Dev Blog #5 - Never Explore A Dungeon On An Empty Stomach

Here we are again! And let’s cut straight to the topic of the week: Recipes and Cooking!

Aren’t y’all so looking forward to it? This is probably the topic that is bringing the most amount of questions and expectations. And let me be very clear from the start: It’s not a cooking game, and it’s also not a monster cooking game.

We’re making a survival metroidvania game: The element of cooking is a crafting system with ingredients. When designing the game, I didn’t want it to be like a cooking mini-game. The focus was more on the strategy layer and the camping build element.

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I want players to bring back to the camp whatever they found. Talk about the new ingredients, maybe try some new recipes with them. The food and ingredients are a tool, and the main focus of the game is your adventure and quests:

“Where are we going next?”

“Which door or corridor we haven’t explored it yet?”

And with that question in mind, comes the strategy layer: “What kind of stats and abilities will we need for this quest?” Is it more stamina, more health, maybe some kind of potion, or specific tool that we’ll need for that exploration quest?

That’s when cooking happens. Going to explore with your empty stomach is certain death. You are as weak as you were at the beginning of the game. You can barely use weapons or resist medium fall heights. You need to cook and use food as a tool using whatever you have at hand around camp.

It might be a simple apple, a piece of meat that you got by hunting a critter, or maybe, if you have the right tools and ingredients, you can make dishes that will give you even more sustenance. Like a Shepherd’s Pie, a meat and mushroom Stew, or even a Ramen.

You’ll need tools and appliances to cook. You might find them while exploring, or you might find materials to craft them in your camp. They bring complexity and depth to the recipe system. There can be complications with how you cook, but ultimately, doing so brings you better stats, and sometimes, magical abilities.

You’ll also find herbs and ingredients that add modifiers to existing dishes. That’s a big part of the fun. Be prepared to try out things, and trial and error might lead you to some interesting results.

Whenever you’re feeling lost, you can use the community to ask for help. A big part of this game is to go meta, talk in forums, help build wikis, and figure out all the recipes with your friends. Though the game doesn’t have the most complex systems, there’s enough there that sometimes you’ll need help to navigate the possibilities.

Bonus note: Since we’re a team of Brazilians, we wanted to incorporate native ingredients from our land that are special to our culture and ancestors. You’ll find things like Corn, Cassava, Tomato, Beans, Cilantro, and a bunch of other things. Some dishes are also inspired by Brazilian cuisine, like Pastel and Cassava Fritters.

I hope you all have tons of fun while cooking and finding ingredients. Just remember to eat before adventuring. If you feel that the game is too hard, it is probably because you’re not eating enough.

Thanks again for joining us in the dev blog. Next time, I’ll bring some other interesting things I like to share about the development process.

Cheers!

- Saulo Camarotti
Creative Director, Designer and Coder of DDD