Digital Fusion – Games Based on Food and Cooking

Food has a long relationship with gaming. From the earliest video games, tasty treats have shown up in a wide array of genres. The most obvious use of foods in gaming is as health-restoring power-ups.

It is quite common in the gaming world for foods of all kinds to have healing powers. Shot in the face by a zombie? No problem, eat this apple. Fallen from a cliff in Minecraft? All good, just chomp on this piece of fish.

That’s not the only way that food is used, of course. Sometimes, food is used front and centre in the game and becomes integral to the story and the premise of the title. Some of these food games flop more than a badly cooked souffle but others are bursting with flavour with every bite.

If you want your next gaming session to leave your taste buds tingling and your stomach rumbling, then check out these titles.

Fast Food Tycoon / Pizza Syndicate

Fast Food Tycoon (known as Pizza Syndicate in Europe) is one of many business simulation games to have touched on the food industry. While more than 20 years old today, Fast Food Tycoon features many elements that have become staples of this genre of game today.

You begin with a single restaurant and are tasked with crafting recipes, styling the interior of your establishment, managing employees, managing finances, and marketing. Succeed in these areas and you can begin to expand your empire to more locations with 20 different cities in which to dominate the fast food market.

Unlike any other food business simulation game, Fast Food Tycoon has a unique element that touches on the criminal underworld that’s present in some cities. Join the local Mafia and you will be sent on missions that can help your business or even result in your untimely demise.

Each city has its own soundtrack and a mix of different characters, helping to set the scene for each location.

A sequel, known as Fast Food Tycoon 2 and Pizza Connection 2 was released in 2001, offering 10 new cities from New York to Moscow and similar underground mission mechanics.

17 years later, another sequel launched on Steam with a campaign mode that lets you go from a sole-trading pizza baker from the streets of Rome to a multinational pizza conglomerate like Domino’s as you conquer the world, one marinara at a time.

Mega Multiplier Papa Paolo’s Pizzeria

Many of the best known online casinos offer a huge catalogue of slot games for their players to enjoy. This means you’ll find hundreds or even thousands of different online slots, each with their own unique theme.

A popular genre of slot games is food, with many different options that cater to every taste.

Mega Multiplier Papa Paolo’s Pizzeria is one of these food-based slot games. Serving up sides of free spins and bonus rounds, it has 2,000 separate paylines that you can dine out on.

While slot games have featured food symbols on their reels for over a century, Papa Paolo’s Pizzeria takes this to a whole new level as you join the Italian chef in his kitchen. The reels are filled with food-themed symbols that’ll leave you craving a pizza.

Candy Crush

Candy Crush is one of the most successful casual and mobile games of all time. It was originally released in April 2012 as a Facebook social game, becoming an overnight success.

Following this, King, the game’s developers, released versions for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows PCs. There is also a stand alone browser game that is compatible with almost any device.

The original Candy Crush Saga continues to be enjoyed by more than a quarter of a billion people each month, making it one of the most popular video games played today.

There are also several sequels, including Candy Crush Soda Saga, Candy Crush Jelly Saga, and Candy Crush Friends Saga, all of which have enjoyed similar success.

All variants of the game are based around sweets and use a matching mechanic similar to the popular Bejewelled game.