A rarely-mentioned risk of games news writing is the threat of covering a game like Just Grill the Steak in the wee small hours of the morning, where the stores are closed and it’s hard to justify doing anything in the kitchen. I am extremely hungry now, and it will only get worse as I continue to stare at this physics-driven cooking sim.
This is one of those ‘does what it says on the tin’ games. A budget-priced micro-simulator. You’ve got a food order to meet (usually steak, but with pancakes, bread, and fish unlockable), a ripping hot cast iron skillet, and a plate full of sides awaiting its jiggly, floppy meaty centerpiece. So you’ve gotta cook it, and cook it to the exact requested doneness through nothing more than your own eyes and intuition. Do that, impress the judges/customers, and spend your points on unlocking more features.
While it (at least initially) appears to lack the narrative weirdness of Arctic Eggs, it also doesn’t demand you do anything as heinous as fry a plate-full of cigarettes and still-in-can sardines. I must admit that the simulation looks to nail some of the more interesting subtleties of cooking a good steak, like how it will fiercely weld itself to your pan if you try to flip it too early—you’ve got to let it develop that dry outer sear and loosen its grip naturally. With every word I write about this, I only get hungrier.
Believe it or not, Just Grill the Steak might be one of the most normal games that Japanese micro-indie studio Kimidori Soft has produced. If you’re looking for more bizarre low-budget experimentation, check out Forklift Load, which is significantly more post-apocalyptic and existentially challenging than a game about driving a forklift should be. And for something completely screwball, Sacabambaspis Chronicle is multiplayer action-RPG about a famously doofy-looking species of prehistoric fish and its quest to evolve into something that could survive a hostile future.
Just Grill the Steak’s store page does mention one particularly baffling fly in the kitchen: A single texture (the surface of pre-cooked pancakes) is AI generated. Of all of Kimidori Soft’s bizarre decisions, I think this might be one of the most inexplicable. But if that’s not enough to turn you away from a freshly re-grilled fluffy pancake, the game is available now. And now I just really want to cook something, but cannot. Curse you, Kimidori soft. Curse you.
