Parallel World Game Developer

Chapter 34: Chapter #34: Love Was Never on the Menu

Among the massive wave of heavily-marketed Valentine’s Day releases, gamers scoured the storefronts for their holiday co-op titles.

Compared to the massive hype surrounding other "Valentine’s Day Special" games, Overcooked by Sprout Studio looked noticeably underwhelming.

To the untrained eye, the game looked like a low-effort, rushed cash grab, and it was priced at a highly specific $7.14 to match the holiday gimmick.

As the clock struck midnight, the date on the calendar rolled over. Valentine’s Day had officially arrived.

"Alright chat, this is a co-op game. I’m going to grab a random viewer to play with me," Silver announced, instantly launching a giveaway in his stream to hand out twenty game keys to his subscribers.

The viewers tuning in at midnight on Valentine’s Day were largely single gamers who had absolutely zero interest in playing those tear-jerking, romance-heavy visual novels.

They were far more interested in seeing what kind of psychological warfare Sprout Studio had cooked up this time.

The giveaway concluded in seconds. Twenty lucky viewers claimed their Steam keys. The game’s file size was incredibly small, sitting right around two gigabytes, meaning the download only took a few minutes.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" a voice echoed through Silver’s Discord call. It was an incredibly sweet, high-pitched, anime-esque girl’s voice, carrying a distinctly flirtatious tone.

[GoonSlayer99: NO WAY! A female viewer?!]

[xX_Thot_Patrol_Xx: 100% a dude using a voice changer bro.]

[VOD_Goblin: how does this sweaty gamer have cute e-girl fans?!]

[Toxic_Timmy: testing the streamer’s loyalty with the e-girl voice I see.]

Silver was visibly caught off guard by the voice coming through his headset. He coughed twice, quickly forcing a deadpan, serious expression onto his face.

"Look, chat, you guys know me," Silver said, pointing at his webcam. "I don’t actually like these high-pitched anime voices. But I know my chat likes them. You guys are always forcing your preferences onto me, so I guess I have no choice but to accept this burden. Yes, that’s exactly it. I’m taking one for the team."

A soft, infectious giggle echoed through the Discord call, instantly making half the chat swoon.

The two of them quickly launched the game and loaded into the same online lobby.

"Oh my god, the characters are so cute!" the female fan squealed in delight.

"I have to admit, the sadist actually understands character design," Silver nodded. "At least these chefs don’t look as deformed as that naked guy in the cauldron."

The character selection screen featured a roster of heavily stylized, wobbly little cartoon animals. The female fan scrolled through the options and happily locked in a small green crocodile chef.

The lore introduction played out in the fantasy-themed Onion Kingdom.

After a brief cinematic establishing the world, the game dropped them directly into the tutorial.

The initial mechanics were incredibly simple; the player just had to follow the on-screen button prompts.

The workflow was intuitive: grab an ingredient from the crate, place it on the cutting board, chop it, move it to a plate, and deliver it to the service window. If a recipe required a combination of two ingredients, you just chopped both, tossed them onto the same plate, and served.

"Alright, how about this: you stay on the cutting boards and prep the veggies, and I’ll handle the plating and serving," Silver suggested, instantly establishing a division of labor.

"Okay, sounds good!" the fan replied sweetly.

The tutorial level was extremely forgiving. There was no strict timer ticking down above the orders, so there was no rush to push out plates.

Serving a dish only took a second, but the actual chopping animation required the player to stand directly in front of the cutting board and hold the action button while a small progress bar filled up.

Since there were multiple cutting boards in the kitchen, Silver occasionally stepped in to help chop while waiting for new orders to pop up.

On screen, the two little chefs worked in perfect harmony. It looked exactly like a loving, cooperative couple running their own virtual kitchen.

Suddenly, the Onion King raised his golden scepter.

"They’re too hungry!" he warned.

He ordered the two chefs to travel the world and hone their culinary skills while he stayed behind to hold off the horde of ravenous, undead ’Unbread’ monsters.

The real game officially began. The two chefs exited the royal palace and drove their little food truck onto the world map, rolling into Level 1-1.

The first stage was dead simple. The menu only consisted of two items: raw fish or raw shrimp.

Initially, Silver wanted to stick to their tutorial strategy—she chops, he plates. But he quickly realized that chopping took too much time.

A few seconds into the shift, he called an audible and adjusted their workflow.

"Change of plans. You chop all the fish, I’ll chop all the shrimp. Once we’re done prepping, we both plate our own ingredients and serve," Silver directed.

"Got it!" the fan agreed without missing a beat, obediently grabbing a blue fish from the crate and rapidly slamming her chef’s knife into the cutting board.

"Honestly, this is a perfect game for couples to play on a date night," Silver remarked, watching the level timer slowly tick down. He was genuinely impressed with how relaxing it was.

The female fan seemed to be having a great time, too. The cozy, cooperative management loop was undeniably charming. It might not have possessed the tear-jerking narrative of a traditional romance game, but working together to run a cute little kitchen was a fantastic Valentine’s Day activity.

Level 1-1 wrapped up flawlessly in about three minutes. The fan eagerly steered their food truck across the world map and loaded them into Level 1-2.

This kitchen layout was entirely different. The map was set in the middle of a flowing river, designed with traditional Asian architecture and surrounded by blooming water lilies. As the level loaded in, Silver frowned. The recipe complexity had just spiked significantly.

The pre-level menu revealed they were making sushi. The recipe required them to grab raw rice, boil it in a pot, plate the cooked rice, and combine it with chopped seaweed and freshly sliced salmon.

"Alright, you start chopping the fish and seaweed. I’m going to get the rice cooking," Silver commanded, immediately sprinting his chef toward the rice crates.

He grabbed three portions of rice and tossed them into the three boiling pots on the stoves. The sound of bubbling water filled his headset, accompanied by a slow progress bar filling up beneath each pot.

"I’ll help you prep," Silver said. Not wanting to stand around doing nothing, he ran over to an empty cutting board and grabbed a piece of salmon.

But he only managed to chop the fish halfway before disaster struck.

The progress bar on the first rice pot maxed out. Instantly, the pot began flashing red, emitting a loud, blaring warning alarm. The previously calm background music suddenly accelerated into a frantic, anxiety-inducing tempo.

"Oh shit! My rice!" Silver panicked, immediately dropping his knife. He sprinted back to the stoves, picked up the first boiling pot, and dumped the cooked rice onto a clean plate.

But during those few seconds of panic, the other two pots had finished cooking and were now flashing a violent, angry red. Silver desperately tried to grab the second pot, but the game mechanics blocked him—his chef was still holding the empty first pot.

He hastily tossed the empty pot onto the floor and snatched the second boiling pot off the stove. That was when he slammed into another mechanical wall.

There was only a limited number of clean plates. The first plate already had rice on it, and he couldn’t just dump the second pot of rice onto the same plate. He needed an empty dish, and he didn’t have one in reach.

"Quick! Stop chopping!" Silver yelled, his voice cracking with genuine panic. "Come help me! I need a plate!"

Meanwhile, the third pot of rice was flashing rapidly, the warning alarm screaming at maximum volume.

It was completely on the verge of catching fire.

— — — — —

If you enjoyed the story, don’t forget to leave some stones, comments, and reviews. Thank you for reading!

You can support me at patreon.com/Chaos_King and read 15 advanced Chapters.