Hey everyone!

Kane here again! It seems like you guys would prefer some more succinct news posts, so I'm going to try and keep this one nice and quick. We've got some short clips to show off this time as well!

Firstly, development on Chef Wanted is, as usual, going really well! We're working on the game every day, polishing things up, adding really cool features, and ticking off the boring tasks. Things are shaping up, but unfortunately there is still quite a bit to do. Chef Wanted will ultimately be one of the largest FNaF fangames, I think!

First thing... Flying pests!

Yes, in Chef Wanted, flying animals do literally fly around. We have managed to get a virtual Z-axis working for these types of animals so that they theoretically hover above the ground, the distance of which can be calculated by seeing how far away their shadow is (and how big it is) from their actual sprite.

Though I wouldn't recommend it, this does actually mean that Freddy can, in rare circumstances, run underneath flying pests. But they are very fast, like all of the other pests, so be careful. You'll notice in this gif that the pigeon actually swoops down to Freddy's height before attacking. How cool is that?

Secondly... Items!

This isn't a huge deal, but we've managed to nail the item system down, as well as placing them around the world.

Items that you can use, whether that be consuming for health, wearing for a stat boost, or using in a battle, will be found in large wooden crates (seen in the first half of this gif).

Items that are necessary for completing the level, meaning the pizza ingredients you need for the kitchen, are found in cardboard boxes with a symbol on the front. The symbol tells you whether it's a dough, a sauce, or a topping. In the second half of this gif we see Freddy picking up a Normal Dough item (which changes the 0/1 in the top right, under the dough counter, to a 1/1).

Thirdly, attention to detail!

I just wanted to talk about the amount of attention to detail that we're trying to add to this game. We want to make sure that when someone plays Chef Wanted, be it the first or the fifth time, they discover something that makes them go "Oh, huh! That's clever!"

Did you notice in the first gif that when Freddy steps in the puddle of water, he leaves wet footprints behind him? There are also puddles of paint in every floor of the game, coloured the same as the walls. You can walk through these puddles and you'll leave temporary footprints behind you, for literally no reason at all. We initially just wanted to add puddles on the floor as decoration, and then we thought it would be cool if Freddy could leave footprints behind him. So we added it to the game.

There are tons of details like this in Chef Wanted, but I won't go through any more at the moment. We hope that once you play the game, you'll pick up on a lot of these little gimmicks and that it'll put a smile on your face!

Fourth thing... Cooking section!

Whoa, yeah, I know... We're finally showing off the cooking section. Well, at least a small part of it. We still want to keep most of this gameplay a surprise so we're only showing you the right side of the kitchen (toppings are on the left!), and a gif of just the sauce step.

As you can see here, to pick up an item in the kitchen you hold down left click. And then, once you're holding it, you use right click to use it (while still holding left click). In this instance "using" the sauce means squeezing it over the pizza base. This might seem like a strange control set-up, but you'll have to believe me when I say it's super satisfying to play with. Having to hold down left click to keep the sauce in your hand is, believe it or not, quite immersive! At least for a pixel art minigame. And how cool does that sauce look? Considering the limitations of the game, I think Emil did an amazing job at making the gameplay look and feel great here.

Also, in the last Game Jolt update, we showed that, in Chef Wanted, cheese would be placed on the pizza after toppings. We apologise for any offense this may have caused, and can assure you all that we have fixed this. Toppings are now the final step in making the pizzas.

Alright, that's it for now! I know we still don't have a trailer ready, and I'm sorry about that, but we have to wait until we have everything prepared! Emil and I are thinking of making some kind of video next weekend where we answer your questions and show off some more live gameplay. Let us know if you have any questions and we'll jot them down!

Thanks for reading!

~ Emil, Kane, and Sian

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