The above describes one of my several, similar early-game experiences of an independent survival game Don’t Starve (Klei Entertainment 2013).⁵³ Despite the title, starvation is not the only threat in the world of the game but food still plays a crucial role in it. The game’s robust and detailed crafting system is unique due to its careful consideration of how different items of food affect each of three main in-game statistics: hunger (represented by an icon of a stomach), health (represented by heart), and sanity (represented as a brain). Although in subsequent playthroughs the game offers a choice of one of several characters, the first story follows Wilson, a nineteenth century scientist, who finds himself trapped in the vast wilderness with nothing on him but his clothes. He is then visited by Maxwell, a dark wizard reigning over the land and the game’s main antagonist, who taunts him, before disappearing in a cloud of smoke: “Say pal, you don’t look so good. You’d better find something to eat before night comes!”⁵⁴ Left to his own devices, Wilson quickly learns that the world, called the Constant, is an unfriendly and dangerous place where without fire nights can prove deadly.

Food in Don’t Starve can either be found (e. g., carrots, berries, mushrooms) or hunted with beginner-level tools (e. g., rabbit Morsel or Monster Meat), and almost all can be cooked on a campfire or in a crock pot—the process which increases their nutritional value and even grants additional benefits. After the Reign of Giants DLC, certain foods acquired the ability to prevent overheating (cold foods) or freezing (hot foods). Finally, while all items classified as food can be edible even if the consumption is not always advisable, several can have other uses: as bait, as offerings, as food for captured egg-laying birds, or as materials used in crafting.

From edibles to food as resource, from raw to cooked and rotten, from low-calorie vegetables to nutritious meat, Don’t Starve engages in food discourses by acknowledging the complexities of food. Throughout this book, I scrutinize ways in which digital games use food and the broadly understood process of its preparation as devices of creating in the emotional engagement in the players and structuring moments of intimacy between them and the characters. Thus, I find it beneficial for the clarity of the arguments presented through these chapters to begin by discussing the various ways in which food can be operationalized in games as a ludic component. While such a structuralist approach to game studies is not necessarily favored by many feminist and queer game scholars, I find it a crucial step of analysis when discussing food as a worldbuilding device, especially considering how firmly it tends to be embedded in the gameplay, rather than just the story (with the two, obviously, quite closely intertwined). My argument, over and over again, is that food can be used to construct the unthreatening, welcoming, and safe world and show relatable, meaningful relationships between the characters and the characters and the players. While Don’t Starve aims to do the opposite, it still ties food to safety: it is at the campfire, where the food can be cooked, where the characters can rest for a moment, and experience the few moments of much needed relief. Food adds to tension when it is lacking, but nothing in the game brings as much comfort as seeing and, more importantly, having it in one’s inventory. Thus, it shows the importance of food gathering and food preparation as the player’s gateways into the game world, the means of investing and engaging them into it.

Some of games do not feature cooking but rather showcase the characters’ relationship with eating. However, in the majority of the cases, the player is invited to participate in various stages of food preparation. Because of this, I believe it to be beneficial to discuss in more detail the definition of “food preparation” and “cooking.” As the next chapter will discuss in more detail, despite the common use of the term “cooking games” to describe a genre of food and cooking-focused games, cooking in digital games is not a homogenous activity. From time-management games in which cooking is happening mostly off-screen as the gameplay relies on serving the dishes to the customers to cooking conceptualized through a series of mini-games, in-game cooking can take seconds to even hours. Another difference between various types is its focus on different parts of the process, pointing towards an understanding of food preparation as a complex activity comprised of several stages.

Based on this, I believe that video game food preparation can be divided into three main components: gathering of the ingredients, cooking, and presentation. I return to the aesthetic of presentation in the later chapters, while first focusing on the ingredients and cooking in the context of which I discuss how they are structured in the gameplay of various genres and their meaning-making role for the given story. I begin by scrutinizing the relationship between ingredients and recipes, acknowledging that double understanding of the latter as the dominant ruleset and also a vital ingredient that has to be discovered and unlocked in order to access a specific dish. I identify the games that focus on the early stages of preparations as those which rely the most on exploration and which offer freedom in crafting and constructing the surrounding. Secondly, I point towards the ways games operationalize cooking itself as a series of mini-games that are distinctively different from the game title. Additionally, I show that such an approach to cooking often is used to emphasize the social function of food and has a potential of creating intimacy between the characters and the players.