Sedap’s Culinary Combat Is Just The Spice Co-Op Cooking Games Needed
A new kind of food fight.
Before games like Overcooked took off, I never would have thought co-op cooking would be a viable genre. Sure, cooking with a partner in real life is fun (albeit messy and sometimes frustrating), but it’s still surprising how well it translates to gaming. Now, one demo in Steam’s Couch Co-Op Festival is giving the surprising sub-genre an even more unexpected twist, and I can’t wait for the game’s full release.
Developed by small Singapore-based team kopiforge, Sedap!: A Culinary Adventure started as a student project. Like other co-op cooking games, it challenges two chefs to assemble and deliver dishes under tight deadlines, but with a twist inspired by one question: where are all those ingredients coming from?
Sedap adds a unique combat element to its co-op cooking.
In Sedap, whose title also means delicious, players take on the role of Som and Gon, two cooks who take their food truck to the absurdly dangerous Khaya Island to develop new recipes using the native flora and fauna. The problem is that Khaya’s native animals (and even some of its plants) are more than capable of putting up a fight, adding a level of mortal peril you won’t find in your typical kitchen.
Where most cooking games stick both players in the kitchen to work out the most efficient ways of making recipes, Sedap requires its chefs to venture out into the world. Each level features an outdoor cooking area with all the tools you need to prepare meals, surrounded by the wilderness where Som and Gon source their ingredients. Making any dish means first venturing out to gather its components, whether that means picking tea leaves by waggling your controller’s joystick or battling wildly aggressive chickens for their meat. Back in the kitchen, you assemble dishes by completing short minigames, which differ based on how the dish is cooked.
Progressing through Khaya Island unlocks new recipes and tools.
Compared to other cooking games, Sedap is less about overcoming the logistical chaos of food prep and more about the mechanical difficulty of foraging and cooking. Either character is capable of cooking and hunting, but Gon is stronger and heartier, while Som cooks more efficiently. When I played, I took the role of Som, mashing my way through minigames and shouting out ingredients for my partner to hunt down across the island, jumping into the fray occasionally to take down resilient turtles and chase ginger roots, which have a nasty habit of sprinting away when you try to dig them up. Where games like Overcooked can sometimes leave me feeling frazzled from juggling cooking timers while trying not to collide with my fellow chef, Sedap is a friendlier but no less challenging alternative.
As much as I’ve enjoyed other cooking games, I can easily see the variety offered by Sedap’s combat and minigames making it my go-to choice for co-op sessions. My only real issue with its demo, which offers six stages from the beginning of the game, is that the icons showing which dish is due next is incredibly small and hard to make out, especially for a game that’s presumably going to be played on a TV across the room rather than a monitor a few feet from your face.
Sedap uses Southeast Asian recipes with a fantastical twist.
Sedap’s demo is already a great way to spend a chaotic evening, and the full version of the game promises the addition of new locations to explore, activities like fishing, and more dishes based on actual Southeast Asian cuisine to cook. Sedap is part of Steam’s Couch Co-Op Fest running until February 17, but its demo will still be available after the event ends. Online multiplayer is on the way but hasn’t been implemented yet, but for fans of local co-op, Sedap’s demo is not to be missed.
