SEDAP! A Culinary Adventure

A cooking game built around a specific, well-loved culture

SEDAP! A Culinary Adventure, released 22 May 2025 by developer kopiforge and publishers Isolated Games Publishing and IndieArk, reworks the now-familiar Overcooked-style chaotic-cooking formula around Southeast Asian cuisine and Khaya Island, a fictional setting steeped in real regional culture. Players hunt wild ingredients that fight back, wield a wok with genuine physical weight, and race against the clock to plate iconic dishes, alone or with a friend in local or online co-op. The specificity of that premise resonates strongly across the review sample. One reviewer calls it "absolutely delightful" and "oozing with passion," praising everything "from the level design to the equipment and, of course, the dishes" as "a love letter to Southeast Asia," and singling out a soundtrack "composed using traditional instruments." Another reviewer, writing as a Malaysian player, describes being "super proud" to see "Southeast Asian food and culture represented like this," adding that the game "feels like I'm in a real kitchen," down to how "the way you cook with the wok? It actually feels like using a wok."

That specificity extends into thoughtful design choices meant to welcome players unfamiliar with the region's food. One reviewer notes the game "introduces each dish with a handy recipe card and flavor texts at the beginning of the level," so "no worries if you aren't from the region," framing the game as both entertainment and light cultural education, "you might even find something to try the next time you travel." Several reviewers frame the gameplay loop itself as a genuine evolution of the Overcooked template rather than a reskin, with one describing "a unique Overcooked style co-op game with some additions like a combat system, collecting ingredients and some QTEs while cooking," a sentiment echoed broadly enough across the positive sample to suggest the added systems land as intended for most players who try them.

A launch weighed down by real, acknowledged bugs

Set against that goodwill, the review sample's most heavily corroborated criticism concerns the state the game shipped in. One reviewer, playing with a partner, reports the launch "wasn't great" but credits the developers as "incredibly transparent" while "absolutely smashing out bug fixes," suggesting the mixed early reception was understandable given real technical problems rather than a fundamental design failure. Other reviewers are considerably more frustrated in the moment: one reports "extremely annoying bugs and crashes," noting "controller and menus do not work well sometimes," an inability to "swap characters," and a game that "constantly disconnects/loses connection with host," calling the bugs "a major mood killer" given how frequently they occur. A separate reviewer catalogues "frequent disconnects" and characters "getting stuck on cook stations" as the primary reasons for an initial negative review, though they explicitly note these issues "have since been fixed by the developers," a pattern of active, responsive patching that recurs across multiple independent reports in the sample.

That responsiveness matters for a co-op-first game where a single dropped connection can end a whole session, and reviewers who returned after updates generally describe a smoother experience than those reviewing at launch. Still, for a game whose core pitch depends on a stable two-player kitchen, the frequency of early connection and control bugs represents a real dent in its opening impression, one severe enough that it appears to have meaningfully split the review sample between early adopters and those who waited.

A difficulty curve that undercuts the cozy pitch

Beyond bugs specifically, a second, widely corroborated complaint concerns how sharply the difficulty escalates once players move past the earliest levels, directly at odds with the game's cozy-cooking-game marketing. One reviewer states plainly the game "is NOT A COZY CO-OP game" once later stages arrive, warning "if you really want to enjoy the game as a casual, don't aim for 3 stars" because "this game will not only challenge but also frustrate you." Another pair of reviewers, excited for the game's Southeast Asian elements specifically, report being caught off guard by the intensity: "we really thought this was a fun time cosy cooking game. We were WRONG," describing struggling "to get three stars even on the early stages because there are so many things to do in such a short time."

A related, more structural complaint concerns level design itself as levels grow larger. One reviewer describes spending "more time walking around the map and finding where things are than actually playing a cooking game," concluding later stages feel like "more a memory game than a fun cooking game" of remembering ingredient and equipment locations spread "2-3 times" the size of comparable Overcooked stages. Another reviewer frames the same issue as wasted potential, calling the concept "cute" but arguing that once the game "boils itself down to just Overcooked with additional annoyances in running around a bigger map with combat, it's not very innovative or fun," and cautioning the experience leans heavily on having a committed co-op partner to feel worthwhile.

Verdict

SEDAP! A Culinary Adventure is, by its own review sample's account, a sincere and well-crafted tribute to Southeast Asian food and culture wrapped around a genuinely inventive twist on the Overcooked formula, let down at launch by real, developer-acknowledged bugs and a difficulty curve that outpaces its cozy framing once maps grow larger and stakes rise. The gap between its strong English-language score and its noticeably softer all-language score, tied partly to reported multiplayer achievement issues, suggests some of that friction has weighed more heavily on parts of its international audience than on others. Players drawn to its cultural premise and willing to ride out early patches, or play solo with the easy mode, should find plenty to love; those specifically chasing a relaxed, low-stress cooking game should wait or temper their expectations once the early levels give way to the real challenge.