This cosy cooking game is about staying connected with family in the pandemic
Chat with your gran while she helps you cook some exquisite Chinese cuisine.
This cosy cooking game is all about chilling with your grandma and rustling up some incredible grub.
Nainai's Recipe gives a surprising amount of freedom over the way you cook your food. There are no preset chopping directions, no steps that require a high level of technicality. If you fancy roughly chopping your garlic in half, that's fine. Or you can go for a more precise, thinly sliced method. It doesn't affect any overall performance, which makes the whole experience a little less stressful—until you realise your pork is burning in the pan, of course.
The game's creators—Fan Fang and Mai Hou—describe the game as "a family story about how we lived together in a special way during 2020," and that vibe really comes through in the chats you have with your grandma. All of your recipes and help come through text messages with her, and it's rather cute having little back-and-forth conversations between chopping up scallions or throwing some tofu in the pan.
I don't really enjoy cooking very much in real life (I'm also a terrible baker) but I do have a soft spot for cooking games, and Nainai's Recipe really hits the spot for that much-needed cosy experience.
Grab Nainai's Recipe for free over on itch.io.
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Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in games like Killer Instinct, Toontown and Audition Online, which continue to form the pillars of her personality today. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a news writer and now lends her expertise to write a wealth of features, guides and reviews with a dash of chaos. She can often be found causing mischief in Final Fantasy 14, using those experiences to write neat things about her favourite MMO. When she's not staring at her bunny girl she can be found sweating out rhythm games, pretending to be good at fighting games or spending far too much money at her local arcade.