Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!

Overview

Originally released in Early Access on January 29, 2020 and released in full on October 14, 2020, Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! is the third entry in the Cook, Serve, Delicious! series. Set after Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!, CSD3 sees the player traveling a post-war United States in a food truck, serving food and fighting off attacking food trucks with the help of two new robot companions, Cleaver and Whisk.

Story

Four years after the events of CSD2, the Teragon Supertower suddenly explodes, demolishing the Cook, Serve, Delicious restaurant inside. The only survivor, the former chef of Cook, Serve, Delicious is pulled from the rubble by Cleaver and Whisk, two search and recovery androids. With the restaurant destroyed beyond repair, Cleaver and Whisk offer the chef to convert their recovery truck into a CSD-branded food truck, in hopes of raising funds touring the United States so the crew can compete in the Iron Cook Foodtruck Challenge. Along the way, Cleaver and Whisk discuss their past, from the Blue War to the changes the United States has undergone since.

Gameplay

Similar to the previous two entries in the series, CSD3 sees the player managing a stressful cooking environment through increasingly demanding typing and button-based food orders. However, the new food truck environment brings with it a number of changes from the formula of the previous two. As the player is no longer inside of a restaurant, chores are no longer present in the game. As well, side dishes and drinks are no longer their own food type, with dishes from those food types being turned into entrees or removed entirely.

Stations

The food truck comes equipped with two different types of station: the prep station and the holding station. Some foods can only be prepared at prep stations, some can only be prepared in holding stations, and some require the prep station at some point but can be begun in the holding station.

While the food truck is en route to the next stop, orders will begin to arrive, taking up one prep station alongside the left-hand side of the screen. Upon selecting a given prep station, the player will begin preparing the order, requiring them to hit the buttons associated with each item in the order, before finalizing the dish. If a dish is finished before the food truck arrives at its destination, it will be packed up to await serving. Upon reaching a stop, customers will arrive to pick up their orders, however they will not place new orders except on routes with VIP customers. The food truck begins with seven prep stations, but this can be increased to as many as fourteen.

While attending to prep station orders, the player must also pay attention to holding station orders, which will arrive in bulk upon leaving a stop. Upon selecting any holding station, the player will be presented with each holding station item they have on their menu, as well as a number showing the amount of orders for each menu item. Upon reaching a stop, customers will begin to order holding station items, however they will not place advance orders. Foods in holding stations will slowly spoil, however any food left in a holding station upon leaving a stop can be reused at the next stop. The food truck begins with four holding stations, but this can be increased to as many as eight.

New to CSD3, the player can hit a single button to have Cleaver and Whisk automatically serve all finished dishes, rather than having to manually select each prep station one-by-one. Dishes that have not been prepared, or that require an extra step of preparation before serving, can not be auto-served.

Food Truck Attacks

While en route to a destination, the Cook, Serve, Delicious! food truck will sometimes be attacked by food trucks from enemy restaurants. These attacks have a range of effects, depending on which restaurant the truck is associated with. If a route has a food truck attack, it will almost always be denoted on the map, alongside which brand food truck will be attacking. The only exception to this is in the Iron Cook Runway, in which multiple attacks can occur per route, and all defensive upgrades are automatically disabled.

Below is a list of each type of food truck, and the effects their attack have on the player's food truck:

Food Rank

A new feature in CSD3, every food item comes with a rank from 0-5. This rank is determined by the general complexity and difficulty of a dish, with 0 being incredibly easy dishes and 5 denoting a daunting dish. While 0-rank dishes are easier, higher rank dishes earn more money, and some routes will require menus reach a minimum overall rank.

Routes

Replacing shifts from CSD2, routes are the main focus of the campaign. Each city has a set number of routes, and each route has preset days within it. Every day within a route is the same length, and will have the same number of stops, but are made different by the player's menu selection, as well as set requirements for each day. Requirements can range from food rank requirements, such as needing the player's menu to meet a certain overall rank, to theme requirements such as only allowing breakfast foods or burgers, to mechanical challenges such as disallowing foods which can be auto-served, and any combination therein.

At the end of each route, the player is awarded a medal depending on how they did, with a gold medal for a perfect route, a silver medal for making fewer than 8 average or bad orders, and a bronze medal if the player had fewer than 15 average or bad orders.

Food Truck Upgrades

Replacing restaurant upgrades from the previous games, food truck upgrades allow the food truck's capabilities to be improved and expanded by spending spare parts earned upon leveling up.

Available upgrades include additional prep stations (up to seven extra stations), additional holding stations (up to four extra stations), heat lamps to keep holding station food fresh for longer, cooking time regulators to increase the time it takes for food to burn, special analyzers to keep customers patient for longer, reinforcements to prevent food truck attacks, and more.

As well, restaurant customization has been replaced by food truck customization, allowing the player to decorate their food truck as they see fit. These items can be purchased using coins or spare parts, or earned by doing well in certain routes. They offer no gameplay benefit outside of sprucing up the truck.

Food Catalog

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! features the series' largest food catalog yet. Almost every menu item from CSD1 and CSD2 returns in this game, the only exceptions being some drink items (specifically soda, wine, beer, coffee, lemonade, horchata, hot tea, iced tea, and juice), and hash browns.

Taking their place are 80 new food items, as listed below: