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High Steaks's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Community Spirit | #1 | 4.361 | 4.361 |
| Use Of Theme | #20 | 4.083 | 4.083 |
| Originality | #23 | 4.167 | 4.167 |
| Overall | #29 | 3.847 | 3.847 |
| Fun | #81 | 2.778 | 2.778 |
Ranked from 36 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team or Solo
Team Members from the University of Michigan - Flint:
Rachel Aumaugher - Student
Noah Helzerman - Student
Jake Kapp - Alumni (Graduated Winter 2021 with Honors)
Maxim Nikitin - Student
Weston Rutherford - Student
Matthew Spradling - Teacher
Collin Tift - Student
Credit:
Artwork:
Noah Helzerman
Matthew Spradling
Animation:
Noah Helzerman
Rachel Aumaugher
Github Support:
Weston Rutherford
Music:
Maxim Nikitin (Cooking Theme)
Matthew Spradling (Credits Theme)
Programming & Design:
Rachel Aumaugher
Noah Helzerman
Jake Kapp
Matthew Spradling
Collin Tift
Did you follow the theme?
Yes!
Did you (you or your team) do the graphisms yourself?
Yes!
Did you (you or your team) do the musics and sounds yourself?
Yes!
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Comments
Loved the game! Food is always awesome and cooking games are always fun. I didn't know if there was something special had to do for the steak though ^^'
Fun and challenging game! Using cooking to incorporate the theme is a good idea. I really liked the retro music.
I think that this game is really interesting - the idea of a more hectic cooking mama game has legs, mixing the likes of fast paced Wario-ware microgames with cooking themes can be very fun. The real issue i have with this game is that there's a lack of instructions - i'd say i'd fix it by either designing it to have more immediate controls or by having more clear instructions for what you have to do, maybe with instructions that only come up at the beginning of the recipe. There's also some problems with player feedback - don't leave the player too in the dark about whether they're doing things right or not. Otherwise, this game is very good, there's a lot of creativity with the theme, and with more elbow grease i could see something like this do fairly well as a full game.
Thanks! A lot of this was planned but unable to get finished in time. One thing we wanted to do was in the scoreboard give hints about what they did wrong in the cooking process. I think with a couple more days we could have had more of this. Next time we may shorten the game so as to have more of these types of things.
Fun game! Trying my best to cook something with the awesome chiptunes in the background is awesome. I ruined my pancake, but you did a good job!
Cool game. Interesting concept. I like it!
the music made the cooking seem like a epic battle. but I learned that I can't cook very well in game.
I was trying really hard to flip my pancake but then the game ran out of time and told me to flip then so was like okay then. So I was burning it at max trying to get it flipped before the time was up lol. The vegetables and steak were a bit hard to figure out if they were cooking or not. And the poor cupcake killed it badly.
Did you get to see the souflee (cupcake) fly through the air? haha
it can fly off can it I was just cooking it then the power went out or something the area went dark, and opened the oven after it came back on and that was that a uncooked cupcake.
Great visuals and music. Good idea as well. My one suggestion would be to add more tension during the cooking part, as there isn't much to happening while we wait. Overall, an enjoyable experience, very original.
A high-octane cooking game - what an interesting idea! I love the idea of having to balance the temperature, and checking often enough, and trying not to burn everything - it's a very intense game. That being said, a lot of my time playing was spent waiting around and just sort of guessing to see if I was doing anything wrong, so some more action there could've helped it out, I think. Maybe managing multiple dishes at once, to add some more challenge? The gameplay was quite simple too, only having to hold the d key down and moving the mouse around. Something more complex there would've been nice to see, but even without it it was still an enjoyable play!
The art was visually clear, and it was always easy to see what was going on and what I was supposed to be doing - well done for making it easy to read! The cutscenes between levels, to show what you were cooking, were also a nice touch. Some more visual feedback on how done things were could've helped it, especially on the stir fry level, where nothing really happened for 2 minutes, but it did change in the end. The music was also nice and intense, perfect for a game like this!
A really unique idea for a game, and a lot of content, made this entry an enjoyable experience - good job!
The concept was excellent and really enjoyed the music. Setting the pace of action was really well done. I wish there was more clues to how you were doing at a given time, felt a little lost and didn't realize flipping was only done at the end of the time limit so burnt my pancakes! Still, very nice and I enjoy the take on the theme :)
Loved the concept, especially as someone who likes to cook with dramatic videogame music in the background in real life as well. the art/animations for the cooking interface and the music came together well and felt quite dramatic. Personally I felt it needed more interactivity to give it a more tactile feel of cooking. Also I’m not sure if it was a bug, but I wasn’t able to check the cooked level of the dishes except the pancake. So for the stir fry I was just shaking it, and for the steak I was just staring at the timer. Maybe that’s why I got an A for Control each time though, so I ain’t complaining too much.
Yeah for the steak level we did not *quite* get the checking implemented in time. We created the animations and maybe with another 4 hours we'd have had it in there. (When you poke the steak with the fork it was going to spurt out juice which was bloodier/less bloody the more done it was).
For the stir fry, you don't actually have to check it because you will be able to see the veggies becoming more cooked as you cook them--assuming you've got the heat high enough. If you wanna see what I mean just crank the heat up to 10 and don't move the wok at all, you'll seem em start to change appearance. :) (You wanna cook the stir fry on very high heat but also shake the wok continuously--that makes sure they don't get greasy while also aerating them to avoid getting burned. )
Yeah, that happens. Great idea and effort though. Do the other creators also have accounts on itch?
Here is Collin's: https://itch.io/profile/collintift
And I'll edit this post with others as I get them!
Jake: https://jkapp610.itch.io/
Noah: https://nhelz.itch.io/
This game was great at giving me an overwhelming sense of anxiety, the music, having to wait for food to finish (that you didn't know for-sure if it was done or not!), checking the pancake every 2 seconds... High "Steaks" for sure!
On the technical side, I do feel that with the mouse being on the handle of the cooking thing - a little more vertical space would be handy. I would find that my cursor would go outside the viewport rather often. Also, reducing the time-scale of each level might be worthwhile thinking about - or having the choice to finish cooking each meal as in the souffle level. I feel like there wasn't a whole ton of stimulation during these long cooking times.
Generally, though, the feel of the game is cohesive. The VS screens are great at setting a somewhat-too-serious vibe from our protagonist chef.
Yeah I think that one of the major issues folks have had has been "2 minutes is too long to wait for a pancake to cook" and I guess what we were going for was to take that real experience of waiting for a pancake to cook, watching bubbles pop, and adding this overly serious tone to it without taking away the reality of the experience. We could have made this more fast-paced but I'm not sure it would have had the same comedy to it. We thought it was funny to watch a pancake cook in real time with this whole panicked aesthetic haha.
Awesome game, Loved the music and the "vs" screen between each level. I liked the attention to detail for the cooking process. I'm curious how you "count" heat, for example would cooking something on 10 for 1 min be the same as cooking something on 5 for 2 min?
It would be close but not exactly the same. In real-life it definitely wouldn't give you the same result haha. We used timing and heat appropriate for the thing being cooked. Originally we were going to let you flip whenever you wanted rather than having a timer, but that left too much variability and it was harder to figure out what you were doing wrong. The most complex cooking process is the Stir Fry, which you have to shake as you're cooking it in order to aerate the food. It should be on a very high heat and you're shaking the wok the whole time. If you try to do it at a lower temperature without the shaking, it will wind up greasy. On a high heat without the shaking, it'll burn. X)
Very interesting game! I think a nice addition would be SFX when cooking the dishes (eg. sizzling sound for the steak and stir fry). Also I'm not sure why the heat tries to turn itself off after a while, I may be super terrible at cooking and getting the heat right though (I get F for heat for every dish)!
The dial has a random chance of going down every once in awhile because your stove isn't the best one. This keeps the player having to pay attention even when they're cooking the soufflé haha. As for the heat requirements, we based it on actual recipes and recommended temps etc. The temps required are probably higher than you'd expect. On Stir Fry in particular, you want to keep the heat really high but also have to keep shaking the wok. That aerates the food so that you get a nice even browning without A) burning it or B) making it really greasy.
I enjoyed the chiptune music and the stir-fry level the most. It was fun to shake the pan to stop the veggies from burning. My only recommendation would be a way to see how far things are cooked on every level.
This was a super cute game, I appreciate that a lot of attention was paid to emulating the process of real-world cooking. Favorite level was the stir fry because shaking it was satisfying, although I still burnt it...
If I were to come up with a future improvement, maybe putting more gradual transitions? Like you could watch your veggies slowly get cooked/darker so you have more time to react to what you're doing.
Cooking listening to chiptune music, one of life's little pleasures (I hope it doesn't burn my house with so much excitement) kkk
Can't give more stars in Originality :D
Cooking listening to chiptune music, one of life's little pleasures (I hope it doesn't burn my house with so much excitement) kkk
Can't give more stars in Originality :D
Although I did not understand the mechanics very well, it was a very enjoyable experience to play your game XD!
Great use of theme, and an engaging sound track. I enjoyed tossing the stir fry but almost wish I could yeet the veg out of the pan if you get my drift?
If you majorly decrease the cooking time of each object I think you could have a great WarioWare style minigame, where you throw through different prepared stuff together, and however bad you messed up or succeeded you could see the result. Kind of like a comedic and rapid Cooking Mama.
Actually, if you shake really hard you *do* yeet them out of the pan and the code keeps track of how many escaped lol.
What you're describing is very much what we were going for. We actually thought about making the timing much shorter, but we thought it was funny to watch a pancake cook in real time lmao.
Haha you're one of those gamers who likes to torture their friends I see haha. Great game experience anyhow!
lol we were like, this is gonna be just straight cooking the way you're supposed to, but everything surrounding it is intense and panic mode. The soufflé level and the ending credits being the big punchline. X)
I loved the music and the vegetable shaking a lot. I also think the game could be really fun but I never really knew wether I was doing the right thing. More clear indications would help a lot.
Thank you very much for checking it out!