OK here's a design thread on Cook Serve Delicious 3. I enjoy it for many of the same reasons @xoxogossipgita does... I don't like horror game stress, but I love cooking stress?? So let's look at elements of the design that make that stress so tasty! store.steampowered.com/app/1000030/Co…
Context: I played CSD 1 & 2, and use keyboard + mouse. I use hotkeys, but not very skillfully. I enjoy looking at and learning about food, but usually I like cooking systems to be exploratory... I quickly became bored of Cooking Mama, alas. So why did this series stick?
It's not enough to say the game is "overwhelming" -- plenty of games have more pizzazz or bleeps or animations or challenge. So why does this one work so well? I have a theory!
For those not in The Know: The CSD series has a loop of Preparing food, which you then wait for someone to order, possibly with other challenges, like a special timing or unique adjustment of the recipe.
the core gameplay is elegant in that there is no minigame or special "mode" associated with any verb or ingredient. Every recipe is a task to perform efficiently - press the right sequence of keys as quickly as possible. 
Obv the timers (overall and per customer) make you want to accomplish the tasks quickly, + the scoring makes you want to accomplish em accurately. But timers and scores are oldschool and mostly abandoned in modern games for a reason.. they're not an intrinsic pleasure.
IMO the real "trick" of CSD design is the /pacing/ of the stress, which alternates between 2 main types: frantic "I am looking everywhere at everything" (customer management) and laser-focused "shut out everything except this 1 task" (making a recipe).
You can really feel your brain alternate between the multitasking and aggressively mono-tasking, and most of the skill of the game is learning the strategy of when to do so effectively/efficiently.
And since players can customize the complexity of their lineup every round (plus various modes and options) you can pick how often you want to "laser focus" on difficult recipes, and how challenging you want those recipes to be!
in both 'modes', CSD stress:
- is very transparent: no real surprises
- is emotionally detached/low stakes: no puppies are hurt
- is completely reactive: any expressive or meaningful decisions are made without timers
- ...is totally customizable and opt-in!
- is very transparent: no real surprises
- is emotionally detached/low stakes: no puppies are hurt
- is completely reactive: any expressive or meaningful decisions are made without timers
- ...is totally customizable and opt-in!
each was improved on from CSD 2 to 3. The orders upcoming were made more transparent; the locations are lower-stakes bc you travel around instead of it being Your Restaurant, and the menu customization is now fully smoothly integrated into progression. (ok same reactivity)
Anyway that's why I enjoy playing Cook Serve Delicious 3, and if you enjoy organizing/optimizing under pressure, you might too! Also you should just buy it right now at full price bc @chubigans is good people and deserves a few bucks: store.steampowered.com/app/1000030/Co…
