Overcooked in Space
Overcooked in Space
Often imitated but never duplicated. Overcooked took a simple premise of doing minimal odd jobs, mixing in some co-op and chaos with the end result being hectic fun that is ultra addictive. For what seems like a simple premise of doing fairly menial tasks, the stakes become amplified with timers, hazards and objectives. Combine this with the natural communication errors that are bound to happen with co-op and you have a recipe for success.
Recently there have been many attempts to crack the special sauce that Overcooked has. In the past few years there have been some great attempts like Moving Out!, Death Squared, Tools Up and Good Job. Fueled Up! from Fireline looks to be the latest game to capture that Overcooked magic, so who is Fireline Games?, What is Fueled Up? and why should we be excited about it?
Who is Fireline Games?
Fireline Games is a small Polish Indie studio that consists of only four people, two developers and two artists. The whole team has AAA experience with a few coming from Techland and a few others from Remedy. Surprisingly, the game is being developed during their free time as they still have full time jobs at these studios. Fueled Up began development in 2020 after getting the idea from a game jam the studio worked on.
What is Fueled Up?
Fueled Up is a 1-4 player co-op game. The easiest way to explain, is that Fueled Up is Overcooked in space. It features the same key elements you are familiar with including weird obstacles that get in the way, hazards that are place all over the map, a time limit to keep you on the edge of your seat, customizable characters and even features a three star scoring system.
Why Should You Be Excited For Fueled Up?
Fireline does not hide their love for Overcooked. They are huge fans but they wanted to improve on the already existing amazing formula without changing it too much. According to Fireline, Fueled Up looks to improve on the Overcooked formula by adding in dynamic gameplay that doesn’t allow you to get complacent. In Overcooked, there comes a time early on where you figure out the pattern and what everyone needs to be doing. Fireline wanted to add in enough randomized elements that keeps the three minutes feeling fresh. There is also a scaling difficulty during each level that gets harder if you are doing too good and gets slightly easier if you are having troubles.