Co-Op Kaiju Horror Cooking Preview - Serving up Hot Friendslop

Whether you feel positively or negatively about the term, "friendslop" games have been more than a little common lately. First (arguably), you had Phasmophobia, the patient zero of friendslop, if you will. Next came a slew of other games that had similar vibes but which all provided their own twists. Lethal Company added creepypastas to the mix, and then games like REPO added an extra dose of chaos and insanity.

Now, the indie-gaming mavericks over at Strange Scaffold are bringing us Co-Op Kaiju Horror Cooking, a friendslop game about cooking meals for Kaiju. The developers invited us to a hands-off preview session to learn more, and it seems to be offering a way in for those who previously haven’t been able to enjoy these games with their friends. 

What is Co-Op Kaiju Horror Cooking?

Other than being one of the most accurately descriptive titles I’ve ever seen, Co-Op Kaiju Horror Cooking is a first-person ‘friendslop’ game that sees you and several friends playing monks who descend into a dungeon to try and acquire the sort of food that will make a Kaiju creature happy enough to not attack your island monastery.

The focus is very much on finding the right combination of ingredients to please the monster, with each Kaiju preferring different flavors and ingredients. You and your friends descend into the dungeon, search rooms and fight creatures, and try to create the perfect meal, usually by running underneath different flavored geysers with whatever food you’ve managed to gather. 

Once you’ve all acquired enough to please your hungry monster friend, you head back to the surface and launch it into their mouth with a catapult, or at least, with some sort of ancient military device (they were very specific about the historically accurate naming of said device). If you do well enough, the Kaiju leaves you alone for another in-game year, and you all head back to the monastery to rest.

With each in-game year, the story progresses, and ongoing generations of monks work together to maintain their home and deal with the ongoing losses as older monks die out, leaving the younger ones to fend for themselves. 

A Unique Bucket of Friendslop

 While Co-Op Kaiju Horror Cooking is certainly a friendslop game--it even has a ‘chanting’ mechanic that you can almost guarantee is going to be in a lot of upcoming YouTube videos--it’s a friendslop game with a difference.

Firstly, it’s a lot more forgiving. When you die or get hurt, you can be revived by other players taking your heart back to the surface, and the tone is overall a little lighter than most other games in the genre. Sure, “horror” is in the title, but at the very least it seems unlikely that you’ll be running for the duvet playing this once. 

As well as that, you’ve got the story elements that are being included. Normally, friendslop games will focus more on having background lore rather than a forward-facing narrative. This game opts for a more direct inclusion.

Between each round, you can elect to go around the monastery talking to the other monks who live there. If you do, and pay attention to the changes that happen to the locale each year, then you will get a proper narrative to follow, not just hints at the creepy stuff that has been going on behind the scenes. However, this story is completely optional. If you want, you can ignore all of the people in the settlement, upgrade your character, and then just head straight back into the main game. 

It’s a nice change to have something extra to come back for each game, and it might even give the game an edge over others in the same genre. If you’ve ever failed to get into it, this might be the game that makes it click for you. 

Worth Your Time? 

It bears many marked similarities to other friendslop titles. At the end of the day, you’re collecting items with your friends, and you have proximity voice chat (albeit with a speaking tube that allows you to broadcast your voice to the entire map at once). It’s very possible to completely lose your one friend, only to discover he was eaten by something unknowable while no one was looking.

Realistically, it’s tough to say whether Co-Op Kaiju Horror Cooking will stand out from the crowd without getting a chance to go hands-on, but the inclusion of a narrative and a bit more accessibility for players who’ve struggled with similar games in the past might clinch it. 

On top of that, you have to acknowledge that this is Strange Scaffold we’re talking about here. They have a history of producing games that all have at least one interesting thing about them, and it seems this game won’t be any different.

This is a friendslop game with biblical influence, and apparently one that wasn’t necessarily informed by trend-chasing, according to the devs themselves at least. The real test will be whether the game is enticing enough to attract both streamers and the players who are already deeply invested in other, similar games.

Co-Op Kaiju Horror Cooking Preview | Final Thoughts

Co-Op Kaiju Horror Cooking launches July 29, but if you just can't wait that long, then you can sign up to playtest it on Steam right away. For the next two weeks, the game will be available for an open playtest, allowing gamers to try out the entire game as much as they want over the next fortnight, as well as giving us the opportunity to help and steer the direction of the game.

It's all part of the company's new policy of radical transparency. In fact, they also shared details of two other games that have been in development for a month or less. Both Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator and Truck-Kun is Supporting Me From Another World are in early stages of development, but Strange Scaffold wants their players to know about it, and be as involved as they can be. So head over to the company's Steam developer page to check out all of the latest info on all of these games, too.

Strange Scaffold invited TechRaptor to a hands-off preview session about Co-Op Kaiju Horror Cooking.