Cook Serve Forever
Cook Serve Forever Storyteller's Festival Broadcast
And for those that don't own the game already, you can grab it this week for 50% off -- CSF's deepest discount to date!
CSF January Progress Update!
Hey everyone! It's been a bit since our last update so I wanted to let y'all know how it was going and what you can look forward to next!
First off I hope everyone had a great holiday break. These last few months have been a little chaotic but also satisfying in what we're aiming to achieve with our next update to CSF.
In case you missed the last update, I made the decision to restart CSF and do a complete gameplay redesign back in September. I read a lot of reviews, listened to feedback, and came away with goals and objectives for this new redesign:
- Keep the fun chill nature of the game, but enhance the gameplay so that it's more varied and interesting.
- Slim down unnecessary gameplay days that lack story so that the player has continued progress through the journey of Nori's move to Helianthus.
- Make it satisfying.
What's Coming Up Next
My goal is to get the game into private testing this month and then have a beta release next month for all Steam users via an opt-in branch to get even more feedback. Once I have the gameplay locked down, the rest of the game should be relatively easy to finish- we're still finishing up art and cutscenes and a majority of the content is complete.
I also plan on submitting Trading Card assets for the game next month, and I want to do another update at the end of the month to show off the new gameplay in action. This is all subject to change of course but I feel pretty good about where the game is headed.
Some Clarifications
I know a few of you were concerned about us announcing "Cook, Serve, Delicious! Re-Mustard!" and thought that this game would be put on the backburner, but let me assure you this is not the case. CSF will be fully released in version 1.0 and on consoles this year before we shift over to Re-Mustard (once the art team finishes CSF then they'll go on to Re-Mustard as I finish coding the game).
We also plan on releasing the original "Cook, Serve, Delicious!" to Xbox and PS4/PS5 in the next few months (it was released in November for Switch) but as I'm using the weekend to work on that CSF production will not be affected.
My goal this year is to keep posting monthly news updates and show y'all how the progress is going- you can also follow my personal account on Bluesky as I post some programming stuff there from time to time!
That's all for now, but keep an eye out for more updates soon! Thanks so much for all of your support and talk to y'all later!
-David
Hotfix 3 Sept. 24th
Hotfix 2 Sept. 24th
Hotfix Sept. 23rd
Chapter 2 is available now! Also: see what's next for CSF
Along with this update we’ve taken the opportunity to shorten up the initial first chapter of the game. My overall goal was to remove a considerable amount of gameplay days between story beats, so that nearly every day moves the story along in some way, instead of 3-4 or so days. This should help the pace quite a bit for newer players!
I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about where the game is now and what we’re planning on the way to v1.0.
The Future of Forever
We are going to be taking a few months to reassess the gameplay style of the game and give it a complete overhaul. The goal is not to change the idea of this game being a light, chill experience, but I think we can make substantial improvements to the way the game feels and plays, as I don’t feel it’s in the state I want it to be right now. It’s also taking much longer than anticipated to make new content for how the game is set up now- this is due to a lot of internal issues (staffing changes, etc.) and in order to keep supporting the game we have to take steps to reprogram a lot of the code so that we can easily modify and adapt it for future updates. I will be taking over as the programmer on the game and I’m excited as it’s been a bit since CSD 3’s release and I’m eager to get back into it!
Because of this massive change we’re throwing out our original roadmap and starting fresh with where we want to take the game. Here’s what that means:
- The early access version will have unlocked chapters, so that you won’t need to replay the entire game to get back to where you are progress wise in the story if you’ve finished a chapter.
- This will take some time and I’ll do my best to update everyone with how it’s going and what we’re trying to accomplish with the game. My goal is for the first gameplay update to be early next year.
- We still want to maintain the casual and chill flow of the game- I’m not looking to make this another CSD game, but a more fun, cozy game.
- My goal is to get the new iteration of the game where it is now, story wise, out early next year, and then the next big update to basically be the entire rest of the story (which is still quite substantial).
- We will likely do live playtests in a beta branch of the game, so be sure to join our Discord for more updates and a chance to give feedback on the new gameplay!
I want to thank everyone for the love and support you’ve shown us on this release. I’m really excited for the potential of CSF and I think we’re going to really nail this new overhaul of the mechanics and flow of the game. I’ll be back later this year with more news updates! Thanks so much,
-David Galindo
Creative Lead, VGInc.
The Next Chapter of Cook Serve Forever Arrives Next Month!
I'm so excited to announce that the next big update for CSF is coming in August!
This update will have all new locations, more story, new achievements, new side quests, new foods, and lots more! We've been working hard over the last few months on the gameplay side of things and making the game run smoother and faster, and this is our first major content drop since launch.
I don't really want to give too much away since it is a story based game after all, but I hope you enjoy the continuing adventures of Nori, Brie, and Chef Rhubarb! Watch for more gameplay and story updates later this year, and thanks so much for all of the support!
Patch v0.1.43
Our First Major Update is Now LIVE for CSF!
Hey everyone! We've been steadily pumping out small updates to the game since launch- ten updates in all, in fact- but today's update represents our first of several major changes to the game as we've been listening to feedback and suggestions on our Discord channel!
The first issue was that we felt the game flow wasn't quite right- it took too long to get in and out of games, and recipe selection felt a bit mindless after a few hours. We decided to go for the Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! style method of fixed menus, which can change with every location level up. Now you can spend less time in menus and more time cookin'!
The second was that the game felt a little sluggish overall, and with the time since launch we've greatly improved performance with this new patch. Things load much faster, are much smoother, and should take up a bit less of a footprint performance wise.
We also took the opportunity to add back in Moraine for those who want to earn stickers at those locations! There's also a number of UI improvements, polish and graphical glitches fixed (that dang taco now behaves correctly!) and many more improvements if you haven't checked out the game since launch.
Our next update in July will be a content focused update featuring more story and locations, and after that update we have even more plans for gameplay improvements (including reworking the current order timer), progression improvements, and lots more!
Thanks so much for all of the support and enjoy! Oh, and one last thing- we have some huge exciting news coming at the end of July! You don't want to miss our big announcements- we'll be sure to share it here and in our newsletter and Discord channel! Woo!
MAJOR ADDITIONS
- Fixed menus that can change per location XP level added for all locations, with over 100 in all.
- Major performance improvements.
- Moraine is now opened after traveling to Helianthus! Two additional stickers for those locations have been added.
- Save Slot profile system added, including options like duplicate and Steam Cloud toggles.
- Robots now animate in and out of a day, as well as new VO for all robots.
MORE ADDITIONS/BUG FIXES
- UI improved on Location Selection screen, including showing how many stickers need to be earned for certain locations, what locations are sidequests, and better control/flow improvements.
- Improved video playback issues.
- Improved general food polish and effects.
- Improved end of day XP tally screen.
- Fixed bug that was causing multiple press animations to not fire during gameplay.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when starting the game with certain files missing from the install path.
- Switched over to a new texture compression method that greatly improves load times and overall fluidity.
- Fixed a few dialogue errors.
- Prep stages added for a few recipes.
- Prep work for code done to allow for our next round of major updates.
- New code flow added to recipes and equipment for easier addition for foods in future updates.
What’s Coming up for Cook Serve Forever!
Howdy everyone! We’ve been hard at work on Cook Serve Forever and listening to player feedback, as well as issuing rapid patches to get new features in quickly. I wanted to share what we’re cooking up in the next two major updates we have planned and what’s to come in the future! Note that this is all subject to change and is still very much in active development.
End of June
Part of the great thing about Early Access is finding out what works and what doesn’t, mainly thanks to our fans on the official Discord, where you can talk directly with devs and help influence future updates!
Recipe Selection
Right now I feel the game isn’t quite as fluid as I’d like it to be, and recipe selection seems to feel less and less like a choice and more of a chore the further in you play. To remedy this we’re switching the game over to a CSD2-style fixed menu- basically, each location will have six preselected recipes, and you’ll be able to choose a location and go directly into cookin’. This also makes restarts much easier! But don’t worry, you’ll still get occasional story cutscenes with Baz before heading into a location.
We also have plans to make recipes more impactful as to what you get and how they contribute to your end-of-day XP- more on that as we get closer to the update.
In-Game Cookin’
We’re always fine-tuning the gameplay elements and this month you’ll see improvements to food animations, additional prep stages for foods, and some fun graphical flourishes to the robots that come in and order as they’re a bit too quiet and don’t do too much right now.
Progression Clarity
Finally, we’re going to be improving the location menu UI so it’s more apparent what locations have side quests, what is needed to unlock some locations, etc. And many of y’all want Moraine added back in, so we’re going to do just that, complete with new stickers to earn! (we hope to have Moraine in the next update or the July update).
End of July
We will have our first major story update at the end of July! This will add story-based content that continues directly where the game currently ends in EA. This update will be a little smaller than the other ones we have planned (which will introduce a ton of new locations and events) but will still have about 2-3 additional hours of story-based gameplay!
Progression Overhaul
Along with this is a complete overhaul of our progression system- we realize that the way the game progresses the story is a bit complicated and vague (currently, the game logs each day you play as a “day complete” and once you play 50 days you’ll have gone through all the story content in the game currently- however that count is hidden from the player). We’re going to be moving to a sticker-based progression system that lets you complete areas to gain stickers and move the story along in that way. This makes getting through the first part of the game much faster, which is why we’ve opted to do this for the July update since there will be more to play. We will also make some slight adjustments to XP that will make getting to level 20 in locations faster. As you progress through the game you will also gain some abilities that let you gain XP much faster at the start of a new location, making that grind way less to begin with, but we know a lot can be improved at this starting area.
I’m really excited for y’all to meet all the new characters and side quests you’ll have in this update, it’s gonna be a ton of fun, and will get you that much closer to being an all-time great chef!
Future Updates
As we go through player feedback and adjust our schedule to deliver fixes and improvements as fast as we can you can expect our original road map to change, schedule-wise. We’re still on track to meet our planned updates but we may shift some dates around to ensure we can make it the best possible experience, such as for local co-op. Be sure to watch our Discord for all the latest news there.
Plus we have a slew of big announcements in the Cook, Serve, Delicious! universe coming in July! Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter as we’ll be teasing more soon- as fun as Cook Serve Forever has been in shaking things up, I’m always thinking of ways to continue the original Cook, Serve, Delicious! formula of fast and frantic gameplay in new games, so stay tuned!
Thanks y’all and if you’re enjoying our content updates be sure to leave a review, it helps so much!
-David Galindo
Creative Lead, CSF