Space Savory Review – Long Kitchen Journey

When you are stranded after a space adventure went horribly wrong, you need aliens to fund your trip home. Space Savory is a dark humor cooking game where you cook various dishes for aliens and slowly build funds. Developed and published by DelusionArt Studio, you also imprison aliens to sell or harvest more ingredients. There’s a lot of shady activity but anything goes if you want to go home.

You are an astronaut on a space mission when your spaceship hits an unknown obstacle., but luckily you land in a place with breathable air, water, and some sustenance. Returning to Earth is possible but you must pay for the repairs. This involves running a space restaurant of sorts and earning money by selling food. Your preparation doesn’t need to be great, though, it just needs to be satisfactory enough until you can leave.

It’s a silly story that guides your actions, but you won’t think of it much. Most of the time, I was focused on earning money, harvesting more ingredients, or learning about different alien races. Whenever the story was in focus, it was usually the tutorial teaching me how to play the game. It also guides the motivation to purchase fuel to move around until you return to Earth. Otherwise, you won’t be paying much attention to the story.

My biggest concern was the length of the tutorial, which is considerably long and goes through the basics too slowly. There’s a lot to remember and new processes to learn, creating a tall learning curve. I didn’t find it hard to learn, instead it was frustrating that there was alwways something new. Even when you feel you know enough to operate the restaurant on your own, it still took forever to get there.

Gameplay involves serving customers, preparing dishes, and acquiring more ingredients. Customers don’t get impatient, letting you take all the time you need. Each dish usually involves a mini-game or two. While customers are your main source of revenue, you can also capture them for ingredient harvesting or trade them for special chips.

Everything you do reflects Space Savory‘s dark humor. The condition of your kitchen is horrible. Customers don’t care how long you take as long as their dish arrives within four days. Prisoners can survive on a diet of butter and water. Once your prisoner is sufficiently fed, you trade them for resources. I loved the dark implications of your actions as it drives the point that you must do unpleasant things to survive.

Cooking perfect dishes is hard, but thankfully the game doesn’t penalize you. While this isn’t a cozy game, I appreciated having the chance to make mistakes without consequence. The mini-games are difficult, but it’s nice to know even abject failures are still accepted. Even when you are running low on resources and don’t have enough prisoners, there’s always a way to bounce back.

However, Space Savory suffers from two flaws. While there is always a way to bounce back, progress can take a long time. It’s not hard to rearrange a menu while you gather ingredients for everything else, but you must be willing to spend lots of time accumulating resources and serving customers. I didn’t dislike the process, but it did take a toll on my patience. Coupled with the long tutorial, it almost felt like the game is artificially drawing out your playtime.

The game’s kindness in forgiving mistakes is pleasant, but it’s also a double-edged sword. Since nothing you do can ruin a dish, there’s no pressure to refine your skills. The mini-games are just challenges for a high score. Even if you get a better quality, it’s not always worth the effort. When the tutorial ends and you gain full control of the restaurant, I felt like I was going through the motions. That dampens the humor aspect since it is eventually replaced by the drudgery of repetitive work.

Space Savory heavily leans into its dark humor by making it clear there are no good guys. Service is terrible, your activities are shady, and that’s just perfect for you. Doing anything you can to remain profitable is both uncomfortable and ridiculous in the best way. However, gameplay takes a long time and you end up waiting for many aspects to fall into place. But if you need a dark laugh and a goal to work towards, this is not a bad choice.

Victor reviewed Space Savory on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and our score will not be changed.