How Overcooked’s Kitchens Force You to Communicate | Game Maker's Toolkit

This summer, I have been playing a lot of
Overcooked.

This is a pair of games about working in a
kitchen, and in each level you must fulfil

orders by grabbing ingredients, chopping them
up, cooking them, and delivering them to the

restaurant.

Which would be pretty easy, if only the restaurant
wasn’t on a swaying pirate ship, or being

split down the middle by an earthquake, or set
on a hot air balloon… which, halfway through

the stage, crashes into a restaurant so you’re
now having to make sushi as well as salad.

It’s crazy.

But, of course, the biggest challenge is simply
getting two, three, or even four players to

work together.

Working as an organised team will require
intense coordination and communication - unlike

pretty much any co-op game I’ve ever played
before.

Because, playing games in co-op is always
good fun.

From old school run ’n’ gun games like
Contra and Metal Slug, to modern day shooters

like Gears of War and Halo, it’s a well
established truism that any game is improved

with the addition of a friend.

But most of these games so rarely ask you
to truly communicate with your partner.

This is often because the game is symmetrical
- which means that the two players interact

with the game in pretty much the exact same
way.

Take a game like Resident Evil 5, where there’s
not a tremendous difference between playable

protagonists Chris and Sheva.

They both carry guns, can both beat up zombies,
and can both carry the same gear.

And so because each character is equally capable,
this can often lead to a situation where you

feel like you’re just off playing your own
games - and only infrequently joining forces

to revive one another, or perform simple co-op
actions like boosting one person over a ledge.

This is very different to the more recently
released Resident Evil Revelations 2, where

co-op players control very different characters.

In the first episode, one person picks Claire
Redfield who is a typical Resi protagonist

with access to all kinds of firearms.

The other player is stuck with Moira Burton,
who is not able to use guns - but does carry

a torch which is used to light up enemies
and temporarily stun them.

She can also finish off knocked down enemies
with a crowbar.

With this set-up, the two players are forced
to work much more closely together as neither

can really survive on their own.

Claire needs Moira’s torch, and Moira needs
Claire’s firepower.

This massively increases the need for the
two players to rely on one another, and creates

the sort of coordination and communication
that’s lacking in many co-op games.

If Revelations 2 shows how giving players
different abilities leads to close coordination,

then Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes proves
that giving players different information

can also power teamwork.

In this game, one player looks at the screen
and sees a ticking time bomb, covered in wires,

buttons, keypads, and other weird gizmos.

The other player has a printed manual of instructions
for how to defuse the bomb.

So player one has to describe the bomb.

Player two has to then read out instructions
for how to defuse it.

And player one has to listen closely, and
follow those instructions.

Literally the only way to play together is
to communicate.

And if you don’t…

Asymmetric co-op doesn’t just force communication,
but it’s also a great way of allowing players

of different skill levels to play together.

This is something Nintendo has been doing
a lot lately with games like Super Mario Galaxy

where one player controls Mario and basically
just plays the game like usual - and another

can join in with a much easier role as a floating
cursor, picking up star bits and stunning

enemies.

But while asymmetrical design can be great
for co-op, it wouldn’t work for Overcooked

because the game needs to automatically scale
depending on whether you’re playing in a

group of four, with a couple friends, with
a pal, or even on your own.

Plus, this is a game that attracts people
of very different skill levels, so you need

to be able to divvy up roles on a level by
level basis - to make sure those who aren’t

super familiar with games don’t have to
perform tricky movements like dodging fireballs

or navigating slippery platforms.

So in this game, all chefs have the exact
same abilities, and the exact same information.

And each player is perfectly capable of preparing
and delivering a meal completely on their

own - with the only communication being “I’ll
make the burger, you do the pizza”.

But that’s not how Overcooked ends up being
played.

Why?

Well, in this case, it’s because of the
level design.

From the very first stage of Overcooked 1,
we can see that the design of the kitchen,

with this long island in the middle, makes
it very tedious to get from the onions to

the chopping station to the pot to the conveyer
belt.

But with two players working together - passing
onions across the table in the centre - the

process is much, much faster.

Pretty much every stage is built like this,
and later exasperated by things like paths

too narrow for more than one chef, and levels
split into two by moving vehicles.

And going faster is important, because the
scoring system is all based on time.

Meals need to be cooked quickly, or customers
will leave and you’ll incur a penalty.

You’ll get big tips for delivering items
more rapidly.

And your final score is based on how many
meals you delivered during the level’s tight

time period.

So, the level design and the needs of the
scoring system quite quickly splits players

into distinct, and asymmetric roles - in this
kitchen, for example, one player might focus

on chopping vegetables and preparing meat
patties, while the other cooks the burgers,

prepares them, and delivers them to the restaurant.

And this creates loads of communication at
the start of the stage, where players decide

who will do what, and puzzle out - together
- the most efficient way to cook the required

meals.

After this, however, Overcooked could have
suffered the main drawback of asymmetrical

co-op: that you can fall into a predictable
pattern.

You have your role, and you stick to it, and
in some games you don’t even need to communicate

that much any more because you’re so used
to a familiar set-up.

But that’s not what happens in Overcooked.

Because no matter how well choreographed
your kitchen is at the start of the level,

it will have turned into a manic
catastrophe by the end of the stage.

Why does this always happen?

Well, it’s because there are loads of clever
bits of design that disrupt these comfortable

patterns, and force you to keep switching
roles.

So one is the wait timers on food that’s
cooking.

A burger takes a few seconds to fry, so it’s
a waste of time to stand around and wait - encouraging

players to wander off, see if they can help
elsewhere in the kitchen, and generally become

a huge nuisance.

Wait too long and your burger will start to
burn - causing other players to have to disrupt

their task to come sort out your mess.

Then there’s washing up.

Which literally everyone hates, but I think
it might also be the absolute key to the success

of Overcooked.

Because no one is the dedicated plate washer;
it doesn’t have the nice, predictable rhythm

of the other tasks; it only becomes a thing
later in the level; and no one wants to do it.

Meaning that every time you run out of clean
plates, the flow is disrupted, meals starts

burning, and those comfortable roles get completely
shaken up.

And, of course, there’s the most obvious
thing: disruptions in the levels themselves.

Moving chopping stations, ingredients on conveyer
belts, shifting kitchens, and nuisance rats

break up patterns and destroy your best laid
plans, forcing you to constantly talk through

new set-ups.

So Overcooked gets to be an asymmetrical game,
without asymmetry, because it uses things

in the level design - like weird kitchen layouts,
dirty plates, random fires, and burning burger

patties - to force players to work together,
and then constantly change their roles throughout

the stage, leading to lots of great communication.

In the best Overcooked kitchens, you’ll
never stop talking to each other.

And, if you ask me, that means it’s a hugely
successful co-op game.

Hey, thanks for watching, and cheers to my Patrons
for their support, and a special thank you

to my girlfriend for helping me get the Overcooked
footage in this video.

There’s more to cooperative gaming that
we can talk about in the future, like making

choices together, encouraging good behaviour,
solving puzzles, or adding a spicy competitive

element.

So watch this space - GMTK has historically
been very single-player focused but I’d

love to do more multiplayer stuff going forward.

You can support me and all that I do over
on Patreon.