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Bake or Break — A Cooking Encounter for Draw Steel's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #1 | 4.720 | 4.720 |
| Overall | #2 | 4.230 | 4.230 |
| Enjoyment | #4 | 3.960 | 3.960 |
| Theme | #5 | 4.240 | 4.240 |
| Usability | #9 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I've neither played nor heard of Overcooked, so I'm missing the reference part of this submission, but this looks perfectly enjoyable on its own without that extra context! Love the twist of turning rushed baking in combat rounds, and it was very smart of you to make the gremlins slow minions. Their mere presence seems hassle enough to deal with for our poor heroic bakers.
This is a silly and charming submission—but one that feels like it can fit into a campaign with some work rather than being tossed into the purely one-shot material basket. Very well put together.
This encounter is very fun and lighthearted in a way that I am jealous of; having a harder time loosening up and creating encounters of this variety myself.
The only thing I can say is that it would be nice to have a list of the different ingredients and the location of their specific storage box (I'm figuring the only ingredients are Flour, Eggs, Cream, and Berries, since they're the only bits bolded in the recipe section - but I've never played Overcooked, so I'm not sure if that's a holdover from the game).
Overall, this reads very easily, and seems like something my friends would enjoy playing as a minigame/encounter within a larger campaign. I feel comfortable and equipped to run it by reading the rules.
A part of me wishes there was more integration with Draw Steel rules and mechanics (conditions, skill checks outside of Cooking (maybe to curtail gremlins?), a title for an exceptional performance, etc.) - though I don't have an exact answer about how to implement those ideas, and can also see that introducing additional (and perhaps unnecessary) complexity to the minigame.
Nice Work!
Ok, yeah, making a list of ingredients would make sense. You're right, those are the only ones, and you can easily figure out which storage box contains which ingredient on the map itself, but it wouldn't hurt to clarify that further. Thanks for the nice words!
Taking elements from other media and making them work in TTRPGs is always one of my favorite things! As soon as I saw the map I was giggling over the Overcooked comparison, and I also just really dig the unique way you integrated a pseudo-montage into this. I want to run this encounter, I bet it would be so fun. At first I was a bit bummed that it was all just one minion, but I think with the amount of complexity in making the cakes, that was actually a really smart move, and it allows the heroes to designate one or two of them to focus on clearing gremlins while the rest focus on cakes. What a fun time!
Thank you! I read "unique way you integrated a pseudo-montage into this" and was like "I did?" and then I understood what you meant. Yeah! It just came naturally to me as I was writing it, wasn't something I was trying to get at from the start.
Bake Steel! Draw Cake! ... Bake Cake!
I've a feeling for a lot of groups (mine included) this encounter will go from The Bear to The Muppets over the course of a few rounds. Looks like a blast.
Glad this one popped up in my submissions to review! Very playful concept, and everything is clear, easy to prep.
Great execution!
Really inspired idea, never would've thought to combine Draw Steel with Overcooked! An intricate but easy to digest supplement. Super creative and impressive that you were able to fit it into 2 pages :)
And I had room to spare! Surprised even myself. Thank you for the comment... wait! You're a gremlin! Get away from my food!!
I did say it was easy to digest... 😈
For a certain type of campaign or one shot, this is an amazing supplement! I'm talking cooking battle/competiton Anime style stories, with competing bands of chefs! It writes itself.
So very creative, with loads crammed into 2 pages.
It was only a matter of time before Overcooked was adapted to Draw Steel. This entry provides all of the components of a solid Overcooked level: dealing with annoying pests, having one specific person that calls the shots (polder/time raider) and is probably super annoying about it, and a punishing consequence in case of failure. It nails the theme, is perfectly laid out, and has helpful maps and tools for the director to run the encounter with ease.
Having played Overcooked myself, my only complaint is that characters with a fly speed or the ability to jump, along with characters being able to move through each other's spaces with no penalty, makes this encounter a lot easier than its inspiration. Otherwise, great entry!
I considered flying characters and decided that it's fine. There are a lot of character options (like the Summoner's Minion Bridge) that make the task much easier. But being able to freely move through each other's spaces is definitely something that needs to be adjusted in the future.
Unsurprisingly, this is great! Really captures the chaos of overcooked. I actually have my players at a wedding in my current campaign, so I'll be running this.
One question: do kitchen gremlins only appear on tier 1s, or is there a set number of them from the start of the encounter and tier 1s just add more?
They appear at the start of each round as per the Gremlin Groups table. They spawn adjacent to washtubs (no lore behind it; I think you can justify it by saying it's fey magic), except for the gremlins that spawn on a Tier 1 outcome—those spawn from underneath the ingredients that were used in the test.
I *love* the kitchen gremlins!
This is absolutely exquisite! The concepts and chaos of Overcooked baked into a delicious Draw Steel encounter. Can't wait to put this in the right game.
Such a whimsical idea to turn an encounter in Draw Steel into a game of overcooked! Though not my normal type of encounter, I think this would be a good denouement to Delian Tomb.
I can see myself running this at my table.