Platform:
Nintendo DS™

Category:
Cooking Training

Number of Players:
1

Developer:
Indies Zero

Launch Date:
Nov. 24, 2008

Target Audience:
Expanded audience, aspiring cooks

ESRB Rating:
E (Everyone): Alcohol Reference

  

It's not a game; it's an interactive cookbook!

Personal Trainer: Cooking is part of a training series of games that brings gourmet cooking from around the globe to the Nintendo DS. It features a DS Chef, a player's private cooking instructor who talks through 245 recipes from more than 30 countries worldwide. Five more recipes are available when unlocked, for a total of 250. It's a combination of interactive cookbook and live cooking demonstration that'll have players cooking like a pro, even if they’ve never lifted a ladle before.

What to expect:

  • Learn from the best! Players and the Chef will collaborate on a wide variety of recipes, with videos of techniques, explanations of ingredients, and expert advice. With its innovative interface and the interactivity that only the DS can provide, it's a perfect learning tool for the budding chef.
  • Shop with the DS! As players browse recipes, they can tap a box to mark ingredients they need to buy. The Nintendo DS will automatically store them in their in-game shopping list. Later they can take their DS to the store and check off the ingredients as they put them in their cart.
  • What do you want to cook today? Search for recipes by ingredients, calorie count, cooking time, difficulty, and more.
  • Talk back to the Chef. Hands covered in batter? Keep the Nintendo DS clean by using voice commands to continue to the next page, repeat a step, go back, and more.

The first thing to do is select a recipe. With 250 recipes to choose from (five of them unlockable), Personal Trainer: Cooking makes it easy to find what players are looking for by helping them browse by country, ingredients, difficulty, cooking time, cooking technique, or even calorie count.

Once players find something that looks tasty, take a look at the ingredients. Out of butter or need to buy some cumin? Just tap them with the stylus to automatically add the ingredients to your Shopping List. Making several dishes tonight? Just keep tapping ingredients—the Shopping List keeps it all in one place.

Now that players have their ingredients, it's time to start cooking. The DS Chef is there with players, talking them through every step along the way. Don't know how to fillet a trout? Watch the demonstration video when they get to that step. Didn't quite catch the last step? Just say "Repeat," and the Chef will explain it again. Players can pause the recipe at any time to consult the Cooking A-Z guide, and prompts will appear within recipes for specific terms that players may need more information about.

When players finish each recipe, they put a stamp on the in-game calendar, marking what they’ve made and when they made it. Later, they can search by whether or not they’ve made a dish before, allowing them to perfect their technique on a particular recipe, or keep expanding their culinary horizons.

With an extensive in-game reference of cooking terms, pictures, and demonstration videos, players can tailor their cooking experience to their level of skill, then watch that skill grow as they keep cooking.

The game can be controlled entirely with the stylus, for maximum accessibility. When players have their hands full, covered in cookie batter, or otherwise unavailable, all of the in-recipe commands can be given by speaking to the DS Microphone.

The keyword search function uses handwriting recognition, so players can simply write out that they’re looking for "sweet and sour" something.

Finally, that same handwriting recognition is used to make notes on recipes. If players want to remember to reduce the salt or to bookmark an especially tasty recipe, the software takes the same role as the hand-written note in the cookbook.

Your expanded audience customers will certainly be interested in a piece of interactive and easily portable software like this. Learning to cook exotic dishes well is something that many customers aspire to do, and Personal Trainer: Cooking is a friendly, approachable way of selling that idea.

Be sure to recommend this game for customers looking for a new experience to expand their horizons. The Chef is approachable and friendly, and the interface is simple to use.