Platform(s): PC (version reviewed)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Co-Op, Food, Southeast Asia Culture

In game design, it’s normal to crib from existing and established ideas while putting neat spins on it to differentiate it from their own. Case in point, Everquest and World of WarCraft; the latter’s creator Blizzard took ideas from an established game and just made a better version of it that spanned years of success, expansions, and retoolings.

In Singapore developer Kopiforge’s case, the scrappy team channelled a lot of Overcooked energy and made a Southeast Asian-themed single-player-and-co-op-optional action cookout game in their own style. And by golly, it’s a helluva potluck.

Asian In-N-Out

In this SEA-flavoured title clearly proud of its roots, you play as both Som and Gon, a chef and hunter-gatherer duo who is tasked with serving food to customers on a magic island where ingredients can go bad really quickly. Oh, and also mythical monsters pop up and invade your workspace of a kitchen at intervals. You’ll get sisterly advice and help from Merapi (possibly inspired by a certain Bleach amputee), and also new kitchen equipment to help you on your quest to cook for customers ASAP and sort out their orders in a timely fashion. You also have a compendium called the Makanomicon (heh) that needs filling up while you’re adventuring on the island.

Here’s the kicker: every stage and kitchen setup vary from setting to setting. Ingredients, livestock, and resources are placed in different areas, so part of the challenge is knowing the lay of the land per stage, and then routinely run from point A to B harvesting and collecting what’s needed for the upcoming order. Each order also have their own prep style and required kitchen equipment: fried dishes need woks, certain rice dishes need pressure cookers, and so forth, each with their own inputs and minigames.

For example, Pad Thai requires noodles from your noodle-making machine and prawns from the river. You need to fish for the latter in a quick minigame and in the correct spot where prawns reside. Then, you need to cook the dish in a wok via a quick time event. Fail that, and you need to cook it from scratch again. You can even see the second order coming in, so you also have to pre-plan for the upcoming requests while wrapping up the current one, meaning you may need to keep extra ingredients on hand. And since food spoils quicker on the magical island you’re on, you can only keep some items on reserve for a few minutes before they stink up the kitchen and affect your constitution.

In other words, it’s like Overcooked but with more action and hack-and-slash bits when dealing with the wildlife. And a bit more nuance and detailing that’s part and parcel for an action title with cute and charming aesthetics. And a Southeast Asian soundtrack with the appropriate tribal percussions and strings you’ve always wanted to hear in a jungle-themed cookout game.

Adding more to the proverbial fire from the frying pan are the boss stages, where you need to do stage-specific cooking techniques in addition to getting the island section’s main dishes to appease them. The penalties can be steep, but SEDAP! is built as a frenetic arcade action title so a retry is just a quick button prompt away, and the controls are smooth.

That’s good to know, because bad controls in a game that requires you to multitask and do QTEs and hack-and-slash commands can sour the proverbial dish. SEDAP!’s controls are spot-on and flexible, where everything is self-explanatory and perfection in meeting orders is just a matter of practice. And it really does get fun and addictive, as you try your best to get a full-star rating for your cooking efforts while making SEA’s best dishes like Hainanese Chicken Rice to Laksa Sarawak (which is the superior Laksa among all, do not question me because this is the truth).

And that’s just the single-player portion. In the co-op mode, Som and Gon are separate so you and your co-op buddy need to co-operate and stay in your respective lanes. This can get messy especially when the game’s Rush Hour mode jumps in and you get a chicken or two causing havoc in the kitchen, requiring Gon’s better handling of wildlife with his weaponry. I didn’t get to try out the online mode as that was unavailable during the pre-launch period, but if the servers post-launch work as intended, co-op will be a blast for streamers and two-player game aficionados everywhere.

Having said that, I do wish some minigames were explained better. The aforementioned fishing QTE and pot-boiling segment (the bit where the bubbles float upward) was pretty cryptic to the point where I had to restart my run a couple of times just to get the hang of these minigames. And if you play this game straight for an hour or so, the repetition of making quick orders and hack-and-slashing the same types of beasties can get to you. SEDAP! is best played in short spurts, much like how one should take breaks indulging in sickeningly sweet bubble tea (or chocolate cake if you’re white).

Piping Hot Take-Out

I honestly never thought there would be a team out there dedicated enough to turn a party game like Overcooked into a more focused action title with multitasking cooking and hunting minigames & setpieces still intact, and with an exotic Southeast Asian flavour to boot. Kopiforge is clearly up to the task, and succeeds with the cooking assignment.

With a unique aesthetic and familiar-yet-fun gameplay, SEDAP! A Culinary Adventure is a fun food-filled romp that’ll last you for a few hours if you prefer a food-serving party style-action game experience without the fuss of extra people to work with. It’s a veritable Southeast Asian feast for the eyes & reflexes, one covered with love and a unique grub-centered coat of Ais Kacang ice shavings with the overload of syrup.

Final Score: 80/100

Review code provided by publisher.