thing quite clearly.

**SPOILER ALERT. GO PLAY THE GAME BEFORE READING THE COMMENTS!**















The very first sentence in the game is a direct quote to the first creepy pasta I’d ever seen, “Ben drowned.” If you’re into dark horror writing (I’m on the fence. I love the powerful storytelling and rich, thoughtful stories, but I hate being scared), I’d recommend checking it out, although it might take you a little while to get through it. I had no idea what I was getting into, so it made that experience 10x better and more powerful. I didn’t intentionally make any other references, but I might have by mistake, as with any creative medium.

















Thank you for the review! Super helpful!

@koala-squad I wish at the start of the judging phase LD would give everyone a pop-up quickly explaining each rating category, so that everyone is on the same page. Not sure why they use "Graphics" instead of "Visuals", considering they use "Audio" (and not e.g. "Music").

I just read "Ben drowned", thanks for the tip! I love the game it's based on, which is probably where most people who play your game will recognize the quote from.

As an idea for gameplay, if you were to continue working on this game, perhaps anticipate actions the player might take in attempt to resist the game rules or test the limits. I'm one of those people who likes to first try out doing the opposite of what I'm being told to do in a game.

This :point_up:
I tried doing the opposite and just wandering around the playable space thinking something would happen. Especially after the behavior of the opening sequence when you don't do as instructed.

And yeah, I recognized the origin of the quote, not the version you were referencing. Still worked out great, though. Love me some references, and that one fit either way.

@firebug @mrpiedpiper I tried anticipating a couple of things that the player might do (try leaving the second house after the second to last message appears, or just sitting around for too long in any of the houses after the last message appears in each), although I could have expanded on it immensely: I just didn’t prioritize it enough. There’s a lot more I could do with it, I’ll just have to sit myself down and get creative with it. Thanks for the tip!

I have and love majoras mask, but I’ve never realized that the quote was from the canon game. Probably because I haven’t seen the beginning of the game for at least 2 years. Anyway, good to know.

Yes, more solid explanations of each category that are mandatory reading would be perfect! Maybe we could make a formal feature request or something if we could get a bunch of people on board.

The police always seem to go after me even after I choose not to slice the tomatoes. The cucumber was kind of annoying at times, too. Wonder why we had to wait until the last level to kill him. Still, the graphics were neat. You really got into the atmosphere of it all. The way the instructions were given was pretty neat, too. Overall, solid.

@DWaM Thanks for the review! Sorry the police weren't treating you all that well. Did you try bribes? They're very effective.

The cucumber's annoying demeanor was the point, since it left you wanting to kill him at the very end. Just be glad you actually got to kill him ;)

A lot of people mostly leave out their tutorials until the end and then either give them in the description or in an ugly wall of text at the beginning. I tried to be a bit more original with that, which is what tends to make or break a lot of triple-A games. This should really be more widespread.

Glad you liked the graphics and mood! That's what I was going for here.

Really neat concept! The instructions were especially engaging. I'm not sure what the purpose of the front is since it's immediately disposed of rather than played into. I also feel like more user interaction in the ending would have had a strong impact.
I did enjoy the theme of control though, and atmospherically everything was spot on.
Overall very cool!

Wow! Good experience!
- Mood and atmosphere is great and weird, at the beginning I expect a Cooking game xD, and this sentiment to see something completely different thing is great.
- Changes narrator and gameplay control the character are great and create disorientation.
- When appear the words and the sound is great and create "rhythm" inside the gameplay.

But maybe that can be improved:
- Why not play at fullscreen mode? I think you can improve the mood of the game.
- I saw that the player doesn't have any option or choice (at the beginning I wrote "It is a game", and doesn't work... it's linear and I think can be improved adding more player options. Now is too much imposition for the narrator. Example: There is no Game --> https://www.kongregate.com/games/kamizoto_creator/there-is-no-game
- When the narrator talks, the sound of the words writing can be improved adding a pitch.
- Add more feedback when the character arrives at bed...

Amazing job! Congrats!!

@selkkie Thanks for the input! I wanted to add an intro sequence in which a chef explains the intro of the game rather than dumping you right into the game, but I was pressed for time. I also was planning on making it so that the user had to click to stab the final boss, but I had no good way to tell the player this without breaking the flow of the game. I have a couple of ideas, but for now, it's going to stay cut-scene style.

@peterfonts I usually restrict my jam games to 512x512 because scaling UI is a nightmare to deal with. It typically works on a few resolutions, but it never works well on everything without more time and effort than I can afford on short notice. I usually add that feature in post-jam versions though, and I do already have a couple changes made. I think I'll add it to the post jam. Yes, the text needs a LOT of meta pushed into it. I added a couple of things that the player can do if he tries to ignore the instructions, but the text is missing that. I want it to be linear, of course, but little things that the player can do would indeed be good. And yes, I improved the sound, but I like the idea of pitch variation. As far as feedback for the player arriving at the bed, I'm not sure what to add. I might add a single-frame animation, but other than that, there's nothing that I can think of to provide more feedback.

Thank you both so much for the input, and I'm glad you enjoyed the experience!

Evading the veggie police while juggling my restaurant popularity was super fun! I think there's a build that's a bit too strong though, it's when you focus on carrots for an early start but then do full onion and ignore everything else. I made it to 15,400 pts before my schemes ended!

Not gonna lie I initially clicked this game cuz I love cooking games. I was happy with what the game ended up being, and it was an interesting perspective into that type of 'protagonist'. You know, the cooking kind.

This is fantastic! I love everything about this, the concept is very original and engaging. Good work! :)

@peachtreeoath Happy you enjoyed! Yes, that build is broken, to say the least, but part of the point was that by doing that, you neglect the most annoying vegetables and are forced to endure their obnoxious monologues. If you can endure it, then that’s designed to be powerful. Sacrifices must be made, after all.

@megalink Thank you so much! I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed!

I love this! I'll try to say a few things without any spoilers. The only things I'd say are that the text moving so slowly got a bit annoying after a while, and that at the end, it felt a bit disconnected. I know "you are not in control" was a whole thing haha, but being literally not in control at the end kind of broke the immersion for me. Maybe give the player something to do there, similar to how we typed earlier and controlled the character? Rather than just having all the blue text spoken for us. Other than those, this is a super cool and well done concept, incredible work!

@taikuri Thanks for the feedback! I had been wanting to implement control as a way to contrast the game and all the stuff about not being in control, but I didn't have any ideas. However, right after I read your comment, I had some ideas for making it a reality, and now the post-jam version is so much better! Thank you!

Having to type "You're not in control" type of things was a bit triggering to me, so I put this down shortly after entering the house. Props for the creepy vibes there :)

I've left out most of the rating categories because it looks like this was just the intro and I missed the main content.

As a suggestion for next time, I felt that the mood was appropriately set after repeating 2-3 sentences, so I'd move on to the core loop at that point and perhaps bring back the mechanic later. As it is, I had no idea how much more I'd have to repeat stuff and it got a bit too dark already. If that's what you were going for, well done ;)

Overall, this looks like it took a lot of effort, congrats!

@fre Thank you for the suggestion. I did get rather redundant, and although it did help set the mood, you're right about it only needing 2-3 sentences. If you want, I'm almost finished with a post-jam, and you had finished a significant portion of the game (although yes, this was an intro). Thank you!

@fre @DWam @selkkie @taikuri @firebug @megalink @smuhlaci @peterfonts @peachtreeoath @mrpiedpiper @kenn50games @peet-cooper

We've just finished a post-jam version, if anyone is interested. A lot of your suggestions made some significant changes to the game, and I'd like to thank all of you for giving me your time and suggestions!

As far as what specifically we've added to it, check out this post: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/cook/post-jam-version-out-now

Passed the game :)


I was playing on a small screen and didn't find text input for a minute. It'd be better if it had more distinguishable color or flicker when empty.

How did you do this sound effects for talking? I like it very much! :D

The beginning was interesting, I thought I downloaded a wrong game. xD

@lucidus Hmm, that's a good idea. I'll try to add something to make the text box more obvious, although I think I already did in the post-jam. I can't even remember. Lol.

The sound effects were made using SFXR, and I'm really happy with how they turned out too, especially since I had never given the software a good try and thought that it wasn't good.

Lol, that's the point. The post-jam is even better, with a new, fake intro. If you want to see it, it'll only take a minute. Thanks for playing!