KuloNiku: Bowl Up! is a Southeast Asian made, Japanese-inspired cooking game, from Indonesian developer Gambir Studio. While they’ve already served up a few tasty titles on mobile, KuloNiku marks their Steam cooking game debut.
You play as the new owner of Bakuso, your grandmother’s once-famous meatball restaurant in the town of KuloNiku. Your job? Bring it back to its former glory.
The art style is full-on anime and the characters embody that anime OTT energy. Think Inosuke from Demon Slayer, but in an apron. Your pal Cassie helps run the restaurant and gives a solid tutorial on cooking and serving. Then there’s your rival Stella, a fellow restaurateur who appears early on, determined to outshine you — but secretly wants to be you. Obviously.
Cooking is easy to pick up, but just tricky enough to keep things interesting. There’s no timer, so take your time checking your orders and recipes. You can throw away a meal if you mess it up, but it’ll cost you in overheads. There are handy shortcuts for recipes and customer orders too, so you’re not constantly flipping through different scenes.
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As the game progresses, more mechanics get layered in like seasoning to match customers’ flavour profiles and a chopping board to add in different ingredients (which thankfully doesn’t require precision). There’s also a small mini-game to wash bowls where you just flick them around in a sink. I don’t want to imagine how that works in real life without soap, but in-game? Weirdly fun.
The demo is meaty! I genuinely thought I’d downloaded the full game. Beyond the kitchen, there’s a whole world to explore. You can enter Meatball Brawls where local chefs compete for glory. These challenges come with stricter rules — you’re limited in your actions and need to cater to the judges’ tastes. They’re strategic, fun, and offer a nice break from regular service.
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And just when I thought the demo was over? Nope. You can visit different parts of the town, build relationships with locals, and even buy upgrades for your restaurant. It’s easily one of the most substantial demos I’ve played this Summer Game Fest, and it left a very good taste in my mouth.
You can play the KuloNiku: Bowl Up! demo now on Steam. The full game is cooking up for release in Q3 2025.
