If you are trying not to think about food constantly, Sedap! A Culinary Adventure is probably not the right game for you. Sedap, which means “delicious” in Malay, is a fast and furious cooking and combat game featuring Southeast Asian cuisine familiar to folks in Singapore.
Sedap is similar to cooking games like Overcooked and Cooking Mama, but with a clever twist in the form of hostile and uncooperative ingredients. For a food-obsessed Singaporean like me, Sedap stirs up crazy cravings for chicken rice, laksa, pad thai, sambal kangkong, ikan bakar, chicken adobo and bubble tea!
Developed by a small independent Singapore game studio, Kopiforge, in partnership with Barcelona’s Isolated Games, Sedap can be played solo or co-op by two players, either online or together on the couch.
Uniquely Southeast Asian
You play Som, an aspiring cook, accompanied by his friend, Gon, a hunter and gatherer, who has found a book of recipes known as the Makanomicon. With tough economic conditions back home, Som and Gon decided to venture to the new island of Khaya to serve up the traditional recipes in the Makanomicon.
Som’s sister, the bossy Merapi, acts as a remote investor, manager and consultant for the duo as they explore and unearth the mysteries of Khaya and cook up a storm.
Som and Gon have to gather ingredients, which often put up a fight, and process them as stated by the recipes depending on the orders that come in.
The duo will have to cook them using the various cooking implements through quick time event minigames where you press the buttons according to onscreen prompts. After that, you have to serve the prepared food quickly to a queue of bison carts before the food goes bad or the customers get tired of waiting.
As a Singaporean, I find plenty to appreciate in Sedap, especially the traditional food from our neighbours in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia. The use of familiar ingredients, utensils and methods, are all close to a foodie’s heart.
That said, there is also a serious message about losing our food culture and tradition, which we see today in Singapore with local hawker fare and traditional foods dying out.
The hilarious reviews that come in after every round are a hoot to read, ranging from enthusiastic praise to “meh” ambivalent comments to whiny complaints.
A nice detail which any foodie will appreciate is that the recipes in the Makanomicon are marked by the national flowers of the country of origin.
I am glad to see that chicken rice has both the hibiscus rosa-sinensis and the Vanda Miss Joaquim orchid to avoid any controversial territorial food wars. The game’s music deserves an honorable mention, with the use of traditional Southeast Asian instruments that adds to the charm.
Don’t be fooled by the cutesy characters and cheery music — Sedap is neither cosy nor relaxing. There is constant time pressure to serve the food fresh and fast while navigating many challenges.
Angry birds, emo spices
Unlike regular cooking games where you deal with mostly compliant ingredients, those in Sedap! can put up quite a fight. Chickens, boars, yams and tomatoes are super aggressive and are constantly attacking you while your characters are trying to cook, fish or gather ingredients.
The emo ginger will run away crying if you try to harvest it, while the chilli plant will shoot fireballs when disturbed. Even the tomatoes come in the form of a dark mage who fires tomatoes as projectiles and can take a while to defeat, making me dread any dishes with tomatoes.
Fishing can take some time too, depending on how quickly the fish, prawn or sotong spawns. Sometimes, you have to run to another spot to catch them. The fishing minigame is similar to the one in Stardew Valley, where you have to adjust a dot within a moving bar, which I find quite infuriating especially when under attack!
Getting killed is not unusual but there is a price to pay in terms of downtime while waiting to be respawned. Health can be regenerated back in the kitchen but that also means time wasted travelling away from harvesting ingredients.
With the coins earned after completing each level, Som and Gon can upgrade, buy or equip new utensils, weapons and charms back at camp.
Depending on the particular challenges dished out by the map, the choice of gear can make a huge difference. I find the Kurabit shield, which makes Som and Gom invincible when cooking or gathering, more useful in levels where hostiles are nearby; while a slow Drumbone that stuns is more useful than a fast parang when there are more enemies.
Sedap constantly ups the challenge by adding new recipes, hostiles and minigames to keep you on your toes. Besides good time management, strong focus and quick reflexes, knowing the ingredients is also critical. For instance, tea and coconuts need to be brewed before use, so these need to be prepared prior to cooking the actual dish.
Apart from just serving up orders, Sedap breaks the tedium with boss rounds, supper sessions, rush hours and spirit trials, which switches up the format of the challenges and adds variety to the gameplay.
The game is rather unforgiving in some ways. If you fail at the cooking minigame three times, the dish is ruined and you have to start the whole process of gathering, preparing and cooking all over again.
And it is hard to focus on the cooking minigame while being attacked by an angry bird or boar. I wish there was a practice mode for the cooking minigames, especially for dishes that use the big steamer, which I have trouble mastering.
Adding to the challenge in the later stages are larger maps that are more difficult to traverse and ingredients that are tougher and harder to defeat. The layout of the kitchen also gets deliberately cumbersome, making it harder to be efficient.
There are also environmental hazards, such as mango cannons, crashing tides and, my personal favourite, the beautiful but toxic Rafflesia flower that emits poisonous gas!
It takes two but one will do
To test out the co-op mode, I played with a friend on couch co-op with the dynamic split screen and two controllers. The game is pretty thoughtful in letting you preview the map prior to starting each level, giving the players a chance to plan and strategise.
Apart from looking out for the kitchen layout and locations of the ingredients, there are also clever devices like teleporters that can be used to pass on harvested ingredients to each other.
Since Gom is better at hunting and attacking, it makes sense that he hangs around near the fierce animals and plants to procure the ingredients while Som stays in the kitchen to focus on cooking and serving the food.
However, even the best laid plans often go awry, with the risk of spending too much fighting off hostiles, hard-earned ingredients going bad or getting killed and wasting time waiting to respawn. As the game gets more hectic, mistakes and miscommunication are inevitable, and at times, we were forced to swap roles to beat the clock.
I find that playing via the dynamic split screen, which changes the view depending on how the characters move, can be disorienting and chaotic. Your view of the enemy is obscured when your partner moves, which can be detrimental when swarmed by hordes of baddies.
Even though we were frazzled and constantly yelling instructions at each other, like “Eh faster kill the chicken lah, I cannot cook!” or “I’ll get the tea, you chase the ginger!”, we both felt couch co-op is the best way to enjoy Sedap where you learn to work and beat the level together.
Despite its linear progression in terms of the levels, we find ourselves wanting to retry certain levels to get a better score. With three different biomes and over 10 levels each, there is surprisingly quite a bit of longevity in the game.
For the single player experience, you will automatically transform to Gon while attacking ingredients and back to Som when cooking in the kitchen. Although the game is still enjoyable as a single player and a lot less chaotic, it feels like a lot more work and less fun as you don’t have someone helping you out.
My grouse is that the recipes, instructions and preparations can be rather unclear sometimes, with small icons on the screen letting you know when to press or hold down the buttons, what ingredients are needed and where to cook them.
And once the ingredients are in the wrong pot or appliance, they cannot be moved to another pot and have to be discarded. Both my co-op pal and myself have mixed up ingredients, cooking appliances and messed up on the cooking minigames, but this might just be designed as part of the challenge.
A lot of thought has clearly gone into the game, and it shows in the simple and effective interface, attractive dishes and challenging level designs.
Although the game was buggy during the initial launch, the developers were quick to patch the game. Plus, more enhancements are still being planned, so if you were disappointed in the earlier iteration, do give the game another chance.
One new feature I am looking forward to is The Bestiary, which is like the Makanomicon for the monstrous ingredients you encounter in the game.
TL;DR
If you like cooking games, or are looking for a uniquely Southeast Asian game with plenty of local charm, or something to play with family and friends, Sedap is an excellent game to savour.
Although the game is pretty hectic and unforgiving, the humourous dialogue and foodie reviews combined with cutesy characters and charming graphics, as well as the hilariously aggressive ingredients, serve up a fabulously fun gastronomical challenge.
What makes it extra special for me as a food-obsessed Singaporean is the cuisine that we love in the region, made with familiar but aggressive and emo ingredients.
Overall, Sedap is an impressive first effort for Kopiforge. Despite a buggy start, the game has been conscientiously patched since launch and is a lot more polished now. I definitely recommend playing Sedap via couch co-op, although the dynamic split screen might take some getting used to.
Sedap is available for PC on Steam for S$14.50, which is a decent price for a fun game that you can play by yourself, with a friend or your family. A Nintendo Switch release is planned for a later date.
