Greetings, friends, and welcome to Mobile Game Monday, where we chat about games you can play on the go. If you like to game on a phone or tablet, this is the place for you. Join us every week as we go on all sorts of adventures. 

Mother’s Day is coming up, and those who celebrate can learn to cook like a mother by cooking with Cooking Mama: Let’s Cook! Chop, dice and slice your way through one recipe after another, from savory to sweet. Can you make it ‘better than Mama?’

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Cooking Mama

In case you didn’t know, the Cooking Mama games have been around for a while. The franchise’s first game was released in 2006 for the Nintendo DS. The franchise now includes an impressive list of sequels and spin-offs featuring everything from camping to crafting.

A cute smiling woman wearing a pink handkerchief and yellow apron gives two thumbs up. She stands in a vibrantly colored kitchen and an empty ramen bowl sits in front of her.

Screenshot courtesy of Cassie Holguin.

I played the original Cooking Mama back in the day, and it quickly became one of my favorite games. Actually, I still play those old games on my trusty old 3DS. So, when I saw Cooking Mama: Let’s Cook! available for mobile devices, I couldn’t wait to put on my apron and start cooking.

Let’s Cook!

Cooking Mama: Let’s Cook! is a cooking simulation game developed by Office Create and released in 2015. The idea is that you are helping your sweet mama cook delicious recipes in her charming kitchen. Let’s Cook! has added quite a bit more than cooking to this experience; it’s a lot more, actually.

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Gameplay

Initially, you are in Mama’s kitchen, helping to prepare her next delicious meal. I started with beef stew because it is a limited-time recipe and happens to be a favorite of mine. I have made this a million times in my own kitchen, so I was curious to see how her version differed from mine. 

Depending on the recipe you are working on, you can expect to do everything from stirring, kneading, chopping and peeling. It turns out that peeling vegetables is just as annoying in the game as in the real world. 

Top left shows hands chopping vegetables, top right is an egg being cracked on a bowl. On the bottom, Mama tells you it is just like really cooking. Next to Mama are several appetizing meals on pretty plates.

Photo courtesy of Office Create.

All of this can be done with the swipe, tap or swirl of your finger. Of course, like real cooking, some tasks are more difficult than others. Things like spinning pizza dough require timing and finesse. Having trouble? Don’t worry—Mama is there as a helping hand who shows you how to do each task.

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Cooking is the game’s core, but as we are introduced to several new game modes, things start to get dicey.

Modes

Look, there is so much to do in this game that telling you everything would be as dull as watching water boil. So, I will try to keep it simple. Apparently, on top of cooking, Mama also expects you to run a restaurant, a market, a ranch, a farm and an orchard. Oh, and become a fisherman. If that seems like a lot for a one-person operation, it is.

Happy Village

The food you prepare with Mama in the kitchen ends up as stock in your restaurant in the Happy  Village. The restaurant is an idle minigame where you serve customers the food you made for coins.

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Over time, you can expand your space and even decorate it to make it your own. If you run out of food, head back to the kitchen or use Happy Foods you have collected to restock immediately. 

A screenshot that shows a colorful and crowded restaurant. Each patron has a different dish on their plate as Mama runs the cash register at the front.

Photo courtesy of X.

The rest of the Happy Village operates much the same way. Grow crops by tapping, raise animals by tapping, catch fish by, you guessed it, tapping. So much tapping that my fingers hurt. This work really amounts to nothing because you mainly get Happy Foods. These allow you to skip the cooking process, but isn’t that kind of the point of the game?

Top left is a collage of a fishing pole reeling in a fish and a farm with crops of corn and strawberries. Bottom right is a collage of a farm with cute sheep, chickens, pigs and cows all fenced in by a rainbow fence. Also in this collage is an orchard with trees filled with grapes, apples, lemons and cherries.

Photo courtesy of Google Play.

Challenges

Challenge mode is a collection of tons of minigames where you can play cards and puzzles and take care of critters. Here, you will also find a collection of seasonal minigames featuring various holidays and events. Most of these games are very simple but fun to play and are a great way to earn extra coins.

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Unfortunately, multiplayer mode is not one of the game’s modes. This is too bad because it would be a lot of fun to race your friends through recipes or compete to cook the yummiest meal.

Seasonal Recipes and Items

Most events in Let’s Cook! revolve around seasons or holidays and have been added to the game in updates over the years. For example, there are holiday-themed recipes such as the Yule Log, which I have always wanted to make in real life. Unfortunately, many of these seasonal goodies are only available through purchases.  

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Though most of the fun festive stuff is locked behind a paywall, you can unlock the various seasonal minigames by spending coins or watching ads. They are short and simple but really cute and enjoyable. The best part is that you can earn them by playing the game.

Our Adventure Ends Here

Cooking Mama is one of the OGs of cozy gaming and, after all these years, still has a place in the genre. Cooking Mama: Let’s Cook! is no exception because it also gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling when I play. Like most cases, the mobile port has its shortcomings, and those shortcomings involve ads. 

A stylized illustrated bowl of ramen with all of the dressings.

Screenshot courtesy of Cassie Holguin.

The developers lost sight of what makes Cooking Mama so fun: the cooking. While the market, orchard, fishing, farming technically offer more content, is it necessary? Most of it quickly becomes tedious, boring and even overwhelming at times. 

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Although it isn’t perfect, Cooking Mama: Let’s Cook! should still be in every cozy gamer’s recipe book. The adorable aesthetics are there, and you may genuinely learn something new about cooking, I did. 

Cooking Mama: Let’s Cook! is free in the Google Play and App Store.

Take it easy and play it safe, gamers.

Do you have a family favorite recipe? Let us know in the comments!

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