The gaming industry has covered a wide range of topics. Nowadays, we don’t rely on games for entertainment purposes online, as many titles can teach us valuable skills, such as cooking a delicious meal.
If you like to cook and experiment with food and make the taste buds of your friends and family dance every time you prepare a meal, you should definitely check out some of the games we’re about to present in the article. Even if you have no experience in the kitchen, the following titles could inspire you to buy the necessary ingredients and prepare your favorite dish. Some of them might give you an idea of what to eat next. Read on.
Cooking Fever
Cooking Fever might look easy on the surface, but it can become quite a complex game once you start progressing through the levels.
The game is available for iOS and Android users and currently has over 100 million downloads on mobile devices.
The app doesn’t actually focus on cooking. In fact, you need to know the cooking basics to prepare the food in the game and serve it to the customer.
Cooking Fever is, in fact, a tycoon type of game. You begin by preparing food in a restaurant and serving hungry customers. Each customer who approaches your desk has specific requirements, and they don’t like to wait for food a long time. Therefore, you need to think fast and meet their demands as quickly as possible without overcooking or messing their order in any other way.
Cooking Simulator
Cooking Fever is an arcade game, so you need to focus on things that aren’t cooking per se. However, if you really want to practice this skill and improve it, you should definitely check out Cooking Simulator.
The game comes in three modes: Career Mode, Cooking School, and Leaderboard Challenge. If your goal is to improve your cooking skills, you should proceed with the Cooking School.
The best part about Cooking Simulator is ongoing updates, which add new ingredients and meals. Right now, you can use approximately 140+ ingredients to practice virtual cooking on all consoles and PCs.
The game can be challenging and even outright stressful from time to time if you have no prior experience playing games (regardless of your cooking skills). Therefore, we wouldn’t recommend Cooking Simulator for people who don’t usually play games.
Overcooked! 2
Overcooked is an exciting cooking game that can be played in co-op mode with up to four players. It’s available for all current-gen consoles, and the next-gen version is on the way.
If you play with your friends, you’ll have to cooperate in preparing food and overcoming all the obstacles that will make your meals overcooked. It’s a great game if you like to experience an adrenaline rush, but make sure not to get angry if things aren’t going your way.
You’ll have to keep up with the dynamic of the game and try not to get disturbed by moving floors, portals, and fires all over the place.
This game isn’t about cooking, although chefs and cooks are its protagonists. It’s essentially an arcade game that will keep you entertained for dozens of hours, especially if you play in the co-op mode.
Pizza Express
Who doesn’t like pizza? It’s probably the most popular type of food of all time, but it’s not up to us to judge. Pizza is not only delicious to eat but also fun to prepare, and that’s what Pizza Express is all about.
It’s actually a 16-bit game inspired by Super Nintendo games. Its vintage vibe doesn’t mean that the gameplay is outdated. In fact, the title features a great story, where the player assumes the role of a pizza maker who helps a failing restaurant restore its former glory by making delicious pizza.
You’ll have dozens of ingredients at your disposal and just one goal — to keep the foodies happy. As you progress through the game, your pizza place will start expanding, and meeting customers’ demands will become more challenging.
Pizza Express is a Steam-exclusive title, and it costs just $6.99.
Cooking Dash 2016
Cooking Dash is inspired by the popular Diner Dash game. The player assumes the role of Flo, a superstar chef whose goal is to make a chain of restaurants and keep people happy with the meals. You’ll have to memorize plenty of recipes and take into account all customers’ preferences when it comes to food. The game is available for iOS, Android, and PC.
Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2
Available for PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4, Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2 is a great arcade game where you can prepare more than 180 meals. Once again, the focus is not only on cooking but rather on leading a restaurant. You’ll get customers with various food preferences, and your job is to keep them all happy by keeping their stomachs full.
You’ll also have to deal with some other aspects of running a restaurant, such as fixing things on the go. For example, you’ll sometimes have to fix the bathroom problems to keep the customers flocking in. Neglecting these issues is always bad for the business.
Final Thoughts
If any of the games in this article seem interesting, feel free to check them out. Most of them are available on various devices, including consoles, PCs, and mobile devices. All games are “light,” meaning you don’t need new and expensive equipment to run them. Moreover, they are much more affordable compared to popular console and PC titles, and some are completely free of charge.