Contract Cooks

Contract Cooks is a cooking game about taking short-term jobs in kitchens across the food industry. You choose contracts from an agency job board and work each location for three to seven days, meeting conditions suited to that venue. Some kitchens are clean and ready; others have been left in disarray by the cook who walked out an hour earlier.

Contracts and kitchens

Each contract starts with one dish on the menu, usually a simple one, and can introduce new challenges as the job goes on. Office cafes bring rush hour, fine dining brings critics, and other venues have their own conditions. You can rearrange each kitchen, upgrade stations and add an open fridge, though the electricity bill still applies. Kitchens do not carry over between contracts.

Cooking together

Cooking uses quick, recognisable steps. Making coffee involves grinding, pulling, frothing and pouring; making bread means mixing, shaping, proving and baking. In co-op, you and a partner have four hands between you to pass things back and forth, keep each other stocked or work on the same dish.

Daily choices and supplies

At the start of each day, you choose a modifier. Blackouts, impatient customers and unfamiliar dishes can make a shift harder, while options such as automatic stock subscriptions or loans for better equipment can ease the workload. Loans come at the cost of revenue, and you can combine easier modifiers for a more relaxed shift or take on tougher conditions for a larger payout.

Ingredients need to be ordered and replenished. You collect deliveries from a very reliable delivery company, then organise supplies on shelves or leave them in their boxes.

Progress and difficulty

Every contract pays, with harder conditions bringing higher rewards. Your earnings build your resume and unlock dishes, cuisines, locations and special contracts; these unlocks carry over between jobs.

Casual contracts have no timers and are forgiving of mistakes. Heroic contracts add patience timers and real consequences, with payouts that reflect the added challenge.