The game my team is cooking up is called Sabotage Stew, a lighthearted cooking and strategy game where players race to complete recipe cards by placing ingredients on a shared 3 x 3 grid. Each turn, players roll to collect ingredients like ð¥, ð¯, ð, ð§, or ð¥. They can either place them anywhere on the board or they can choose to sabotage by removing or shifting items on the “cooking board.” It is a fast-paced, turn-based game that includes a bit of bluffing and interference as players compete to be the first to finish seven recipes. You can play it with 2 to 4 players, and while it works with any group, it is especially fun with friends who enjoy playful rivalry and low-stakes competition.
To better understand how other cooking and multiplayer games create tension and fun, I decided to play and compare Sabotage Stew to Overcooked, a co-op kitchen simulator by Ghost Town Games. It is available on most platforms including PC, Switch, and PlayStation, and works best (more people = more chaos = more fun!) with 2 to 4 players. In Overcooked, players must rapidly cook and serve meals together under the Mechanics of tight time constraints while navigating chaotic kitchens. The game is best suited for players who enjoy chaotic co-op gameplay that demands real-time communication and teamwork. Although it focuses on cooperation instead of sabotage, both games challenge players to stay organized under pressure and shows that a lot of fun can come from things going completely south.
While both Overcooked and Sabotage Stew center on cooking and collaboration, they approach chaos and strategy in different ways. Overcooked thrives on time-based co-op mayhem, where players struggle against environmental hazards and miscommunication. In contrast, Sabotage Stew builds strategy through spatial manipulation and light sabotage, allowing for more deliberate pacing and competitive play. These design differences heavily shape how players interact during gameplay.
In this critical play analysis, I will compare the two games Overcooked and Sabotage Stew across four categories: players, objectives, dynamics, and outcomes. While both games are centered around cooking and ingredients, they differ significantly in the roles players take on, how goals are achieved, and the kinds of player interactions they encourage.
Players
Overcooked supports 2 to 4 players who work cooperatively as chefs in increasingly chaotic kitchens. All players share the same objective, but roles emerge organically through the Dynamics of player coordination. For example, one might focus on chopping, while another washes dishes or manages the stove. The progression of the team is dependent on everyone pulling their weight when the game changes the map and forces players to shift roles or when time is running out.
In contrast, Sabotage Stew is a competitive game for 2 to 4 players. Everyone plays as a rival chef competing to complete recipes first. There are no assigned roles, but emergent behavior arises from the ability to sabotage the completion of other people’s recipes. It is completely up to the players to play aggressively, remove ingredients from the grid to slow others down, or play more conservatively, focusing on their own strategy. Rather than collaboration, it encourages individual planning, bluffing, and interference.
ObjectivesÂ
From afar, both games seem to center around addressing the opportunity of cooking and completing dishes, but these goals are structured differently. In Overcooked, the shared goal is to fulfill as many customer orders as possible within a time limit. Points are earned collectively, and success is built on player coordination, timing, and efficiency. Failure also feels communal, and so does triumph.
Sabotage Stew differs in the way that it is a race to complete seven recipes first. Players roll to receive ingredients, then choose to place or manipulate them on a shared grid. Recipes are crafted from a combination of symbols like ð¥ + ð¯ + ð¥ for âSweet Egg Custard.” However, as these recipes are very similar, players scramble to strategize ahead of their turn so their ingredients don’t get swiped from the table to help someone else complete their recipe.
The overlap in the milk in the middle square makes it mutually beneficial for the progression of the game for everyone playing. However, the small difference in placement of the either butter or honey could make a huge difference in the creation of a strawberry cake or a strawberry yogurt.
The objective is individual, and the competitive tension comes from limited space on the “cooking board,” strategic blocking, and a bit of luck in the dice roll. This leads to moments of tension as players edge each other out by one ingredient.
Dynamics
“I NEED AN ONION! CHOPPED! NOW!”
There is a very obvious difference between the games in their core dynamics. Overcooked thrives on real-time pressure. Overcooked adds onto this layer of pressure by utilizing the Mechanics driving social emergence like the shifting kitchen. Players must multitask quickly in kitchens that shift and obstruct, from moving trucks to platforms literally moving themselves. Movement is often restricted by counters, obstacles, other players and thus, the boundary of each level is clearly defined because players can’t leave the kitchen. The stress is built into the design, and the rhythm is defined by a loop of urgency, mistake, and recovery, which fuels an Aesthetic of panic, laughter, and teamwork that keeps players engaged.
This moment was stressful because the pot was giving us warning signs and the deck of the ship suddenly shifted making our team reconfigure our designated tasks.
Sabotage Stew is turn-based, creating a more thoughtful pacing. Players are not rushed by a clock but by each otherâs progress. The dynamic tension comes from deciding when to help yourself and when to hurt someone else. The ability to move or remove ingredients creates a strategic layer that blends spatial reasoning with social strategy.
Outcomes
Finally, the outcomes of the game are different. In Overcooked, a level ends with a shared score based on how many meals were completed. Players either pass the threshold together or must retry. The Aesthetic of fellowship emerges from cooperative mechanics, as the shared outcome makes it rewarding for groups who enjoy cooperative success.
Sabotage Stew has only one winner. The first player to complete seven recipes wins the game, while others are left scrambling for ingredients. Our game is much more competitive and the sabotage aspect of our game introduces risk-reward scenarios that can backfire.
Cooperation Under Pressure: Lessons from Overcooked
Overall, I truly enjoyed playing Overcooked, and looking at it from a game designer’s perspective, there are multiple elements that stood out to me as particularly clever. For one, the lack of explicit roles allows for players to dynamically self-organize into task-specific roles. After a few levels, my friend and I were starting to get good at our respective roles where I chopped and plated while she fetched and washed. But just as we grew comfortable, the map layout shifted which made us rewire our specialty roles to learn other tasks.
In Overcooked, players can fall off the truck and depending on which truck you’re on, the player’s role changes.
When compared to other games in the same genre, like Plate Up!, Overcooked does well in incorporating the environment as another challenge. In Plate Up!, players can methodically optimize their kitchen layout, which offers a more relaxed and strategic experience. In contrast, Overcooked treats the environment as a dynamic obstacle, keeping gameplay unpredictable and engaging.
In Plate Up!, you can place down the stove at an optimal location near the tables so the player can take orders and cook almost instantaneously.
This first aspect of the lack of explicit roles and the addition of environmental constraints keeps gameplay fresh and reinforces the importance of fluid communication. This design quite literally pivots players and encourages natural collaboration seamlessly.
Balancing Chaos and Accessibility in Co-op Game Design
Even though the design of this game seems seamless, there are some things I would want to improve. For example, for new players, the very element that makes this game fun, time pressure, can get frustrating and overwhelming at times. For example, if there is a difference in dynamic between the players like an older sibling and a younger sibling the stress can easily cause panic and might lead them to disengage with the game. There are players, like my mom, that believe that controlling a character while managing orders was âtoo much at once.â To improve accessibility for players of all ages, the game could offer a âchill modeâ with extended timers or slower-moving levels to make the game more accessible to neurodivergent players or those who prefer low-stress experiences. For example, when I was younger, I enjoyed the game Purple Place, for it’s laid back cake completion series. In comparing Overcooked to another game in the same genre like Purple Place, game designers can realize what aspects of their game work and don’t work and hopefully gain inspiration from the good of other games to incorporate into theirs.
In Purple Place, the simplistic design of the recipe on the top left corner and the purple, option buttons on the conveyor belt make game play natural and accessible.
Two Approaches to Chaos
All in all, Overcooked is a great family and team bonding game that requires players to communicate and adapt. There is one thing the game designers of Overcooked should be mindful of which is how stress impacts different audiences. Without accessibility options, the game may unintentionally exclude players who would otherwise enjoy its charm.
While both games embrace culinary chaos, Overcooked turns kitchens into communication puzzles under pressure, whereas Sabotage Stew is a turn-based arena of bluffing and sabotage. These differences highlight two radically different visions of fun: frantic coordination vs. strategic disruption.
Picture Citations:
https://hypixel.net/threads/anyone-else-remember-purble-place.4016404/
