Chef RPG

I've really enjoyed playing this game in early access, and I can't wait for the finished game to come out,
Pros
--Mining, farming, cooking, brewing
--Quite a bit of customization options for just being EA
--Responsive dev team that puts out updates almost daily to fix bugs and issues. I've had other games just get abandoned after being hyped up, so it's nice to know they are still working on the game
--HUGE range of cooking options for being EA
--Can get 2 restaurants in EA currently
--CAN GET DOGS AND CATS
--Lots of different recipes. You can learn 200+ in EA. To do so, you NEED to get the research labs (each of them), as certain recipes are only accessed through them. They can be purchased from stores, learned from recipes, or learned from cooking/interacting with the world.
--I really like the art, now. I was hesitant at first, but it has really grown on me. I think at least one of the characters is missing a portrait, though (Hugo), as he shows up as a friend (well, stranger) but not with a portrait when I talk to him.
--Characters are super cool (although somewhat surface level in EA). You need to befriend characters to get more items sold at their stores.
Cons
--Because it is early access, there are a lot of bugs. It doesn't bother me because I know that it's early access--but if you are expecting a fully polished game, you should wait
--The romance (currently) is pretty bare bones, and it is not fully clear who can and cannot be romanced. For example, I thought Bea would be romanceable, but it turns out Bea is married and has children already with another character (that I can't remember the name of). It should be a bit clearer, like with a symbol or heart color, to determine who can and cannot be romanced. I defaulted to romancing Aloys because Aloys loved hats and I just...bought a hat from their store and gave them one every day. I did want to romance Aylin, but I couldn't tell if she was romanceable.
--Figuring out my friend status with anyone beyond the little names like "stranger" and "friend" is difficult. I know that there are stages because I get hearts that indicate we've leveled up as friends, but I have no idea how friendly I am with someone.
--The hair of my staff keeps disappearing.
--I don't love the skill leveling, and as some of the negative reviews have mentioned, if you don't do certain skills, you lock yourself out of the game. I think it would make more sense for certain skills, such as the Greenhouse skill, to not be a skill but something you unlock through a quest.
--Combat is a bit tricky, and spears seem almost useless at this point, as I'm just getting beat up constantly by the deer I'm hitting, and the damage is WAY lower than bows.
--I STRONGLY dislike the steaming minigame. I can't stand it. If the bars are at the top, 99.9% of the time it will be a fail or bad result.
--The spelling errors/grammar errors are pretty significant
Neutral/Hopes for the future (which are likely already planned)
--More decor/decorations
--More in-depth romance and clearer options
--More recipes that use the other types of alcohol (maybe I just haven't found them yet)
--More high value recipes (all or most of my expensive recipes are wagyu-based)
--The ability to have the restaurant open without needing to be there all the time. Like, late game, I would love to be able to hire a manager or something that lets me leave and runs the restaurant (obviously not as well as when I'm there). I also think I should be able to be a waiter and not just a chef--I know chef rpg is the name, but we are restaurant owners, and as a restaurant owner, we would wear many hats
Overall, I'm excited to see the finished game. I'll update my review once more content comes out :)

At first glance, Chef RPG plays a lot like a variation of Traveller's Rest with some sprinklings of what you'd expect from Stardew Valley. Instead of running a tavern in medieval times you run a restaurant in a semi-modern seaside cyberpunk themed town. In addition, the player is able to engage in the relationship building activities you'd expect in a casual cozy game about life in a small town.
Given the player starts out running a restaurant instead of inheriting a farm, much of your initial produce and other food ingredients will come from hunting, fishing, gathering, and trade with the shops and vendors in the town. However, as the story progresses, there are opportunities to grow your own produce via greenhouse.
There are attributes and skills to further enhance the capabilities of the player when it comes to gathering ingredients and resources as well as running their restaurant and interacting with the various NPCs of the town (some of which include androids!). This is a nice way to allow players to progress in a specific direction based on how they want to approach the game.
General Observations:
- Doesn't appear to be as crafting focused as other games (i.e. making tools and crafting stations).
- Has an underlying story and series of quests to unlock core mechanics and elements of the gameplay loop.
- No drop box to use to sell your items like you see in Stardew Valley, so your non-restaurant income will be obtained manually by hitting up each NPC that buys it.
- No need to clean tables and dishes as part of running the restaurant (yet?).
Good Stuff:
- Can save at any time during the day, not just when a day is over like most cozy games.
- There's benefit to going to vendors every day because their stock changes.
- If you get the right skill, you can get a free recipe each day by reading books in the library.
- Mini-games are optional after completing them once at a certain score level (95%) and you can have the player automatically performing cooking/preparation in the restaurant.
- No need to worry about tool/weapon durability or ranged ammo.
- Itemized summary after closing the restaurant that you can drill into is great for tracking progress.
Feedback/Suggestions:
- Not as much a fan of the more static like map. Prefer the ones with a wealth of real time information like Coral Island or Roots of Pacha.
- Can't harvest the plants via "Use" when a tool is in your hand. When you "unequip" it you have to walk away from the node and then come back in order to collect by hand.
- Feels weird not having some sort of status summary when you sleep for the night, but I don't know what would be valuable for it anyway given how the player gets experience, skill-ups, and restaurant cash in real time throughout the day.
- A bit awkward in the early game having a lot of different meats, vegetables, legumes, etc. but getting into situations where you don't have any dishes to sell in the restaurant because you don't have the "right" vegetable to go with this specific meat ingredient. I'll need to play a bit longer to see if this is a recipe variety issue or just a matter of discovering/acquiring the appropriate recipe over time.
Overall, I'm having a very positive experience with the game so far and I can't wait to see how it grows and develops throughout Early Access. Yet another solo developer passion project that warrants an immediate Day 1 purchase.

I work in a kitchen to come home and work in a kitchen!

Great game.

Got my GF to play it, she spent eight hours trying to make it pretty. It doesn't get pretty.

I think the price is a little steep for this early access. There's plenty of other games out there fully released for much less. But the game itself is very promising. I do recommend people who wants a game that is polished to wait for the full release, though if you can bare some bugs and are eager to play this game, maybe wait for a sale before you buy it.
This game is pretty unique, you'll feel lost in the beginning with all its menus, it doesn't play like other farm/life sims out there that I've played. Once you get the hang of it it becomes easy to understand. The keybindings are a little bit weird, but the developers have said that they will release controller support and modification to keybindings in the near future. So far I'm enjoying this game. I like the mini-games for cooking. Again the price is pretty hefty for an early access in this stage. Wait for a sale if you want to buy it, or wait for more updates that can justify the price.

Strong recommendation for this game.
But this game does need:
- A Run or Sprint Button
- An improvement for the inventory system (Like the addition of a chest or something)
- Need more operation mode for the restaurant (Like one which give you a chance to save ingredients or something)
- Need more incentives to use the tea house over the main restaurant
- Need more skill points to unlock more abilities for end game players
Good game

Been playing for 2 hours so far and haven't had any problems except for one bug. Been playing on steam deck, even though there's no controller support it works fine, you just have to use the trackpad for menus and set a couple of keys to the back panel buttons.
So far it's great, exactly what I was expecting. There's definitely some polish needed but thats part of why it's in EA, what's there now is extensive and fun. Those complaining about controller support and leaving negative reviews because of it, the dev clearly stated 2 weeks ago on the news section on the store page that controller support was taking longer than expected and will be ready within the next few weeks. Do your research before buying a game, especially one in early access and be patient.

I started playing the game when it first came out. I nearly quit after 10 hours because it felt nearly unplayable. I stuck it out and as the updates came in, the playing experience improved. Overall, I think the game is fun. While you're still in the main story, you have something to grind for. I recommend you take your time and don't try to rush through the first two acts like I did. I played for one full year before writing this review.

What I liked:

-Beautiful art

-I got to run a vegan restaurant

-There was an outspoken vegan NPC who wasn't just some stereotype

-Some of the advanced vegan recipes were actually pretty good even though the ones in the beginning basically amounted to cooked vegetables. lol

-I liked how the private parties required different decorations so I had an excuse to buy new decorations.


What I didn't like:

-NPC dialogue never recycles once you've gone through all their dialogue. Except on occasion, they'll say the same thing every single day for the rest of the game.

-Winter is BORING. It really killed my pacing in the game.

-Farming is essentially useless because the number of seeds you can buy at the store on a daily basis isn't enough to make the effort worth it for things like wheat. The only thing worth growing are re-harvestable crops like trees and grapes but you can't grow apple trees which is the only kind of tree I actually needed.

-Nabiha isn't romanceable so I didn't romance anyone.

-I didn't have enough skill points for what I wanted. I couldn't run a farm to get through winter while also having other perks like improvements to staff or private parties to get power cells.

-After making 60k in one day and then making 40k a day after an update felt kinda lame because all the prices of the dishes went down. Once I understood the game better, it didn't really matter in the end. But I'll have to see how that affects the early game.

-I did not enjoy some of the mini games. I didn't like the steamer, grill, bath blok, or fryer. Steamer - I didn't understand it. I just mashed buttons until I accidentally got a good score. Grill - I can't get the feel of it right. The tongs never seem to pick up or drop like I want. While I understand the basic idea of it, I just kinda win by accident. Bath Blok - Maybe it's just my vision impairment but all those things swirling around in different directions messes with my eyes so it's very difficult for me. Fryer - The controls feel weird. Moving the mouse slightly seems to send the arrow to the top or bottom. There never seems to be a viable path to navigate. The rest were mostly fine. The only slightly annoying one was the blender since I swear it feels like it's unfair sometimes. I'll swear I pushed the button on the item but it'll say NOPE! And you have no control over how many of the correct items will spawn so you might get a low score through no fault of your own.

-There is a Date option for NPCs even if you can't date them. This is VERY confusing and frustrating.

-The beginner quest says you need a countertop but there is no such item in the game. It's Kitchen Counter and your only real option is the grey one. This is very confusing for new players.

-Does time stop when I'm doing the mini game? I can't tell. I feel like it's not.


What I'd like to see:

-This isn't really something to focus on but Nabiha requesting meat for quests or giving meat as rewards breaks the immersion a bit. Again, it's mostly a nitpick.

-Auto pickup. You're expected to harvest THOUSANDS of plants. It really should be quick and snappy and satisfying. Instead, it's kind of tedious.

-Let us romance Nabiha. lol

-I can't cook dishes outside of quests. I wanted to make Nabiha a vegan dessert on her birthday but can't.

-As someone who is visually impaired, I think it took me two in-game months to notice the treasure chest sparkles. Please make them more obvious, like rainbow-colored or have an outline or something. There is also no tutorial for the treasure chest. I was expecting a bump on the beach.

-I wish you could refresh the staff selection once a day for free. Especially early on, that'll eat up all your money.

-There really should be entire sets of a decoration type. Like rustic - I bought tables, chairs, and rustic decorations. But there is no rustic kitchen counter. There is one fantasy and festive item and nothing else. Having mixed decorations gives you a low decoration score.