7 Ideas For Mystery-Themed Cooking Games
Inspired by Steam's Cooking Fest!
Happy Mystery Monday!
Last week was Steam's Cooking Fest, which naturally prompted the question: are there any mystery-cooking games out there?
I’m not talking about games that only include cooking as a minor feature — I’m talking about games where cooking is the main mechanic, where the entire reason to play the game is because the player enjoys cooking.
But because I’m also looking for mystery games, it needs to be a game where those cooking mechanics are an integral part of solving the story’s puzzle.
Well, as far as searching Steam goes — I couldn't find a single one.
Maybe I’m wrong and you can let me know in the comments — but it really is an unusual combination of game genres, so I’m honestly not at all surprised.
So that led me to my next question: what would a mystery-cooking game look like?
I don't actually play many cooking games myself, so I had to do some research.
Some cooking games purely focus on individual recipes or cooking techniques, while others place emphasis on running a full-scale restaurant.
Some cooking games are slow-paced, casual experiences that focus on the player's customization and creative ideas for new recipes, while others are fast-paced time management simulators where teamwork under pressure is of utmost importance.
In short, the fun comes from a combination of customization and time management.
Cooking games are a unique blend of the creative and logical parts of our brains, much like how mystery games blend creative stories with logical puzzles.
But contrary to mystery games, cooking games tend to be more light-hearted and visually bright.
There are, of course, cozy mystery games too — but the majority of mystery games touch on dark subject matter in at least some way.
For that reason, it might be hard to imagine how the two genres can fit together — but that didn't stop me!
Here are my top 7 ideas. Feel free to use any of these as inspiration for your own games, or even suggest your own ideas in the comments.
Cooking Whodunnit: The player must solve a series of food-related deaths by cooking each victim’s last meal. Use logical deduction to figure out which ingredients were fatal and which suspect had access to them.
Grilling Suspects: The player must cook meals for different suspects in order to get the truth out of them. Talk to characters to learn what they prefer to eat, and cook them meals that will solve each case.
Escape Kitchen: Trapped in a mansion, the player must search each room for ingredients and recipes. Cook the correct meals in the kitchen to open new doors with new puzzles to solve, and to eventually find a way out.
Cooking Competition: The player takes on the role of an amateur chef suddenly thrust into a dangerous cooking competition, facing extreme cooking challenges with dangerous ingredients and time limits, and where failure results in death. Each round's mystery ingredient holds a clue about the motives of the secret organization running the competition, which the contestants must uncover to survive.
Ghost Kitchen: Players investigate a haunted location where they must search for clues and deduce the recipe that makes each ghost's last meal. Cooking the meal puts each ghost to rest and unravels the mystery of why the location was haunted in the first place.
Cooking Conspiracy: Players take on the role of a chef-detective who investigates a dark conspiracy in the food industry. Go undercover as a chef while secretly exploring farms, warehouses, slaughterhouses, bio-engineered food labs, and greedy corporate headquarters to uncover the truth.
Recipe Heist: A multiplayer game where you must deduce the secret ingredients used in each player’s fully customized meals. Each player runs their own restaurant, and the goal is to run the other players out of business by stealing their recipes and using them for your own gain.
Just like with my post on farming game ideas, I’m left wishing I could make them all myself, because they all sound like cooking games I’d honestly like to play!
But that’s okay, because I know I can’t do it alone — so maybe one of our readers (that’s you!) can take one of these ideas and turn it into a best-selling game!
Thanks for reading!
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