TL;DR ~ Cooking Skill, Appliance Store and new NPC update As many of you know, cooking is a big part of the gifting system while also granting considerable buffs, energy and health restoration. However, it suffers from multiple flaws, most notably: · Basic cooking ingredients, mainly Rice and Vinegar, cannot be crafted, and must be purchased from Pierre’s Shop or Joja Co. Supermarket. · It does not have any depth into it, you simply acquire the ingredients and craft the item at your kitchen area. · The refrigerator has as much space as a normal chest, which is not enough to hold all the ingredients necessary to craft multiple recipes directly from there. This forces players to keep certain chests with cooking ingredients for last minute cooking nearby. · Cooking has no item modifier, such as “silver”, “gold”, and “iridium”. Which makes NPC who only love certain cooking items or gems much harder to befriend than those who like foraged items for example. Aside from these flaws, cooking has the most potential out of any other activity in-game to become an actual skill. There are achievements already in the game which require cooking, it plays an important part of gifting, and your house already has a kitchen! With these facts out of the way, I will now describe what my plan would be for a cooking skill update, “new” mechanics to make cooking feel like a skill, the skill-trees, an appliance store update, which is intrinsically linked to upgrading your refrigerator, and a new NPC to run said shop. Cooking – The new cooking mechanic will be divided main in two ways of cooking, oven and stove-top, each has its own way of “cooking” and will allow you to cook different foods, such as baking, roasting, grilling, etc. Additionally, new “Rice” crop and “Vinegar Machine” artisan equipment should be implemented, rice utilizing the mill, and the “Vinegar Machine” turns fruits into vinegar similar to how the preserves jar, or the keg function. Ultimately, the goal is to have the cooking skill fuse easily, into the pace of the game, having the skill interact with time, a mini-game or other ways is yet to be decided. Cooking Skill Completed dishes will grant XP based on the “complexity” of the recipe and the rarity of the ingredients. Higher quality dishes will grant more XP, and the rarity of the ingredients has no effect on the outcome of the dish. - At level 5, you will be granted the option to choose between Oven Cooking and Stove-Top. - At level 10, you can specialize into; “poissonnier” a fish chef or “grillardin” a grill chef if you chose stove-top, and “pastissier” a pastry-desserts chef or “rotisseur” a roast chef, if you chose oven. These would all grant bonuses in their respective fields, a sample of bonuses that could be implemented. · Increased time to retrieve oven cooking, explained below. · Chance to recover an “uncooked item”, explained below. · Increased value of X dishes. · Chance to receive two dishes The list can go on and on, but these are just ideas. My take on the cooking system is the following: A. Oven Cooking 1. You will be required to have all the ingredients for the recipe readily available, either in your refrigerator, or your inventory. 2. Afterwards, the player will use the current kitchen area, to create a “Uncooked ~Dish Name~ Item. 3. The player must “insert” the uncooked item into the oven, and a timer will begin. 4. The oven will let you know when you need to come back, and there are different results based on when you retrieve the item from the oven. 5. Retrieving the item immediately from the oven upon time up, will grant you the highest chance to have a high-quality food item, with increments of 30 in-game minutes, until 2 in-game hours have passed, which will only grant a normal food item. 6. Sleeping or passing out will burn all your oven cooking, making it a “spoiled food” item which is trash. 7. The oven can be upgraded, via the appliance store to hold multiple food items, similar to how in the fall festival you are able to set-up a grange display, you would be able to place multiple food of the same type on the oven once you upgrade, with a max of 24 or 3x8 grid. 8. You can purchase multiple ovens, but they take significant space 2x2 crafting station. B. Stove-Top cooking 1. Like Oven cooking, will require you to have all items available in your inventory or refrigerator. 2. The player will then interact with the “Stove”, which can be upgraded to craft multiple dishes at the same time. 3. You will create the uncooked item, and then you may place multiples into the “stove-top” and commence cooking. 4. As of right now I do not have a definitive idea on how to go about stove-top cooking, I have ideas for a mini-game but all of that would have to be tested, especially because it would add unnecessary complexity. Appliance Store and NPC – The appliance store will be located in “Calico Dessert”, which means the bus has to be up and running. Upon completion of the Junimo Bundles, or the purchase of all Joja Co. community improvements, the appliance store owner will sell more items/upgrades for your items. The following items should be in stock, prices and availability are up for discussion: · Refrigerator upgrades: increases inventory by 12 each time, up to 60. · Oven and Stove-Top crafting stations, and upgrades: the player will only have one of each of the basic model upon purchase of the kitchen house upgrade. · Pantry: a “chest” but only for cooking items, also linked to the cooking stations if placed inside the house, additionally it can hold up to 90 items, very expensive. · Nicer TVs, and other stylish appliances. As for the NPC, I have no idea if he should be just like Sandy in terms of being befriended or similar to other not friendly NPCs that sell stuff, for example in the casino. That’s it, thanks for reading, my apologies for the long read, and thanks to Liana and the “New buildings player hosted feast cooking changes” since that post inspired me to write this out. EDIT - Added "roast chef" after "rotisseur".
