I've played cooking sims and puzzle platformers, but a cooking platformer? I'm listening
In Magical Delicacy you traverse a bustling cliffside town, learn recipes or invent your own, and deliver meals to customers.
More and more games include cooking as a minigame or activity these days, to which I say: Yay! I love cooking in games, despite being a terrible chef in real life.
Now along comes Magical Delicacy, a cooking platformer, to which I say: Wait, what?
My eyes aren't deceiving me. Magical Delicacy is a "Metroidvania-inspired wholesome cooking game" and that alone is enough to get me interested, because I don't think I've ever played a cooking platformer before. It doesn't hurt that the pixel art and animation look fantastic, too. Check out the trailer above, shown at the Wholesome Direct today.
You play as Flora, an aspiring witch who moves to a new town called Grat, which is built along a cliffside (hence all the platforming you'll be doing). As you explore the town you'll meet the locals and prepare meals for them in your kitchen, learning new recipes and upgrading your cooking station along the way. The city is also host to secrets and mysteries you can unravel the more you explore and discover.
Most importantly, the cooking system looks pretty deep, as townsfolk don't just request specific meals but preferences for those meals like "not too spicy" or "easy on the salt." This can make crafting those dishes a bit tricky, but in Magical Delicacy you don't have to follow the recipe exactly. If the meal calls for a pepper but the only one you have is too spicy you can counteract it with other ingredients. It looks like a fun and flexible system.
I can't wait to jump around the town and then plant my feet in the kitchen to whip up some meals, though looks like I'll have to: Magical Delicacy isn't due out until 2024.