Cooked with Love • [Comedy] [Romance] [Crafting] [Short] [NaNo19]

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PeroxidePrince
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Cooked with Love • [Comedy] [Romance] [Crafting] [Short] [NaNo19]

#1 Post by PeroxidePrince »

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Perry is, to put it nicely, a bit of a mess. So they can hardly believe their luck when their crush, Lily, agrees to go on a date with them!
When the day of the date rolls around, Perry's all set: they've scrounged up some cash, and got a reservation at the nicest restaurant in town.

Except... where's their wallet?

With nothing left to lose but their dignity, Perry's determined to whip up a fantastic dining experience at home.
Sure, they've never cooked before, but how hard could it be, right?

Cooked with Love is a short comedy/romance visual novel, with crafting elements.

🍳 OVERVIEW 🍳

2 pursuable characters
2 routes, 11+ endings
~ 26,000 words
~ 15-20 minutes playtime
Customisable protagonist
Crafting minigame

🍳 CHARACTERS 🍳

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🍳 SCREENSHOTS 🍳

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🍳 TEAM 🍳

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WEBSITEITCH.IOTWITTER

SweetStrawberry
Writing

PeroxidePrince
Art, Writing, Programming

🍳 DOWNLOAD 🍳

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minyan
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Re: Cooked with Love • [Comedy] [Romance] [Crafting] [Short] [NaNo19]

#2 Post by minyan »

Ahhh I was so excited for this! And for good reason. It's so great! I especially love how smooth it all looks. The sprites, the UI, the little animations, the BGs...it's such a pretty game ;u;b

I just finished Lily's...route? And was able to woo her, so now I'm going to try and play through again for the other endings. Congratulations on this success and thanks for a wonderful game!
Also, I laughed out loud at the "cry and throw up" option. And a lot of the other ones too, I loved the choices, they were hilarious xD Also, I love how the MC is like...such a college student. Drinking ramen out of shoes, stealing their roommate's wine, endlessly exasperating the narrator...really, this was a joy to play xD
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PeroxidePrince
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Re: Cooked with Love • [Comedy] [Romance] [Crafting] [Short] [NaNo19]

#3 Post by PeroxidePrince »

minyan wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:24 am Ahhh I was so excited for this! And for good reason. It's so great! I especially love how smooth it all looks. The sprites, the UI, the little animations, the BGs...it's such a pretty game ;u;b

I just finished Lily's...route? And was able to woo her, so now I'm going to try and play through again for the other endings. Congratulations on this success and thanks for a wonderful game!
Also, I laughed out loud at the "cry and throw up" option. And a lot of the other ones too, I loved the choices, they were hilarious xD Also, I love how the MC is like...such a college student. Drinking ramen out of shoes, stealing their roommate's wine, endlessly exasperating the narrator...really, this was a joy to play xD
Aaaa thanks so much 😭 I'm looking forward to have some free time to play your team's game too!
Glad you enjoyed the game and were able to have a successful date!
Honestly the "cry and throw up" option was another thing that was put in as a joke and never taken out and we just lost control of the whole game from there haha... And parts of the MC were definitely inspired by our own uni experiences but just to clarify, neither of us has ever eaten food from someone's shoes lmao

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Re: Cooked with Love • [Comedy] [Romance] [Crafting] [Short] [NaNo19]

#4 Post by Wight »

It looks very well put together with the art and interface, very nice work there.

Playing through it has been very fun: picking out the combinations to see what works and what doesn't, Lily's reaction to each dish and the topics that open up, and even seeing what happens when trying to be an honest person or where lying your butt off gets you. Lots of humor packed in, from the way the narrator berates Perry and the meals, to the things Perry says and thinks, and Lily's reactions.
I'd say it has a good length. Short enough to quickly replay different combinations and menu choices for topics and replies. I'm just as surprised as the narrator that Lily took enough of an interest in Perry, but I liked hearing what she was like and why she would take a chance. Maybe her being far more normal compared to how much of an oddball Perry can be probably helps make her likable.
The cooking minigame is kept nice and simple to make it quick and easy, and I would say that allowing hints in orange text after reaching an ending was a good move: enough to make the player struggle with the ingredients at first like Perry probably does (I failed all three and stuck with it, whew), then gives the player some clues to help get a successful ending. Although a part of me wishes I would be given the option to have hints unlocked, maybe as a toggle, but I would probably just trial & error it for a bit before turning it on a short while later, and the hints are somewhat vague enough in some places to not be immediately clear so it's all good. It took me a few tries, but I think once I learned enough about Lily I was able to figure out the right choices to earn the chance at a second date. I really like how certain dishes helped me learn more about Perry and Lily, like the one made with raw noodles that talked a bit about their childhood was neat, stuff like that helps give each dish a bit more meaning and gives the game a bit more replay value.

Good job, very well made! Now if only the same could be said about Perry's homemade meals...

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Re: Cooked with Love • [Comedy] [Romance] [Crafting] [Short] [NaNo19]

#5 Post by Akua »

First off - I can't cook myself.

So when the crafting came, I thought, 'Oh boy, let's try not to kill them.' - which I somehow achieved one or another. It was really fun to test the different dishes you could make (how the heck can you come up with this XD).

It was sweet, short and good for a laugh. The art is really matching the humor of the game and easy on the eye. It has replay value but I'm not determined enough to get all endings in a short game except the romance endings (and food poison endings in this one). I would certainly like another lighthearted game like that so let's see with what else you will come up with next time.

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PeroxidePrince
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Re: Cooked with Love • [Comedy] [Romance] [Crafting] [Short] [NaNo19]

#6 Post by PeroxidePrince »

Wight wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:12 pm It looks very well put together with the art and interface, very nice work there.

Playing through it has been very fun: picking out the combinations to see what works and what doesn't, Lily's reaction to each dish and the topics that open up, and even seeing what happens when trying to be an honest person or where lying your butt off gets you. Lots of humor packed in, from the way the narrator berates Perry and the meals, to the things Perry says and thinks, and Lily's reactions.
I'd say it has a good length. Short enough to quickly replay different combinations and menu choices for topics and replies. I'm just as surprised as the narrator that Lily took enough of an interest in Perry, but I liked hearing what she was like and why she would take a chance. Maybe her being far more normal compared to how much of an oddball Perry can be probably helps make her likable.
The cooking minigame is kept nice and simple to make it quick and easy, and I would say that allowing hints in orange text after reaching an ending was a good move: enough to make the player struggle with the ingredients at first like Perry probably does (I failed all three and stuck with it, whew), then gives the player some clues to help get a successful ending. Although a part of me wishes I would be given the option to have hints unlocked, maybe as a toggle, but I would probably just trial & error it for a bit before turning it on a short while later, and the hints are somewhat vague enough in some places to not be immediately clear so it's all good. It took me a few tries, but I think once I learned enough about Lily I was able to figure out the right choices to earn the chance at a second date. I really like how certain dishes helped me learn more about Perry and Lily, like the one made with raw noodles that talked a bit about their childhood was neat, stuff like that helps give each dish a bit more meaning and gives the game a bit more replay value.

Good job, very well made! Now if only the same could be said about Perry's homemade meals...
Thanks so much for playing and sharing your thoughts! Really appreciate it.
Lily was definitely the most difficult character to write for, since she's quite reserved and very normal in comparison to Perry and Brooks, but it's reassuring that you found her likeable!
I'm glad to hear your thoughts on the cooking mini-game. There's definitely parts that I think could be improved, and deciding what to do with hints was a struggle for sure.
Happy to hear that you managed to get a happy ending!
Akua wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 6:18 am First off - I can't cook myself.

So when the crafting came, I thought, 'Oh boy, let's try not to kill them.' - which I somehow achieved one or another. It was really fun to test the different dishes you could make (how the heck can you come up with this XD).

It was sweet, short and good for a laugh. The art is really matching the humor of the game and easy on the eye. It has replay value but I'm not determined enough to get all endings in a short game except the romance endings (and food poison endings in this one). I would certainly like another lighthearted game like that so let's see with what else you will come up with next time.
Thank you for playing the game! Very glad to hear that it made you laugh, since that was definitely our intention haha.
(Honestly we're not even sure if the dishes in game are realistic and can be made with the ingredients... We debated trying it out and then just decided not to subject ourselves to it lmao)

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Re: Cooked with Love • [Comedy] [Romance] [Crafting] [Short] [NaNo19]

#7 Post by nefferinthia »

I really enjoyed this game! After playing it through a few times and looking up your tips on itch.io I discovered it was you guys who made it! I really loved Reflections on the River and so obscure; as well so I'm gonna be stalking your projects from now on haha

I actually replayed this game loads of times to try and get all the dishes and endings so I think that's a good sign! I didn't get all of them in the end but I'm satisfied enough with my track record. The characters were so well-written! I really loved the interactions between Perry and Brooks, it felt like such a natural friendship and the way it progressed into romance in the ending was also really cute. The awkwardness between Perry and Lily felt very realistic as well. I liked the contrast between Perry who is more "normal" in the sense that they go out and party and live the regular college student life but simultaneously is a fucking weirdo and Lily who is more "weird" in the way she likes museums over parties, has no friends and is into fandom stuff like Doctor Who but is actually a very normal girl.

I liked the crafting minigame a lot too, it really created an extra layer of interest for replays and I liked the little snippets of dialogue relating to each dish. The GUI was cute, I especially was a fan of the dialogue boxes/speech bubbles in the middle of the screen. It looked less like a typical Ren'Py game that way, and had more of a unique feel.

Normally I try to throw in a critique here but I can't really think of what I'd improve? For a NaNo project it is super polished and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for something fun and free.

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PeroxidePrince
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Re: Cooked with Love • [Comedy] [Romance] [Crafting] [Short] [NaNo19]

#8 Post by PeroxidePrince »

Harumi Fujyoshi wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 8:20 am I really enjoyed this game! After playing it through a few times and looking up your tips on itch.io I discovered it was you guys who made it! I really loved Reflections on the River and so obscure; as well so I'm gonna be stalking your projects from now on haha

I actually replayed this game loads of times to try and get all the dishes and endings so I think that's a good sign! I didn't get all of them in the end but I'm satisfied enough with my track record. The characters were so well-written! I really loved the interactions between Perry and Brooks, it felt like such a natural friendship and the way it progressed into romance in the ending was also really cute. The awkwardness between Perry and Lily felt very realistic as well. I liked the contrast between Perry who is more "normal" in the sense that they go out and party and live the regular college student life but simultaneously is a fucking weirdo and Lily who is more "weird" in the way she likes museums over parties, has no friends and is into fandom stuff like Doctor Who but is actually a very normal girl.

I liked the crafting minigame a lot too, it really created an extra layer of interest for replays and I liked the little snippets of dialogue relating to each dish. The GUI was cute, I especially was a fan of the dialogue boxes/speech bubbles in the middle of the screen. It looked less like a typical Ren'Py game that way, and had more of a unique feel.

Normally I try to throw in a critique here but I can't really think of what I'd improve? For a NaNo project it is super polished and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for something fun and free.
Thanks very much for playing our game and leaving a comment! (And thanks for playing our other games before too!!)
It's encouraging to hear that you had fun replaying the game, since we definitely worried about people getting too frustrated with the recipes/dialogue choices.
I had a lot of fun designing the GUI for this project, and it's probably one of my favourite parts of the project, so I'm glad that you liked how it looks!
Also, your description of Perry being a "fucking weirdo" is so blunt and absolutely spot-on I laughed when I read it haha.

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Re: Cooked with Love • [Comedy] [Romance] [Crafting] [Short] [NaNo19]

#9 Post by Zelan »

L M A O okay so my old roommate and make terrible life decisions when it comes to our sleep so it was like 1 am and she was up doing laundry and I was like "hey TJ do you wanna play this cooking game with me" and she was like "uhhhh okay" and we had a grand old dang time we absolutely s u c k e d at wooing anyone but eventually we got better at cooking.

Everyone has pretty much already mentioned all of the individual things that I thought made the game super fun and polished, so I think the important takeaway is that we laughed so much playing through this game and reading all of the great dialogue (the thing that really killed us was the censored Br*nd Names. we lost it every time) and I'm gonna be honest we really stayed up til like 3 am or something terrible like that cause gosh this was a fun game. Thanks so much for making it! ^_^

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