Hi Chefs!

We hope you are enjoying your holidays! One last patch before the end of the year.

Improvements

- Added support for Nintendo Switch Pro controller. Switch Pro controller have different key inputs compared to Xbox & PS. North / West + South / East keys are swapped. If you are using a Switch Pro controller, you can toggle this new button in the controls settings to display the correct inputs for Switch Pro.

Note* For switch Pro controllers to work for this game, you will need to first disable desktop input from the controller in Steam -> Settings -> Controllers -> Desktop Layout -> Select Gamepad.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed Sea Urchin incorrectly labeled as Vegan ingredient.
- Fixed ingredient delivery UI – selecting a day of the week was affecting all other vendors for the same day.
- Fixed main character tooltip sometimes displaying the description for the incorrect character.
- Fixed floors sometimes not appearing when entering upgraded Le Sequoia restaurant.
- Fixed fishing minigame where the boundary is sometimes inaccurate.
- Fixed fishing minigame where fish can be pulled into the ground.
- Fixed dialogue with Hugo displaying an empty chat box.
- Fixed tall walls & black ceilings sometimes appearing or disappearing at the incorrect time.

Hi Chefs!

Chef RPG Version 0.57 is now live! This patch features some frequently requested updates to the gameplay. Also, Chef RPG will be featured in Steam’s Winter sale starting today, with a 15% discount!


Your player can now freely deliver cooked dishes to customers, and clean dirty tables. You can also freely pickup and place dishes on Counters. We hope this change will shake up the restaurant gameplay and create a greater variety of playstyles.


Delivering Dishes

Cleaning Tables

The following changes are made to address this new gameplay feature :

- Hasel’s First Meal will no longer require staff members.
- You can no longer hire staff members until you start the Soft Opening quest.
- The maximum amount of customers at once has been limited to 5 until the Soft Opening is complete.
- New tutorials added for Cleaning Dishes and Counters.
- Regular services no longer require waiters or counters (unless there are active Chefs in your restaurant).
- New animation added for cleaning tables, as well as a coin animation when a customer has finished eating.
- Quest dialogue changes to reflect this update.


Previously, after closing the restaurant, new orders from existing customers can keep coming in for several in-game hours (in larger restaurants). Players would sometimes have to “Force Close” to avoid passing out. A new “Last Call” button has been added, and will appear after you close the restaurant. It will stop new orders and you will be able to close the restaurant much sooner.

“Last Call” cannot be used during quest services. Currently, there are no negative effects for using this ability.


You can now upgrade the refrigerator separately from the restaurant. Now, you can keep a smaller restaurant without being held back by the smaller refrigerator size. After Bianca fixes your fridge for the first time, you will be able to upgrade your fridge from your restaurant computer using Credits and Power Cells. With this new upgrade system, the maximum fridge size has been increased from 60 to 76.

Player home storage remains the same for now. We have plans for a larger change in a future update.


You can now skip the intro scenes if you have completed Hasel’s first quest. For existing accounts, you just have to open the game with any character that has completed the first quest, and this ability will unlock.
During character creation, toggle the highlighted button to skip most of the intro cutscenes.

- Grill ingredients will be highlighted after hovering over them with the tongs.
- New sound effect when hovering over.
- Grill ingredient collider has been increased for easier targeting.

We are planning to overhaul certain minigames with new gameplay. Since this requires new animations and sound effects, we will spend more time on this and make this change in a future update.


- Less likely to encounter higher level fish when using a weaker rod.
- Fishing minigame area is now larger. Rod power and fish power have both been increased to match the larger area.
- Fishing minigame area no longer decreases with higher level fish.


- Added a new text box when accepting a Restaurant Service from a quest. The text box displays the restaurant service requirements, and gives a warning that no regular services can be hosted after accepting.
- With the “Happiness Comes First” skill unlocked, waiters will now prioritize undelivered dishes and dirty tables over chatting with impatient customers.
- Customers less likely to have chat box if more customers are inside the restaurant (previously, chat boxes were filling up the screen quite often when the restaurant is busy).
- Specialty recipes received during character creation are now automatically unlocked, instead of needing to unlock them manually.


- Fixed a rare case where customers can get stuck in the restaurant.
- Fixed an issue where sometimes counters become unavailable to staff members over the course of a service.
- Fixed Force close sometimes causing errors, if you reopen the restaurant right away.
- Fixed incorrect player birthdays.
- Fixed player sometimes eating food during a certain flashback scene.
- Fixed fishing minigame where fish can swim on land in certain locations.
- Fixed number of refrigerator ingredients (UI) not updating correctly.
- Fixed tutorial titles (UI) not showing up when first unlocking a new tutorial.
- Fixed some text errors.

We will take a short break and will begin working on some exciting new content after the new year!

Hi Chefs!

A new patch is up with a few quality-of-life updates and fixes.


Improvements

- Improved font sizes on most UIs and new font style added for better readability on smaller screens.
- Some UIs have been made larger for better readability on smaller screens.
- Clearing a farming plant with a shovel will now yield ingredients if the plant is fully grown.
- (Mouse & Keyboard Users) Can now use and rebind alternate keys for movement and interact.

Alternate keys for movement & interactions.


Bug Fixes

- Fixed an error in research facilities where minigames that required a virtual mouse were not working.
- Fixed an exploit where items could be duplicated with vending machines.
- Fixed an animation error with certain jackets.
- Fixed certain furniture items not being able to be selected in stores or build mode (gamepads).
- Fixed some popups not immediately updating after pressing button (gamepads).
- Fixed some incorrect key input prompts.
- Fixed some text errors.

HI CHEFS!

New patch is up with some minor fixes and improvements.

IMPROVEMENTS

- Virtual mouse will fade away if not used for a few seconds. Interacting with the right stick will make it appear again (when available).
- Virtual mouse will no longer appear in minigames.
- Force closing with gamepads will open a confirmation panel first (in case of accidental clicks).
- Stove minigame slightly easier to hit target.

FIXES

- Fixed an error in the fishing minigame where the player can sometimes get stuck.
- Fixed some areas where UIs can overlay on top of each other.
- Improved virtual mouse boundaries when outdoors.
- Fixed incorrect Research Skill descriptions inside Research Facilities.
- Fixed some text errors.

COMING UP :

We will begin working on a medium-sized Gameplay Improvement update to be released sometime in December. Some areas we look into addressing :

- Cooking & fishing minigame improvements.
- Adding the ability to serve dishes in the restaurant.
- Adding “kitchen last call” for restaurant.
- Separating restaurant fridge size from building upgrades (upgrade fridge separately, with more storage potential).
- Rebalancing certain skills in the skill tree.

BACK AGAIN SOON!

Hi Chefs! We hope you are enjoying the new update.

Here’s a couple changes based on some preliminary feedback, and things we noticed could be improved.


CONTROLS CHANGES

- Added UI Right-clicks back for Mouse & Keyboard users (unlocking recipes, equipping clothes & tools, transferring items). We had initially removed this due to Mac users having right-clicks disabled by default, and potential conflicts with key rebinds. We found that as long as you do not rebind “Menu” or “Multiple” to your mouse right click, it should be ok. You can still use Shift + Left click to do the same thing. On Windows, the key prompt displays Right-click. On Macs, it displays Shift + Left click, but you can still use right clicks if you have it enabled.

- Added mouse Drag / Drop back into Inventory and Storage UIs. Was removed since we had to change some internal things for controllers, but we found a workaround to make Drag / Drop work again.


BALANCING

- Certain minigames were difficult when using a gamepad joystick (Ice Cream Machine, Frier, Grill). We added movement limits to the virtual mouse so it does not move outside the minigame area. Also, the speed of the virtual mouse has been slowed down for these minigames to make aiming a lot easier.

- Ice Cream Machine minigame ingredients now have a larger hitbox when playing with a gamepad to make them easier to target.


UI ADDITIONS

- Added a (Single) status for romanceable characters. They must be at least “Acquaintance” for this status to show. It will disappear if you become in a Relationship or after failing their dates.

- Change to Recipe UI to fix some text overlap.

- Added a Bed icon to your minimap (some new players were having trouble finding where to sleep). This icon will disappear after completing the first flashback.

- Added a House icon after you purchase a home. It will disappear after entering the home for the first time.


BUG FIXES

- Fixed Frier minigame displaying the wrong input key.

- Fixed Scroll wheel for Mouse and Keyboard users scrolling beyond UI limits.


FIXES FROM PREVIOUS PATCH

Forgot to mention in the last update notes, but here’s a couple notable fixes from the previous update:

- Fixed display issue for players with extra-wide ultrawide monitors (32 : 9 ratio) where game objects on the edges of the screen were not blocked off by black bars.

- Fixed an issue of the game generating a (YOUR_LOGS) folder on desktop. This was meant for internal testing and slipped through to the release build. If you see this folder, you can just delete it.


WORKING ON NEXT :

- Some Mouse & Keyboard players requested having alternate keys for Interact & Movement. We can add this in a few days.

- We are still in the process of integrating Steam’s Controller API – for now it might not default to the correct controller setting. If your controller isn’t working, you may need to go to the Controller settings in Steam, and select Gamepad. Once we are fully integrated, it should become the default option.

That’s all for now!

HI CHEFS!


CONTROLLER SUPPORT & STEAM DECK

Chef RPG can now be fully played with a Controller or with Steam deck. When using a Steamdeck, you can use Steam’s Default gamepad Controls to Play. To play with Xbox or Playstation gamepads, please use Steam's deault controls Gamepad setting. When using a Playstation Dualsense controller, the controller may be able to take control of your mouse, which interferes with the game's virtual mouse. Please use the basic gamepad setting to avoid this issue.

If you find that the controller might be slightly unreponsive. In this case, you will likely need to plug in the controller instead of using Bluetooth. We ecountered this issue when using the Playstation Dualsense controller.


KEY REBINDING

Key rebinding has now been enabled for both Keyboard / Mouse & Gamepads. The controls are slightly different for each, so a separate rebinding table has been added for each controls style. Certain keys cannot be rebound since it could potentially lock you out of the UI (eg. Mouse Left Click, Gamepad south button, Gamepad joysticks).


WINDOWED MODE (Mac unavailable for now)

Windowed mode is now available in the Display settings. The game automatically reads the supported display resolution of your monitor, and you can choose a display size that suits you best.

Due to some engine limitations, as well as some quirks unique to Macs, Windowed mode is currently disabled for Macs. We will continue looking for workaround for Macs and try to find a solution soon.


UI OVERHAUL

We have upgraded the look of the UI. Design wise – it is similar to what we had previously, and buttons are mostly in the same positions.

The new UI has a cleaner and more consistent look than before. Some UIs were very old and needed to be improved. In the future, we may spend a bit more time on certain UIs and give them a more “realistic style” (similar to the Bulletin board).

Certain mouse controls have been changed. We have removed Right Clicks inside the UI, as it was causing some confusion (and people using Mac Mouses have right clicks turned off). Everything inside the UI can now be done with left clicks.


BUG FIXES

We have also also fixed numerous issues from the previous patch. Since this patch changes a lot of elements from the previous patch, we will keep an eye on things in case any issues pops up that we missed.

We will also keep an eye out for any feedback regarding the new controls, and we can always tweak things if some items can be improved.


DISCORD

If you wish to ask questions or report issues, we will be more active on our Discord over the next 2 weeks. Feel free to drop by!

https://discord.gg/YpuAH2XTP3

WHATS NEXT?

We will keep an eye on the new update to see if any issues pop up or any improvements need to be made. At the same time, we will begin working on some gameplay improvements and changes, for a medium-sized update sometime in December.

Thank you for playing Chef RPG! More to come!

Hi Chefs!

We hope you have been having a great week. We just wanted to make a quick announcement that the controllers update will have a minor delay of 2 days. Some things came up that disrupted development for a few days, so we ended up slightly behind schedule.

At this point, there are just a few quirks to fix with controllers and the extra days will give us more time to bug fix.

The new release time will be Saturday, November 23 at 2PM PST.

Thank for for your patience!

Hi Chefs! We hope you are having a great week.

We are happy to announce that Chef RPG will be taking part in Steam’s Cooking Festival with a 10% discount! The festival will run from November 11 to November 18.

Controllers & UI Update – November 21

We have almost completed work on our upcoming update for Controllers and Steamdeck. Although we would have liked to complete it in time for the Cooking Festival, we ended up adding a few more things than planned, and would prefer to have a few more days of polishing and testing instead of rushing the update out. This much requested update will be live Thursday, November 21.

What to Expect for the Controllers & UI Update

- Controller Support
- Steamdeck Support
- Key Rebinding
- Windowed Mode
- New UI Designs
- Minor gameplay changes
- Bug Fixes

That’s all for now. Back again soon!

Hi Chefs! We hope you have been having a great week. Just wanted to give a few updates.

Ratings for Germany

We received a couple messages about a new law passing in Germany that all games require a rating to be sold. We have contacted the German rating agency USK and they have confirmed that Steam’s internal rating system will satisfy this law. We have confirmed this with Steam as well, and Chef RPG is currently rated 12+ for Germany. Thank you for letting us know about this and we are good to go in Germany!

Price drop for Poland

We've received a couple messages regarding the cost of the game being too high for Poland. We have confirmed this to be true, and the price of the game has been decreased from 91.99 to 69.99 Polish złoty.

Coming Up

We are currently in the process of overhauling the game’s UI and adding Steam Deck and controller support, and key rebinds. Since we are changing some internal systems, we will be unable to patch the game until this is complete. We have continued to collect reports of some minor bugs, which will be patched in the next update. Since we are reworking the UI, it is a good opportunity for us to add a few quality-of-life improvements like Windowed Mode and more Detailed Map Info. A detailed breakdown of changes will be available once the next update is complete!