It’s lunchtime, four customers have just sat down together, and somebody’s ordered a dish that nobody seems to know how to prepare. There’s a queue forming outside, the plates are piling up, and your colleague has decided this would be the perfect moment to move the stove. Then the fryer catches fire. You’ve only been open for a few hours, and already you’re beginning to wonder whether running a restaurant was such a good idea. Still, the customers are hungry, and somebody has to make sure they get fed before the entire kitchen burns down.
Tiny Chef is a cooperative restaurant management game from Brydon Creative Inc., launching on Steam today. You and up to three friends will prepare meals, serve customers, and manage a restaurant where almost everything can be moved, upgraded, or accidentally set on fire. Between shifts, you’ll buy equipment, redesign your kitchen, learn new recipes, and eventually expand into additional locations. There’s even a character progression system that rewards you for doing the same jobs repeatedly, although chopping a thousand onions probably isn’t how you imagined becoming a master chef.
Yes, Chef! Now Where’s My Frying Pan?
Every working day follows a clock, with customer demand changing as the hours pass. You might enjoy a relatively quiet afternoon, only to find yourself overwhelmed when the next rush arrives.
Customers visit alone or in groups of up to four, and they’ll expect everyone at their table to receive their food before their patience runs out. Keep them waiting too long, and the entire party leaves. You’ll need to chop ingredients, cook dishes, plate meals, and deliver orders while keeping an eye on everything happening around you.
Things become more complicated when equipment starts causing problems. Fires can spread between counters, and dirty dishes won’t magically disappear just because you’ve got another table waiting. With up to four players sharing the kitchen, dividing responsibilities could make everything run smoothly. Alternatively, you might discover that having three friends rearranging the furniture while you’re trying to cook isn’t quite as helpful as it sounds.
If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Move the Kitchen
One of Tiny Chef‘s more interesting features is how much freedom you have to redesign your restaurant. Equipment isn’t permanently fixed in place. You can pick up chopping boards, move appliances, and rearrange the kitchen to create a layout that works better for your team.
As your business earns money, you’ll be able to order additional equipment, including appliances and conveyor systems that can automate parts of the cooking process. However, purchases don’t arrive immediately. Order another stove, and you might have to wait two in-game days for the delivery truck.
You can also hire contractors to remove walls, relocate doors, and expand into neighboring property. That means your original kitchen could eventually become a much larger operation, with separate areas for preparation, cooking, and serving. Of course, there’s nothing stopping your friends from moving everything around again while you’re busy preparing dinner.
From Chopping Onions to Restaurant Empire
The work doesn’t end when the last customer leaves. Between shifts, you’ll return to headquarters, rest, and decide how to spend the money you’ve earned. You can learn new recipes, adjust your menu, purchase equipment, and run advertising campaigns to attract more customers.
There’s also the option to hire a cleaning crew, which could be worth every penny after a particularly disastrous day. As your business grows, you’ll eventually be able to open a second restaurant, followed by a third. However, expansion introduces additional responsibilities. Fail too many orders in one day, and the health inspector can shut a location down. Reopening becomes more expensive the longer your business has been operating, giving you a good reason to keep standards up.
Your chef improves through experience, too. Skills range from level 1 to 99, increasing as you perform relevant tasks. The more onions you chop, the faster you become, while dealing with kitchen fires helps you handle future emergencies.
These skills follow your character into other saves and friends’ games, so your experience won’t disappear when you join somebody else’s restaurant.
Too Many Cooks? Bring Your Friends Anyway
Tiny Chef launches for Windows and Mac, supporting solo play, online co-op for up to four players, and local two-player co-op.
If you enjoy the frantic teamwork of Overcooked but want more freedom to develop and expand a restaurant, its combination of cooking, management, and customization, this could be a great alternative.