Cook, Serve, Delicious!

About a year ago, I had gotten a Humble Bundle which included a game that I was somewhat curious about, especially because the bundle that I had gotten it from was called ‘Aaargh!’ I’m sure that we’ve all been at that point where we’ve experienced games that are so frustrating that this sentiment, along with several very impolite things, would spill from our mouths. This game was called “Cook, Serve, Delicious!”

Now, I’m a bit of a fan of tycoon games. Where you can be the owner of a run down old [insert company here] and you have to raise it up from the ashes to be the best of the best in the [insert company here] franchise! I’m also a bit of a sucker for the restaurant tycoon games, if not just to pass the time. But why was this game, a restaurant tycoon game, in a bundle of games that was so hair-pulling, mouth-frothingly difficult? So, naturally, I got the full bundle and immediately downloaded the game to give it a test run.

Even from first opening the game, it does not come across as the type of game that you will make you sob because you did not complete a level, or because you screwed something up and therefore you have to either redo the whole level or have to restart the game. So why was it here?

I begin the game, and then, just in the tutorial, it hits me. It’s the buttons and the controls of the game that make it difficult. I completed the tutorial of the game with rather relative ease, but then I got onto the harder part of it… The actual game.

Day 1 ran fairly standard, as did the game itself that was typical of any restaurant tycoon game. You wait for customers to come in, they tell you what they want from a menu that you had to prepare beforehand, and you cook it. So, I got through it and was fairly proud of myself. Almost smug. But then, Day 2 hit and that’s where things got a little bit more difficult. A few more customers, and having to rapidly be able to smash the up arrow key to open a bottle of wine, and then hit the ticket to serve it, and then quickly hit 2, and then smash the up arrow to cut the head off a fish, and then the right arrow key to filet it, started to make it clear as to why this game was in that bundle of games. Day 3 hits, and then I realize why this game had been in there all along. By mid-day, or the rush as the game likes to call it, my fingers were starting to cramp up. Which, coming from someone who games fairly regularly, came as a bit of an angering moment, but also as a surprise. Now, my thought on this matter was that I had been playing for a fairly long time. Maybe 45 minutes… an hour? The days tick by fairly slowly, and I wasn’t really paying much attention to my actual clock, versus the clock on the screen to prepare myself for when lunch or dinner rush hit. So, my fingers, having started to hurt some, I thought I would take a break.

‘I’d say I gave that a solid hour, that’s a good effort for a game of that type!’ I thought to myself, wanting to reward myself with perhaps a small break, some food, and a YouTube binge… But how wrong I was.

Just before I had gotten up off my chair, I decided to look at the time that it said that I had logged playing the game.

17 minutes.

I hadn’t even played the game for 1/3 of an hour, and my fingers were hurting already.

That’s not right… I’m sure that’s not right.

So I stepped away from the computer for a short while, and let my fingers have a bit of a rest, and then came back to it, determined to show up Steam and the game that I wasn’t going to back out of a game that prides itself on being ‘difficult’ in less than an hour.

But I did. Yet another 19 minutes of gaming, 3 days in the game, and my fingers were telling me to stop and that they wouldn’t do anything bad again.

This was surprising. Very, very surprising to me. In a world where what comes to mind when you say ‘tycoon game’ are Roller Coaster Tycoon or Facebook games, this game almost immediately stood out for me. Not only was it a tycoon game, but it was a tycoon game that was difficult. It was the type of game that didn’t just hand you x amount of money and say ‘Here you go, Billy, have fun!’ and within 20 minutes, you have it down to a science. It was the type of game that gives you enough to start and then says ‘Well Billy, if you want to have the pretty shiny restaurant, then you are going to need to really work for it!’

For those of you out there that want a tycoon game that’s more than just a shrug and a walk in the park, I would definitely recommend getting Cook, Serve, Delicious! For PC (Also available for mobile as well!) and giving it a try.

I mean, unless you have crippling arthritis. I definitely would not recommend it for you. Or anyone with joint pain.

Find it on:

• Steam
• Google Play (Android)
• Apple (iOS)