Slowcooker

Post date: 02-Jan-2017 23:08:54

Game by: absinthe_boy

Reviewed by: Simon Ferré

Here's a bit of marketing spiel by the author:

It's pretty simple. All the excitement and thrill of creating a culinary masterpiece in this simulation thriller. Can you serve your dinner party with the perfect casserole? Will the pulled pork poison them? Will the vegetable curry taste like slurry? Or will your culinary talents prevail?

So on to the game proper. Another tape file with no loading screen. Not to worry, but it is great when a loading screen makes the entry look exciting only to find the game itself is a pile of turds. Here's the screen (complete with spelling mistake) that comes on when the game starts:

Nothing overly dramatic there, so on to the game itself. Firstly it asks you what you'd like to cook, and gives you 4 dishes to choose from. Then it asks you which heat setting you want to use. Then it gives you options on how long in hours to wait.

Once you've selected your options the slow cooker is drawn (is it me or does it look more like a flower pot?). The author has spared all expense in creating a lifelike portrayal of a slow cooker. It even has a dial on it. I was half expecting a red LED to light up, and a constant ticking sound to accompany the timer counting down, but sadly, no. The game then sat there and appeared to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. This was the screen that greeted me:

And that was that. Only I pressed any key and still nothing. I pressed a key again. Nothing. It was only after a few more presses (not sure how many exactly) that I was told my meal hadn't cooked for long enough and had given my guests food poisoning. I suppose I had interrupted some PAUSE commands. At that point the game stopped, and I was left with an OK message at the bottom of the screen.

That's it? No score, no "Press any key to play again..." prompt. I suppose it saves me from running the game again to sit and wait in real time for a virtual meal to virtually cook itself. I did contemplate running it again and leaving it, erm, timed, to see how accurate the timings are.

Out of curiosity I tried to run the game a couple more times, trying different foods and different combinations of time and heat setting, hoping to cook a great meal, and not one meal turned out ok. I'm wondering if there's some sort of bug in the calculations in the BASIC program, or if it's a true reflection on how slow cooking works for some people.

Anyway, there's little left to say about this rather poor effort. There's not much more mundane than a virtual slow cooker I suppose.

Score: 1 slow meal in 2 shakes of a lamb's hotpot.