Over the years I’ve come across so many, varied cooking games. Many of these feature foods that I love dearly, such as hot pot. I’ve got, as you can likely tell, a soft sport for cooking games, as I love cooking so much and quite enjoy playing games from time to time. KuloNiku: Bowl Up! is a story-driven cooking game with a lot going on; Mini-games, becoming friends with people, turn-based cooking challenges and classic restaurant management with impatient customers.
The story behind KuloNiku: Bowl Up! has you taking over your grandmother’s long-closed hot pot restaurant, although you previously had a mysterious job where you have had a false name… but now you are just trying to cook up some great food and make it big in the town that you used to call home. There is some sort of rockstar chef that has also opened up a hot pot location in town, who is full of themselves and wants to battle you to show you who is the best of the best.
Your time is split in a lot of different ways; Although many of your days are all based around cooking food at your restaurant. You will start your day and instantly get customers, with only a few coming each day. You take their order, then go into your work station. This is split into different screens; A screen where you serve and add seasoning, a screen where you cook, one where you wash dishes, one where you chop, and more as you unlock more. You can swap these around as well!
You will need to read the order and then start building the bowl. Often people order a mix of regular recipes, which can be seen in your recipe book, or whatever they want based on the ingredients you actually have. Cooking and serving isn’t challenging in any way, although I did find it hard to tell when stuff was chopped enough, it’s all just time consuming and you need to be quick. Dishes have flavor notes as well, which are adjusted and changed as you add ingredients to the bowl. Some customers have specific flavor notes and will not mention specific ingredients, so you need to sort of solve what they are looking for. Your bowl does have a limit to the amount of stuff that can be in it, so you also need to be careful!
Once you have served you will get reputation points (either negative or positive depending on how well you do) along with payment for your food. This is all showcased at the end of the day, when you can see your profit and how well your restaurant is doing. Often customers will also talk about trending food that they want to see, giving you a hint at what you should start stocking.
At the end of the day, you often have a little bit of evening time. You can explore the town, talking to people or hanging out with them. Sometimes, conversations require you to pay a small fee to hang out and then select the correct replies to become better friends. Being friends unlocks more locations which can end up upgrading your restaurant. Other times, you can just have a casual chat and then increase your friendship slightly. You can also visit other buildings during this time, buy new items for your restaurant, invest in new recipes, and decorate your venue.
It rotates on a weekly schedule, with specific things happening on specific days of the week. Fridays see a shop restock, for example, giving you new products to purchase. There are also two days a week that are used for cooking battles. You do get days off, to rest, where you can spend some me-time, often getting a random chest of either coins or tickets that you can then spend.
KuloNiku: Bowl Up!’s cooking battles are really interesting. They are very much like your day to day cooking, however there are set requirements and a bunch of tasting notes from the panel of judges. You only can do three actions per turn, with a limit to the number of turns, so you must make decisions based on the points you are hoping to score. Often the audience also wants to see specific things, like using the hot pot or adding salty items, so you can get more points by being entertaining to them. It’s just a lot to consider! There is a whole leaderboard situation as you work your way through becoming the best chef in town.
I do feel that the characters in KuloNiku: Bowl Up! are also such a fantastic part of the game. So many of them have such fun personalities, even the ones that might be enemies at first. I quite like how casually you become friends and the way that you end up being such an important part of the town itself. It’s clear so many people loved your grandmother, as you did, and that she was an important part of the town.
As a lover of cooking games, I very much enjoyed my time with KuloNiku: Bowl Up! It’s a game that feels well designed, it doesn’t get too repetitive due to the number of mini-games there are and the split between the days of the week. It feels cute, fun, and like there is something else to discover along the way as well.
You can purchase NuloNiku: Bowl Up! on Steam.
