Culinary Wizard Out Now for free on Steam

You’ve heard of food fights, but what about your food fighting back? In Culinary Wizard, you’ll have your hands full in this action game with ingredients that want to take a bite out of you. As a free-to-play title from developer Bug Bounty Games, it’s a pixel-art platformer where creating dishes entails entering stages with your chef’s knife and only exiting once all the pieces of the food puzzle are quelled. With only a few hits to take, you’ll have to have a steady hand and quick reflexes to make the cut.

More than just a quick gaming project, Culinary Wizard contains a full story mode to power through. There are upgrades to collect as well with level-ups, whether it be HP boosts, double jumps, or new weapons at your disposal. I found it fun gambling between the fast-attacking knife and taking the risky route of the hammer swing with a big damage boost trade-off. The game also manages to get tricky quickly if you’re careless, as some Expert-level dishes require tons of ingredients and careful HP juggling to snag the last few foods. Thankfully, pizza slices are ready to help you get back to full strength.

With Bug Bounty Games only having one other game under their belt beforehand, Culinary Wizard is a strong effort that is a nice time-killer for any platforming aficionados. The difficulty level is just right for a welcome challenge, and any mistakes the player makes feel fair and are learning experiences. The developer has a ton of potential on offer here, and even if the movement can feel a bit stiff as opposed to the general floaty nature of platformers, it’s a cinch to get used to, and there’s plenty of new things thrown at you to keep you moving through the roughly six-hour playtime. Check out Culinary Wizard for free on Steam here.