Hey guys, Kane here!

We just revealed a snippet of the battle system in Chef Wanted on Twitter, which you can check out here. I’ve also posted a screenshot of it on the main Game Jolt page, but not the animation since it doesn’t accept gifs for some reason… Oh well, you can see it above this post anyway.

With the release of this preview, we’ve had quite a few questions that I’m eager to answer (as well as some old ones). So I’m going to compile a few here, which I hope can clear up some confusion a few of you might have.

Q: What is Chef Wanted?
A: Chef Wanted is an RPG game with cooking simulator elements. The goal of the game is to collect ingredients while battling pests in a huge basement, and then cook them into pizzas in the pizzeria’s kitchen.

Q: Who is working on Chef Wanted?
A: The game is being developed by a temporary development team called TeamEKS. The team consists of Emil Macko, Kane Carter, and Sian Mewburn.

Q: When is the game coming out?
A: We aren’t sure when it is coming out but we expect it is going to be sometime in Spring. We are going to continue to give updates that explain where development is, as time goes on.

Q: How do battles work?
A: We are using a simple turn-based RPG battle system for Chef Wanted, but with a few twists and gimmicks that are inspired by other RPGs like Undertale and Paper Mario.

All enemies in the game have a red health bar, and a blue “fear” bar. Freddy can choose to bring the enemy’s health down by attacking them, or bring the fear bar up by scaring them. You can defeat an enemy by fully depleting their health (killing them), or fully completing the fear bar (scaring them off).

On top of this, we have certain items in the game will have special effects (we won’t spoil any of these at the moment), and a time-based blocking system. You’ll notice in the gif on Twitter that when the rat attacks for the second time, Freddy halves the enemy’s attack power by blocking with his arms. You can block like this by pressing the space bar as soon as the enemy attacks.

There are a few other features incorporated into the battle system but we are keeping these under wraps for the time being!

Q: How much of the game is complete?
A: A lot. There is still a fair bit to do, but a lot has been completed. If you want a percentage completion measurement then here’s my estimation:
Visuals/sprites: 75%
Programming: 55%
Story: 100%
Music: 100%
Sounds: 80%
Overworld section: 80%
Battle section: 70%
Cooking section: 50%

Q: How has development been lately?
A: Emil has been busy with school stuff lately, and he’s been working on a few things for his solo projects. Sian has recently taken a bit of a break from working on sprites for the game to practice some more traditional artwork (check this out!) but I’ve been keeping myself busy by working on the battle backgrounds (which you have seen in today’s gif!)

Q: What can we expect from the game’s gameplay?
A: You can expect a fun, challenging, and unique experience from Chef Wanted. While this game’s gameplay is nowhere near as in-depth as FNAF Worlds (with the parties and multiple attacks and whatnot), we are really trying our best to make the game feel as polished as possible. Unfortunately, not much of the gameplay is playable as of yet, so it’s hard to tell how it will come across just yet. But what we have completed so far has been an absolute blast to play test. The overworld is sleek and streamlined, the battles are fast and satisfying, and Emil’s efficient programming techniques has made everything feel very tight.

Q: What can we expect from the game’s story?
A: Chef Wanted certainly doesn’t focus on story as much as the “proper” fangames that Emil and I have worked on in the past, but don’t let the simplistic art style fool you. Chef Wanted does have a story. The characters you meet have history and personality, and there is a lot for the player to uncover.

Q: What is happening with FNAC4 & POPGOES Finale?
A: FNAC4 is still in development, but Emil has decided to take a break from the development to solely work on Chef Wanted and school stuff for a while, since being able to flip between multiple projects is way less stressful than working just on one. POPGOES Finale is on a hiatus at the moment, and will resume development once LSFDevelopment releases Super FNaF 2.

I’ll be happy to answer more questions we get in the comments. Thanks for checking out Chef Wanted, and I hope you guys like the new preview of the battle system!

~ Team EKS