Talking about 'Our Cooking Dream'

 Hi!

It's been 3 years since the release of the game jam version of this game, i have been calling the game 'Lobster Cooking Game' for a while, but i'll be changing the title to 'Our Cooking Dream', at least as a temporary title unless i can't come up with something better.

Over the last years i have been building the world for these characters, and for the story i want to tell, it has not been easy at all, but i think its time to properly talk about this project, this game is a way for me to tell a story i have been trying to find a way to tell since i was a kid.

Let's start.

What is 'Our Cooking Dream'?

This will be a game, the gameplay is very simple, you have to make food. Some people have tried the gameplay and have told me that i should release it, but while it was being saved for a later release, i started to come up with a lot of ideas on how to turn this into the game i want it to be, thats why it has taken over 3 years now even when the original version was made in 2 hours.

This may be the first time where my priority is the story. I'm not saying that the gameplay isn't important, im building on top of the gameplay that people think is fun to make a story. Basically, you can play the main gameplay anytime you want, but there is also a world around this gameplay, there are characters, there are events that happen, and there is an "ending".

Think of it was a manga, the story has short chapters, but in this game you don't need to inmediately jump the next part of the story, you can play and keep you own pace, if you just want to play, you can do it, continue the story when you are ready. This is directly a response to me not wanting to "continue" playing games as i don't want to reach the ending yet, or think of it when you see a series that only has a few episodes, sometimes you don't want to say goodbye to the world, it may sound dumb, but im trying to do something i would love to play.

If you just want to play the story you can do it, but if you want to enjoy all the little events and interactions of the characters, then you can. Keep in mind my idea is to make it something you play when you are bored, and if you want to continue the story, you can do it when you are ready.

The World

Note: I won't talk much about the story yet, as im still writing and changing what will happen in it, character designs and art styles may change later, everything shown here is still work in progress!

First of all, lets talk about the lobster. The lobster will be the one of the currently main 3 characters, the lobster is also the owner of the restaurant where the game takes place in, i have been thinking about how to make this character unique, which im still working on, all you need to know for now is that the lobster is the owner of the restaurant and will meet Tamiko at the start of the game, they will work together.

Speaking of... who is Tamiko?

I am so ready to talk about this, last year (2024) i began learning how to draw anime, just because i need to do it for this game, it has been a long time, but im ready to finally reveal the new character.

She's the main character in the game, who we play as. Tamiko has been great at cooking since she was a kid, but due to some events in her life, she wasn't able to follow a dream. The story "starts" with her trying to discover with the help of a few new friends what made cooking so special to her, to achieve a dream. 

Her name was a suggestion i got while trying to come up for a name, it was meant to be changed later... but as you know, you start getting used to it, and i don't think i'll change it now, but she doesn't have a full name yet.

I won't talk about more of the story for now, as some things are still being changed, being written, new ideas are still being added, and a proper script hasn't been written yet. But i'll say that i'm very happy with what i have done so far. This is a story im happy with, and hope i can tell it as best as i can.

Now, please take a first look at her design!

I want to talk a bit about her design, as that was the reason it took me so long to talk about her, i started with the character design last year (2024), there were a lot of ideas, like red hair, a lobster costume, at first she was just meant to be a playable character in the game and thats it, but i started to get more ideas for the story, and her design also started to evolve, from just a "lobster girl", to the character im talking about today.

It took a long time to get it right, but what you are seeing is probably her final design. For the lobster im not really sure why it was a lobster, its been like 2-3 years since i made that design, it just happened, i wish i had more to talk about it.

I'm happy with the designs so far. As for the game's art style, i'm still not sure if it will be pixel-art or if i will change it later, but at the moment pixel-art is the main idea, but who knows, maybe i'll change it.

Release plans

My current plan is to do something like manga releases: I would release parts of the story as chapters, that way i don't have to get everything ready at first, and it wouldn't take too long to add more story as i would just use an editor for those, just like i did in a previous project, all of this would be after the story has been written.

The idea is that this will be a paid game, of course i would love to make it available for free, but im no longer a kid making games after school, the plan is to do a steam/google play store release for a low price, even then, the first few chapters will probably be completely free.

I'd like to have everything planned before i start programming, that means no programming work has been done yet, this isn't a bad thing, i want to have most of the story and gameplay planned so it can be done as perfectly as im able to. The game is still far from release, when it does, i want to make sure it is the best version of this story that i can make.

I have been writing this post for at least two hours now. I'm so happy to finally be at a point where i can share my ideas about the game. I'm not going to ask you to follow the game, as i know this is very different from what i make, but if you are a bit interested in the idea, you are free to follow once i share more details about the game.

I don't think any chapters will be released anytime soon, but i plan to release this on steam and google play (would love to also release on console, but at the moment that is out of my budget), hopefully i can have at least a chapter out by 2027.

I'll keep releasing more devlogs now that the main reveal is out of the way, im really excited to talk about what i have been making.

Thank You

Thank you for reading this, I have tried multiple times to make this post, but I didn't know if i was ready, I have put my heart into this project and I want to make it the best it can be, thank you so much.

-Isaac