Little Kitty, Big City
Little Kitty, Big City
Game
Game2022
Recipe for Disaster
Developer Dapper Penguin Studios
Recipe for Disaster is a management sim that captures the fast-paced, drama-filled environment of a professional kitchen and dining room. Build your dream restaurant, create recipes, design menus and manage your staff, all while contending with demanding customers and disastrous situations! From the Steam store page
182 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Sep 30, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
55
Mixed
97 positive · 79 negative
95% range 48–62%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 97 | 79 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
6 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
516 of 731 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 182 · most liked firstWhile this is a competent management game, it's really not a very good kitchen simulator for a couple of reasons that irk me. It's more like Theme Hospital without all the fun unlocks and in-jokes. There's a bunch of missing kitchen processes. There's no dish pit, there's no prep work or concept of mise, there's no expo, there isn't side work (except cleaning, if you assign such) for the waitstaff. A bunch of the stations are named incorrectly, e.g. it's just called "stove" and not saute.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Warning for all future buyers: The game company doesn't exist anymore, so there is not going to be any patches / bug fixes or such in the future. I have neutral opinion about the game, but there is only thumbs up or down.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →bought this game way early on. developer completely abandoned it randomly and released it out of ea. it will never be updated again. tons of basic ♥♥♥♥ missing from the game, tons of other ♥♥♥♥ broken. now you can get it for free (forever) on epic games store between feb 9 - 16, so its essentially f2p abandonware now. i like the basic game design and the artstyle, but its so broken and incomplete none of that ♥♥♥♥ matters. im an idiot for paying for this and ♥♥♥♥ this dev. im never buying…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game could be fun but I really don't like the unrealistic recipes the game uses. Most of the dishes have a combo of different proteins that just don't go together like clams, salmon and maybe squid all boiled together (YUCK) when the recipe's name suggests just clams. I tried using just one, the clams, with garlic, onion and lemon. It wouldn't let that be on the menu because the ingredients didn't cost enough. It would be much more fun if you could actually make a recipe that made sense.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is dead, devs abandoned it. Dont buy. Edit in response to dev: Ah the classic "negative reviews like YOURS are the reason we failed" not because we over-estimated our scope, biting off more than we can chew. Youve asked for a review of the current product, so I can give it. Its unfinished and unpolished. What few mechanics that do work as intended are done well, but you can tell the game wasn't built to be played for long legacy-style play sessions. Just a few hours into one playthrough…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Devs abandoned the game one month after release. Another good example as to why you shouldn't opt into Early Access with small-time, unknown developers. They frequently get in over their heads and abandon projects, leading to a disappointing experience. Take your $15 and put it towards a better game. Edit - April 2024 Since the developer decided to respond to my review, I've decided to follow-up for anyone curious. This game did not receive frequent, free content updates after release. I…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →DO NOT BUY GAME IS DEAD more then likely not going to get updated as the Dev have left the game
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Lots of good ideas and solidly put together, but the design is seriously lacking and results in a game that doesn't really do any given thing well. Recipe construction doesn't really matter. Just make sure you include certain things the customer wants. The economy game isn't at all balanced. The aesthetics of restaurant layout design is very straightforward and not challenging. This game was rushed out and abandoned, and it unfortunately shows. Better design and more time would have made this a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Any updates perhaps? Or are we done with the game? Because if we're done with the game, there is a serious lack of content and polish to it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game developer says they are not keeping the studio running to game seems null and void as issues will not be fixed.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A potentially good game ruined by bugs and unintended issues. The recipe editor is easily the best part of the game but that has some small issues (i.e. prepping an item with spices/rubs and then deep-frying it doesn't count as deep-fried). There's also some great mechanics/stats with employees, customers, etc. but it still feels half-baked. Even the sims-like aspect of customizing the restaurant has not a lot to customize with. A little longer in the oven would have greatly improved this game,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game that was being developed but now is abandoned! If your thinking of buying the game it would be advisable to read the discussion forum first as the game is for now abandoned!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like this game. However there is a serious lack of updates in regard to the game considering I purchased it before it's completion. There's been 1 update in the beginning August that they considered 'major' but hasn't been updated it since. I get more updates from 10+ yr old games like the sims then I do on this game. Because of the lack of progress, it's severely underdeveloped and there's not much progress to be made/not many game hours to be clocked. Maybe check on it in 2024.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cute, but after an hour or so you're done with it. The number of items is extremely low, there is on progression to speak of, and setting everything up is trivial. And once you've set up the restaurant, you just wait for a few in-game days for money to accumulate, and then you simply add another set of tables and hire an extra character.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like the idea of the game, however... The structure of created dishes is... very fickle. In real life, you know how to do the steps or even how to make things you, your family and friends think taste good. Even when you make mistakes you get closer, but this feels like a useless struggle. I feel like it takes too much time and effort to figure it out. More than it's worth, not that figuring it out is a bad thing to do. But it doesn't feel rewarding to me. I've played for a bit, and tried…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you're looking for a really polished game, this is not it my friend. Get it on sale. While I appreciate what they were trying to do, this game is actually very unsatisfying after an hour of game play. The recipe creation is probably the thing that I hate the absolute most. It doesn't make sense, even with all the guides, and you don't need to add anything or do anything to actually make a decent recipe which is disappointing. Especially when you decide to max ingredients and get negative…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game gets very fast, very quickly. if you like the fast pace games then this would be for you, As for me, I do not like these kind of games. theres to much going on at one time
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →4/10 needs some staff management improvements and bug fixes part of the restaurant is not reachable please check highlighted tiles there are no highlighted tiles ive deleted every thing i made and more leveled the entire restaurant..... part of the restaurant is not reachable gave up and started over
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this game because I like the restaurant management genre. Sadly this game feels incomplete even though a full launch is out. Hard mode is unplayable. A lot of mechanics need balancing. An example is customers being so angry just because something they like isn't on the menu. You literally need to have every ingredient on the menu. Causing the restaurant to have no sense of "specialty". I think it can be better with some updates. Overall 5/10
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fantastic concept and even better execution. Unfortunately seems abandoned by devs and left unfinished. Enjoyed in for an hour or 2 but will now return it because it lacks majorly.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Okay game. Not super user friendly. -The recipe creating system is wayyyy too complicated. No way to pick from a drop down list. You HAVE to create or download from the workshop. -No way to undo something you deleted, that I know of. -Hiring staff is hard to do (ex: no filtering, not a lot of choices, no staff creating menu in sandbox). -Character editing is very limited. For a casual kind of game like that, I think user-friendliness is important. This game has potential. But lots of things…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Food 5/5 Atmosphere 5/5 Customer service 4/5 Wait time 5/5 But I clogged a toilet so overall review 1/5
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's early access published as full release. I can't reccomend such thing. Game feels unfinished and lacks content. Gameplay offers nothing new. Graphic is plain. Music is poor. Don't waste your time on this.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Overall a blend and lacklustre game. the video trailer makes it seem much more exciting than it really is. there are a few minor bugs here and there and weird mechanics. adding mayo stops a dish from being vegetarian but lets it be vegan.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nice concept and mechanics are good, but there are too many bugs and the visuals are very bland, especially for the character models.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I initially wrote War & Peace on why I disliked this game but I'll try to condense it into bullet points for you: "Scenario mode" is basically a boring tutorial where you spend most of your time on fast-forward waiting for your objectives to complete. Sandbox mode is a little more fun. Building isn't too bad but there's only so much building you can do for a restaurant. Kitchen, check. Dining area, check. Toilets, check. Okay... now what? There's no 'undo' button so if you pay $300 to lay…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Recipe for Disaster" is a restaurant management game that, while functional, unfortunately falls short in several areas. Here's a negative review based on various sources: Lack of Innovation: The game suffers from a stunning lack of imagination, which significantly hobbles its potential. It doesn't bring anything new to the table in terms of management games. The general consensus is that it fails to reach its own vision and doesn't offer anything unique in return. It's described as merely a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Had a great concept, so I bought it in EA. Nothing of essence was added, declared finished and that's it. Abandoned. Sadly. Once you understand how the core-mechanic (if you even want to call it that) works in this game it offers no challenge whatsoever. You will only fail due to bugs. Loved the recipe-creator at first, expecting that it will have a huge impact on overall gameplay when developement continues but -you guessed it- game was declared finished and it hardly matters what goes in a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Save your money, I played it once tried to return it, turns out I was past the 2 weeks. Its a unfinished game and the developer has thrown in the towel.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Have had the game in my library for some time, but never really gave it a try - on going through all my games to see which are keepers, I've played for about 4 hours and whilst there are some interesting points, I feel it lacks depth - having seen other reviews which point out that the developers gave a full release to the game and then left it, I understand why. It was fun for a little while but you get the 'going through the motions' feeling quite quickly and as a result I've uninstalled and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →- People come in and immediately think the waiter (who’s idling just next to them, waiting for them) is taking too much to take their order. - Staff reached a breaking point because a few items were left out of storage not for long.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I would not recommend it yet, specially as it is getting out of early access soon, I will play again when release and give it a final recommendation! the most annoying parts : some negative thoughts cannot be solved as the customers are not even yet in the restaurants: -i need toilet - i hate waiting in line - is someebody going to take my order (as the waiters awlays wait in the bathroom for no reason at the begining of the day) - i can't wait i mm so hungry fire are ridiculous, why 2…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Summary: If you are looking for a casual game, this might be for you, but for anyone looking for a management game with depth, and challenge, unfortunately this isn't it. I don't generally like giving negative reviews, in general if I've decided to dislike something I'll just move on to the next game that I'll hopefully enjoy. My main reason for this review is I feel in many ways the developer has given up too soon, this game has potential and I wish they were able to see that potential.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"Recipe for Disaster" is yet another restaurant management tycoon game (I know, at least it's not a 2D retro pixel platformer) built with Unity and with a focus on the more disruptive side of restaurant management, as you need to wrestle with "crazy customers and lazy staff", as well as creating your menu and filling out your kitchen and dining room using the usual tycoon object + wall placement stuff that I almost feel has been taken from an asset or something (because I'm pretty sure I've…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love management games, and I have a soft spot for restaurant themed ones in particular. However, while this game is initially fun, I just don't think I can continue to play it in its current state. Firstly, the game is a little hard to understand, like why I kept getting a negative mood for having "too small of a team" while several were standing idle, or why I could not prevent my team from having breakdowns no matter what I did to try and make them happy. I understand the charm of this…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For a restaurant game released in 2022, this game feels very antiquated, and doesn't convey the feeling of a proper management sim, and if anything feels more like an "arcade" version of a restaurant sim. The non custom "normal" difficulty even will game over you if you fire any employee, which is a very weird fail state for a simulator. Compared to other restaurant sim the big feature here is that you get to create your own custom recipe, but even that feels somewhat lackluster. Every time…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun game! Does somehow remind me of an old game "The Movies". Which in fact was great fun too creating receipt based stuff. Nevertheless...it's a game with great potential and worth buying it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretty fun game. My only real complaint is that it is hard to figure out how to improve recipes.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to like this game (so much so that I keep returning to it once a year to see if there have been fixes), but it freezes up and crashes every time I try to proceed to the "next level" whilst also not saving your progress. Right now, it's unplayable. *To edit: I have learned that the devs abandoned this game and there WON'T ever be any fixes so, save your money. I'd return this if I wasn't over the "played" hours.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i like the idea of it but please fix it its been along time and its so broken
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game does not feel finished at all... it almost feels like an incomplete mobile game that was a quick cash grab. I guess the devs have abandoned it which is a bummer because I had high hopes for it..
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →its free on epic
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game was really fun at first. I played through the campaign and then played sandbox on the hardest setting. when playing the same game for a while longer (than the campaign) the flaws of the game really became visible. The management tools are not that great. I'd prefer to be able to have more back-ups, or prioritize different areas better. To compensate my plan was to have many cleaning areas (to have more back-ups of one big area), but the game limits you to only ten cleaning areas. There…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Love it. Too bad it's not getting new content. I'd buy the DLC immediately.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →On the first notice looked nice, done the tutorial played the first few scenario's and I was done after a few hours. All scenario felt the same. There was no challenge at all and most of the time it's staring at your screen until EOD. Game just felt short and done poorly. - UI menu not snapping to edge scrolling is slightly annoying i.e. fridge inventory cannot be seen fully viewed, if it's past the screen edge. - Rotating the view sometimes does not work, have to try twice+ before it…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this game in the beginning. However, as you progress further (and it doesn't take long) you start running into the same things over and over again. The game itself has a great concept and a lot of potential, but unfortunately, it seems like the developers have stopped working on it. It was fun for a few hours, but since it doesn't look like anything is going to change or improve in the future, I can't help but feel that it's ultimately an unfinished game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My friend michael loves cooking so i bought this game for me instead of him to make him angry dont feel bad for him, he cut my ear off once.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It was boring. Fell asleep while playing and gave it a second chance when I woke up, but that lead to 13 hours "play time" and now can't be refunded. Not mad because it was on sale, but it's just not fun. The mechanics are too convoluted and there's way too much going on. The tutorial has a lot of reading and it's kinda annoying. Would refund if I could, but can't, so meh. Maybe I'll like it later but probably not.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Up to this point (21 hours) I had only played the campaign without touching sandbox or anything else. It has been a long while since I've been so hopelessly addicted to a game. Some nights I'd lay in bed before falling asleep planning how I was going to finish each level. The construction level was the one that took the most time for me to complete; around 5 hours. One of the things that I appreciate a lot about this game is that it offers a decent level of difficulty without being too…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Has a lot going for it, but lacks a cohesive direction in most aspects. the game is Oddly specific in some obscure parts, glosses over some other things that should be a given almost completely. The scope is grand, but with blurry vision. needs a lot of QoL work to feel like a finished game. Has promise, and i can feel there's fun in there somewhere, it's just not quite there yet. I'll keep an eye on it and rebuy it if it improves in the future.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There are many things that the developers can add, lots of potential. The game is in good shape and it is a solid sim.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Vibe Coding: Revolution or Recipe for Disaster in App and Game Development? webdesignerdepot.com/vibe-coding-... #ai #code #vibecoding #webdev
unlabelledView post →I really wish I realized the company had been disbanded for an entire year before I'd bought it. If the company doesn't exist, I wonder where my money went. While the game has apparently been out for YEARS with years worth of FREE updates, I was a year late to the party. Oops, my fault I guess. I just don't know why instead of terminating the business, it wouldn't have been sold off, handed over, or even just made all the software open source or something, so those interested could pick up the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am seriously stuck on level two. I can't open the restaurant, because "the highlighted areas are inaccessible." Nothing is highlighted. I changed so much and even restarted the level trying to get it to work. Searched online and couldn't find anything to explain what the problem is. I would love this game if I could actually play it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A cute restaurant manage game, but it freezes up routinely and I couldn't actually progress through the tutorial becuase it totally locked up.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've hit several bugs that made the game kind of unplayable, such as being unable to hire employees. Also, I have a fairly high end gaming PC and somehow this game takes up 50-70% of my CPU, and 70-80% of my GPU. This game literally hates up my GPU like I'm playing a modded version of cyberpunk on max settings. Sitting at around 90c. Either their optimization is the worst I've ever seen or there's a hidden crypto miner running when you play.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Extremely buggy from the get go. Several parts of the game will freeze and refuse to progress randomly throughout gameplay and the only way to fix is through a hard reset. Could not even progress through the tutorial without freezes. Bought on sale and isn't even worth it at half price.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretty dumb to get negative reviews constantly just because I dont have anything they like on the menu. Why did they even come to my burger restaurant in the first place. Also, why is creating recipes so tendious yet also serves seemingly no deeper purpose and doesnt even make sense. It feels like you can define steps that need to be done but you cant actually do it. Couldve been a good game but it feels like an unfinished Early Access experiment.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's the Sims but it's also a management tycoon game. Pretty fun, TBH. Sadly, it was last updated in 2022 with a full 1.0 release update and the devs must've already had their desks packed up by this point, because after that, no more updates. It's laden with bugs, but nothing too game-breaking. Here's the worst I found: 1. An employee will not return to work or respond to commands after having a break after a mental breakdown. 2. Fire spread can happen after a single second. This is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It abandoned the game, sad, cause it could have a potential
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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