Coo-Coo, Chef! by poboy
Some food critics are coming to town! You and your team of sous-chefs have only one shot to impress them, but unfortunately they are birds and can't understand you! Use flags to signal commands to them and make the dishes requested by your hungry customers.
Update: We added a post-jam version, but please base your rating on the original version!
Raise both flags to issue a command. For example:
S + K => "Serve" the dish to the customer (Don't serve until the plate is done!).
If you press Space while holding, it'll send the command immediately rather than waiting for the timer.
Discover the rest of the commands yourself! Press and hold H to see previously-learned commands.
- WASD: Left flag
- IJKL: Right flag
- Space: Issue command
- H: See learned keys
- R: Restart level
Q: How do I individually address my chefs? When I say "move", they all move!
A: You can't, they are birds.
Note: In the postjam version, we changed this so that birds no longer move randomly; they always move one square in the direction they are facing, and then spin to a random direction.
Q: How do I serve my finished dish?
A: Put the dish on the plate and put it on a table somewhere, then issue the "Serve" command! The fish will come over and eat the dish. (This doesn't actually happen because we ran out of animation budget but use your imagination)
Q: How do I skip a level!
A: Issue the "Serve" command and serve your sad customer an empty plate. He will complain, but you've got things to do. Time is money after all!
Q: What does 'Be confused!' mean?
A: Your flag command is not in the avian lexicon. They'll pick an action randomly!
If you kill a bird, send a screenshot and we will honor them here :(
- drewhead118: Composer, SFX, Programming, dough-maker
- snail: Programming, 3D Art, Game Design
- Lexu: 2D Art, Design (instagram)
- MilkWine: Programming, grass blades
- Zeq: Art, Programming (itch)
Outside resources used:
- Ball bounce sound effect - Sound Effect by P F from Pixabay
- KenneyNL game icons https://kenney.nl/assets/game-icons
- Piazzolla font - https://www.huertatipografica.com/en/fonts/piazzolla
- Maoken font - https://www.freechinesefont.com/maoken-assorted-sans-tc-free-download/
All other resources created by our team.
| Link | https://poboy2.itch.io/ld59 |
| HTML5 (web) (Postjam Version, don't rate this!) | https://poboy2.itch.io/coo-coo-chef-postjam-version |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/coo-coo-chef |
Ratings
| Overall | 373th | 3.629⭐ | 87🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 458th | 3.321⭐ | 86🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 148th | 3.833⭐ | 86🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 224th | 4.071⭐ | 87🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 177th | 4.22⭐ | 86🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 183th | 3.855⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 36th | 4.229⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 329th | 3.787⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 47🗳️ | 119🗨️ |
The amount of combinations for commands is overwhelming, wasn't able to finish instructions before accidentally serving.
On the first level my birds got so confused it was no longer salvageable.
As is, the tone, style, creativity and humor all MORE than make up for a slightly lacking gameplay experience. Overall, very strong!
Fun little game -- good work!
We are adding a graveyard to our main post, if you kill a bird please send him to us and we will make a vessel for his soul to enter bird heaven
Still this is a really cool idea that I think is executed really well and with a lot of polish, so great job overall! also I accidentally sliced a bird in half but didnt screenshot so I guess his soul is destroyed forever sorry
The bird with a knife looks dangerous :D
One downside is the strong randomness—the bird’s movement direction feels unpredictable, which weakens the control a bit. But I really enjoyed the interpretation of the theme
I'll mirror what everyone else said about the randomness, though. Even just "move in the direction you're facing" and "turn rotate clockwise" would've been enough for me to work with. But spamming "move" 10 times to get a bird to go where I want it to go, followed by "turn" 5 times, was definitely frustrating.
Looks like I'll also be the first to the graveyard. Although... I don't know if it was an accident...
And one more thing for the FAQ - I wasn't clear about how serving worked. Do I need to pick up the meal? Bring it to the octopus? Just have it made somewhere? Could have definitely used some clarification on that.
But overall amazing work! With a few small tweaks I think this would be a ton of fun and I'd love to come back to an updated version :)
@drainkid : do not worry, we have soul-capturing technology and have cremated his soul to put in a jar in the dirt, I've added him to the graveyard
@Chaseplays : oh dear, a bird has fallen :( we've buried him in the graveyard and a funeral will be prepared with his loved ones. Thank you for playing! "Serve" just sends out whatever food is on the plate, so it just needs to exist on a table somewhere, I'll add it to the FAQ!
Love the feedback, appreciate all your thoughts!!
On a sidenote, the game is a bit laggy on my computer =(
The ending was great.
But actually getting the birds to do what you was nigh impossible.
I would try and turn them 180 degrees and they would just turn left 90 degrees and then back 90 degrees.
The move signal seemed to just randomize them and I could not for the life of me make smashed cucumber salad.
I think it should be more deterministic what happens. (i.e. the birds move one tile over, they always turn clockwise etc.)
It's really well made and compelling, with funny writing, but it's just too hard for me.
Congrats for the team, really well made!
A bit more predictability amid chaos would work wonders. Like move - only move forward and not everywhere! Also sometimes it would say "grab", for example, but command of the flag is 'be confused'? I am too confused! Is it like one of wariants of confusion then?
But there is so much going for it. I want to try it all, but randomized commands with so much chaos is real hard! (also second dish was announced not in english for me)
move move move move turn turn turn turn: yes
Overall I think this could have been two seperate games. One giving commands with inputs where you don't know what they do (and flash that out further) and another one with better controls but where the NPCs have some randomness.
I loved this game, it's enjoyably frustrating, almost as much as playing Overcooked with my friends
i thought i was getting there but it felt like the commands i discovered with the "be confused" tags would change on me then i mildly quit (not rage quit its too cute to rage)
cool input mechanics and discovering the mirrored commands was cool, but then i got confused again.
We made a [post-jam version](https://poboy2.itch.io/coo-coo-chef-postjam-version) with some more deterministic movement, an intro cinematic, and a confirmation menu before serving. Please continue to use the jam version for rating purposes!
@Neox, @roitchie : thanks for the ideas, we've made a postjam version (link in post) where Move is "forward-only", I agree it is way better. We'll experiment with other control schemes in the future!
@shadow64: Oh dear, another workplace accident... do not worry, we have added a grave for your bird in the OP and his soul will be at peace :)
Reminded me of the Overcooked games, except better!
I admit I was thinking, 'Wow, I’ll never make it,' and I’m glad it wasn’t necessary to reach the final twist, which I found hilarious.
Love the dialogue box visual!
Congrats!
I didn't manage to accomplish anything (I didn't try the post jam version yet), but the ending was hilarious nonetheless.
Well done !
I really liked the soundtrack of the game. It was fitting and had a lot of variation.
An inside view of my head trying figuring out the controls of the game. ;)
