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me: my dude we just woke up!! It’s time for wakefulness and doing things and Productivity

Indie Game Spotlight: Battle Chef Brigade

Hope you’re hungry because this week’s Indie Game Spotlight is on Battle Chef Brigade, a “fantasy cooking show” that pits warrior chefs against warrior chefs with a monster-hunting twist. The game follows the stories of Mina, Thrash the orc, and their friends as they compete in a fantasy cookoff with gameplay that’s a mix of combo-based brawler hunting and match-3 puzzle cooking.

We sat down with Tom Eastman, the President of Trinket Studios, and asked some Q’s about this Monster Hunter meets Cooking Mama lovechild, which is available now on Steam, Switch, and PlayStation 4!

What inspired the story and characters in Battle Chef Brigade?

Eric Huang, the artist and visionary behind all the characters and world wanted to create a positive, friendly world that just happened to be obsessed with food. We looked to a lot of great cooking competition shows, like Iron Chef, Chopped, and Master Chef.

Battle Chef Brigade is often called a mix between Monster Hunter and Cooking Mama. What other games were most influential to your work?

The Sega Saturn game Guardian Heroes was a big influence. It’s got really fun characters and lots of great combat animations.

When did you conceptualize the idea behind the game?  

We were struggling with what game to make back in 2014 and turned on the Food Network during lunch. Something clicked and we realized that we’d never seen an improvisational cooking game that captured the excitement of having to figure out how to make a dish out of mystery ingredients. 

Are there any funny/unique stories?  

Despite knowing that we wanted to make an improvisational cooking game, it took us a long time to make a gameplay system that supported that. Since players can’t lick their screens to taste their progress, it’s important that the game is clear about that!

What game universe would be the worst to live out your life in?

Roller Coaster Tycoon because players are always starving or launching the customers into space. 

What’s your secret talent?

Training my dog. She’s almost up to 40 commands, and is so stinkin’ cute!

We’re now offering the adorable Nekotama soft-vinyl cat figures by the randomly-selected single piece! They may be considered “trading figures,” but they’re also pretty big, at about 12cm long and 10cm tall. Reserve yours today and see which one you get!

Voltron AU where everything is exactly the same except the lions can turn themselves into fat, floating space cats! 🐱✨ Space cats based off of these.