Hi Chefs!

We hope you had a great New Year. We have a lot of exciting updates planned for Chef RPG in 2025. This first patch of the year adds a few improvements and bug fixes.

Improvements

- Greatly reduced game startup time (black screen period) - this was previously caused by large audio files. On Steamdeck, startup time reduced from 25 seconds to 5 seconds.
- Game file size slightly smaller.
- New recipe unlock animation.
- (Gamepad) “Interact” key now works as an alternate key for using tools, unless standing next to interactable object. For bow hunting & spears, it is still easier to press “Right Trigger.”
- (Gamepad) Virtual mouse now slows down when approaching the edge of the screen. This makes targeting things (like bow hunting / targeting furniture) easier.
- (Gamepad) When aiming the bow, the crosshairs will no longer default to the bottom-left corner of the screen. The crosshairs will appear closer to the middle of the screen, depending on the direction your player is facing.
- (Gamepad) When drawing the bow, crosshairs move slower for better aiming.
- Grape Pie (research recipe) is now an Epic recipe with Lemon as a 4th ingredient. It was previously incorrectly set as a common recipe.
- Increased Blender minigame ingredient hitbox size.
- Improved Blender minigame speed and ingredient spawn rate.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed brewing coffee & teas resetting restaurant menu.
- Fixed takeout tooltip graphical error.
- Fixed certain beds where the player sprite sleeps above the covers.
- Fixed wrong recipe rarities displayed in Research progress panel.
- Fixed being able to press minigame buttons when tutorial is open.
- Fixed unlock recipe panel sometimes overlapping with tutorial panel.
- Fixed some missing object colliders around game world.
- Improved colliders in the game world to reduce sprite clipping.
- Fixed some text errors.

Upcoming Update

We are now at the stage of working on new content for Chef RPG. The first update will arrive sometime around the end of February, and will focus on adding side quests, as well as improving the overall gameplay loop and adding new progression systems. The Festivals and Relationships major update will come sometime after that. Here are some of the new additions to expect for the first update :

- New side quests & rewards.
- New items and furniture.
- Random events in the game world.
- First stage of a progression system for White Ash Harbor (Unlock barber, new shops etc).
- Overhauling certain minigames.
- Balancing the economy and add more features related to Power Cells.
- Changing certain skills in the Skill Tree.
- New sound effects.

Let us know your thoughts and what else you would like to see in additional content. We may not be able to implement all suggestions immediately, but valuable additions will be added to the game in a future update. We look forward to seeing you in the next update!