PAX: Cuisineer is a gourmet action game about managing a restaruant

destructoid.com:

Cuisineer is an interesting game. On its surface, it’s a straightforward mash-up of two excellent things: a shop management sim and a dungeon-crawling action RPG. These two concepts are great on their own, and they go great together in Cuisineer too.

At PAX East 2023, I had a chance to go hands-on with BattleBrew Productions’ Cuisineer to see how far the project has advanced. This actually wasn’t my first time demoing the game; I stopped by the team’s booth at East in 2022 to get a sampler of their restaurant manager/dungeon crawler mash-up. This year, they were under the XSEED banner and looked even more polished.

The general concept is simple: you’re Pom, a tiny hero who inherits her family’s eatery that’s fallen into debt. Using a variety of improvised weapons, you’ll need to head into dangerous areas to locally source your cuisine ingredients, bringing them back to cook up and serve for paying customers.

In town, you can visit with locals who offer ways to upgrade your shop or boons to bring into dungeons. A new table may help seat more guests during the lunch rush, but boba tea can make a dungeon easier. I only got a small sense of how this would all interlink, but I like the town and its quiet, cheerful vibes. I did feel a bit lost at times trying to track down where to go next for quests, but I’m hopeful that’s a demo issue and not a full game wrinkle.

After picking up some materials, I had a little bit of time to set up my restaurant. There were some basics to start with, like a pot for cooking and some seating for guests. I talked with CEO Shawn Toh at the show, who said there will be more options in the full game, including some cosmetic choices for the eatery. For now, I was just glad my customers had a place