Space Chef Review

In Blue Goo Games’ Space Chef, folks in the Horseshoe Nebula are just like us Earthlings; they order late-night takeout, follow food trends, and cancel when you don’t prepare dishes in a timely manner. Tasked with becoming the galaxy’s favourite chef, you’ll need to deliver those citizens their meals of choice, from Beefle Skewers to Kwinooa Pop. If you like the idea of working in your own galactic kitchen and fighting aliens whilst gathering ingredients, then this game’s blend of cooking and adventure could sizzle with fun, but it might also stir up boredom. Let’s “taco” ‘bout it.

Character customisation comes first, allowing you to adjust your look and outfit. There’s nothing here that’s out of the box, but there’s enough that it doesn’t feel extremely limiting. Once you name your chef, you’re dropped into your space-trailer, where you discover a letter from your Grandma Jane, declaring you the new local chef. You’ll spend the early narrative tracking her down, as she’s gone missing. I won’t spoil much, but the story and characters in Space Chef are just alright. The plot isn’t too compelling, nor is the cast that memorable, and while you can romance folks, it’s not that fleshed out. That said, you probably came here less for story and more for chef gameplay.

During the tutorial, you’ll gather some Beefle Meat by fighting Beefles, cook them on a dingy grill, make Beefle Skewers from your Craft menu, and fly out to the customer to deliver the meal. At its most basic level, that’s your loop: gather, cook, and distribute. Every time you fulfil a customer’s order, you’ll gain money and reputation, which is essential since being well-known unlocks advanced recipes and upgrades. Plus, the more you engage in skills such as Combat and Cooking, you’ll level them up, which also yields recipes.

Whether you’re exploring or running meals, you’ll do so from the comfort of your small spaceship. It’s pretty easy to fly, though a bit unwieldy when you hit the booster, and I like that you usually don’t have to leave your ship for deliveries or purchases. You can even pick up junk or debris with a single click. You only get out if you need to physically explore a location (i.e. planets, space stations, or homes) or go back into your trailer.

However, even after 10+ hours, I couldn’t get my bearings out in space, since the locations of planets always changed whenever I left the trailer. As such, I kept my eye on the mini-map rather than the environment, which meant I frequently flew into asteroids or other ships, so I often had to pay for repairs. Simulating natural orbits is a nice touch, but waypoints or a compass that aren’t in the bottom corner of the screen could’ve made navigation less of a chore.

Additionally, with how often you need to pay for booster fuel or repairs, the cost adds up a bit unfairly. The game sends you far away to deliver orders before you’ve had a chance to upgrade your boosters, and space pirates start showing up quite early on, encounters that almost always led to my ship being destroyed, costing an entire shift’s worth of coins. Constantly having to refill or pay for fixes got quite tedious.

Exploration will take you from the Inner Zone to the Outer Zone and onward, all of which will lead to new planets to explore, and as such, new resources to get. I loved the various biomes, ingredients, and alien creatures, as Space Chef has a charming way of naming and designing them. Gathering items is sometimes as simple as picking them up from the ground or harvesting a plant, but other times, you’ll need tools that haven’t been unlocked yet, or you might need to figure out how to gain an alien’s trust, which feels like puzzle-solving. This injects fun mystery into these places and excitement once you finally get the upgrade needed to explore a previously blocked-off area.

Combat is necessary, too, whether you need more meat from Beefles or are sent out on a quest to kill Polka Snakes. What’s unfortunate is that fighting is so awkward and clunky. Your only ability is to swing a tool (like a Spatula or Slotted Spoon), but the hit boxes are quite strange; a hit that shouldn’t land does, while one that should land doesn’t, for instance. You also don’t have a means of protecting yourself by dodging or blocking, which made me do a lot of hit-and-running. All in all, it’s a mechanic that feels half-baked, but so integrated into the main gameplay loop that you can’t avoid it.

Tool durability and food spoilage were also a pain to deal with. If you find both of those features annoying, then Space Chef might not be for you, as they happen often. It’s hardly ever worth making dishes in advance since you’ll likely need to throw them away, and keeping backup tools pre-crafted just fills up your already limited inventory space (no, you can’t get more bag space).

When you’re ready to start cooking/delivering, all you need to do is hit the Open/Closed sign at the top-right of your screen. Most of the time, recipes you have ingredients for will be added to the menu automatically (though sometimes you’ll need to add them yourself). Any meals you can’t make won’t be added, so you don’t need to worry about upset customers. If you run out of ingredients completely, the game immediately switches you from open to closed, which is nice.

Cooking mini-games, such as grilling or chopping, are very simple. For those looking for a more in-depth chef simulator, this definitely won’t fit the bill. I didn’t mind the ease, but they got repetitive quickly and, overall, weren’t very exciting to engage with.

When you’re open, you’re also awkwardly limited to your trailer, as you can’t craft anything if you’re not home. At one point, I made dishes ahead of time, went out into space, and landed on a planet to harvest various ingredients while I waited for orders to trickle in. I thought I could multitask, but I didn’t realise the game put new items on the menu as I gathered stuff for them, so I had to speed back to my trailer to make those. A quick confirmation asking whether I wanted to update the menu would’ve gone a long way.

I also didn’t find it worth leaving my trailer if only one order came in, because I’d get multiple while out delivering, which required me to go back to the trailer to make them (and suffer through a loading screen each time), even if the dish didn’t require any kitchen stations. It didn’t feel great to enter my home just to use the menu screen, click Kwinooa Pop, and then head back out; it just slows down the experience.

Progression brings the promise of ease in these sorts of games, with better tools, further exploration, and, in Space Chef’s case, a restaurant where customers can come to you. The problem is that the grind is long, repetitive, and tedious. The journey to two reputation stars, in particular, is so repetitive, since fulfilling orders yields a small amount of points; honestly, you’re more likely to set the game down than continue. You can be over 10 hours in and feel like you haven’t made a dent; in fact, I thought I was playing the game wrong with how slow it was going, but after peeking at other players' experiences, I realised I wasn’t alone at all.

I’m not against grinding in games, but there’s little reward or intrigue to keep you going here. When you do get new crafting recipes (food, kitchen tools, etc.) either by levelling up or exploring, you usually can’t make them for multiple hours because there’s one item you haven’t (or can’t) discover yet. Rewards hardly ever feel, well, rewarding. I wished the game would just give me something that felt appropriate and useful for my current level/reputation.

The best way I could describe my time in Space Chef  is that there’s a lot of simplicity, which ushers in boredom, and too much friction, which brings frustration, that impedes any fun to be had. I really like the idea of being a space chef, but not when there’s so much annoyance attached to the gameplay.