Mother Chef: The Musical! is a Surreal Horror, Black Comedy musical game developed by Daniel Foutz in March of 2021.
The premise is rather simple: A customer will ask you for four different food items during a musical scene. Then, you must get all four foods in order and present them to "Mother Chef". She'll prepare the food, and then you can feed the customer. Not scary at all, right?
Did we forget to mention that the food must first be ingested by Mother Chef, who then turns it all into a literal "Food Baby" nine months later, which you must then take control of and force to walk into the customer's mouth? The customer is apparently also a demon, by the way.
In addition, the game boasts a unique and varied art-style, ranging from the customer being a stock-photo man with giant eyes and a giant mouth, to "Mother Chef" being a paper-cut-out parody of Cooking Mama, adding to the surreal yet comedic tone.
Available for free download here
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Tropes found in this game:
- Big Eater: The customer will always order four different food items, ranging from things like apples to pancakes to tacos.
- Black Comedy: The game doesn't take itself or its premise too seriously, from the musical segments to the silly visuals; however, the premise is still quite dark, as it takes the idea of feeding babies to demons and runs with it.
- Lazy Artist: Lampshaded in one song where the customer has his hand in front of his face, not at all because the artist didn't want to animate their mouth, but because it's just what they want to do.
- Literal Metaphor: The game turns the concept of a "Food Baby" into a literal baby, created when Mother Chef eats food.
- The Musical: Most of the scenes involve characters singing to the player, such as to tell them what foods they want or when Mother Chef is creating her Food Baby.
- Parody: Mother Chef is a demonic parody of Cooking Mama.
- Surreal Horror: Everything is quite dreamlike and strange, such as the moving backgrounds, the odd looking "food babies", and the giant arrows pointing toward the demon customer's mouth. It gives the whole game an off-putting and unsettling nature.
- To Serve Man: Not only does the food turn into a literal baby, but one of the "foods" you can serve is a small man stuck in the vending machine.
- Womb Horror: After Mother Chef eats all the food, the game suddenly cuts to a black screen, where the player can only hear the sounds of a woman giving birth.
