I set up Creature Kitchen with some trepidation. The little indie cooking sim from The Rat Zone is framed as a “creepy-cozy cooking simulator” and I don't usually do well with spooky stuff. Although it is cozy. In fact, this game may have some slightly disturbing moments, but it is far from a horror game. What immediately struck me about Creature Kitchen is its immaculate ambiance. You start in the forest surrounded by fireflies, and then the beautiful soundtrack begins to draw you in.
A globe leads you through the forest towards a small cabin. There is a note on the fridge from your aunt telling you to take care of the creatures that will slowly make themselves known to you over the next few hours. It's cryptic and creepy, but still no jump scares. The atmosphere already goes from scary to cozy. It's always night in the Creature Kitchen, which gives the whole experience a whimsical, dreamlike quality. This game has vibes.
It's not a cooking simulator in the purist sense. There are no overly complicated recipes here, and you won't be practically flipping burgers for hours to appease mindless NPCs who walk through the door, either. There are some excellent cooking sims out there, but Creature Kitchen uses the concept of cooking sims as the basis for a sweet, concise story.
Time to start preparing
Creature Kitchen is as much a puzzle game as it is a cooking sim. You have to find creatures, take pictures of them and then cook for them. Certain meals require recipes, and these are often hidden in cupboards, in locked drawers or found by completing simple but satisfying puzzles. A couple of them are a little trickier, but there's nothing here that will make you bang your head against the desk in frustration. Creature Kitchen is not that kind of game.
Except for the clock puzzle. I hate the clock puzzle.
All your meals are prepared in the “void of creation”, i.e. the oven. You slice bread, chop tomatoes, mix flour and salt to make dough, and slowly build up a repertoire of increasingly complicated meals to satisfy the strange inhabitants of your new abode. These include a frog that sprints around on two legs, an invisible creature in the pantry, and a mysterious creature called Pants (literally a pair of pants) that knocks on the door every now and then asking for food.
As you feed the animals, they begin to populate your world and the creepiness of the isolated cabin in the woods slowly becomes cozier as the creatures fill in the gaps and create life around the place. The raccoon sits on the sun lounger on the front porch, for example, and will only scratch if you stand right on top of it.
As you complete the recipe list and satisfy more of the strange creatures in and around the cabin, a story of loss and belonging slowly forms. No spoilers here, because it's such a succinct experience that it's worth checking out for yourself. Your mysterious benefactor leaves increasingly cryptic messages, and when you finally understand what's happened, the game ends and you're left in the warm embrace of the most bizarre family of creatures imaginable.
Creature Kitchen is short and sweet, with good vibes and a nice aesthetic. It's fun, quirky and satisfying. I played the whole thing in one go and then reloaded it to 100 percent of the game, cooking every dish and collecting every recipe. All in all, it was around four hours of play. I love little games like these.
If you can't stand the heat, don't play these realistic cooking simulators
Looking for a new cooking game to really sink your teeth into? Heard, cook.
