Cooked Intel
A covert spy game where players use a rice cooker controller to gather intel in a bustling Chinese restaurant. Decode messages, create distractions, and navigate undercover operations—all while maintaining the disguise of a humble rice cooker.
Team Name:
- Wenxiao Ding (she/her) – Game Designer and Creative Director
- Lu Lyu (she/her) – Creative Technologist
- Luna YiXi Wu (she/her) – Development, 2D Art, Music
- Steven Jinyuan Yang (he/him) – Development, 2D Art
Cooking often feels like a ritual. For most dishes, you go through a series of steps—chopping, frying, seasoning—each requiring your full attention. But the rice cooker is different. It simplifies everything: just rinse the rice, add water, press a button, and wait. Soon, perfectly cooked, fragrant rice is ready to enjoy.
This simplicity, so effortless yet deeply rewarding, inspired us to think about the small, unnoticed marvels of daily life. The idea for Cooked Intel began with a specific moment—the puff of steam that escapes as the rice finishes cooking.
It’s a quiet signal of completion, an everyday victory. Some people even lean over to enjoy the steam, using it as a makeshift facial steamer. We thought: what if this humble, mundane object—a rice cooker—could become something extraordinary? What if it could take us beyond the kitchen, into a thrilling world of spies and secrets?
In Cooked Intel, players take on the role of an undercover spy using a rice cooker as their central tool for completing covert missions. The rice cooker, a 3D-printed alternative controller, includes two inputs—a button and a rotary knob. Players use these to execute missions. But here’s the twist: the game screen is hidden inside the rice cooker itself, meaning players must look directly into it, as if inspecting their rice, to complete their tasks.
By transforming the familiar into the extraordinary, Cooked Intel reimagines the everyday rice cooker as a gateway to a world of intrigue and adventure. It’s a tactile, immersive gaming experience that cannot be replicated with traditional controllers, reminding us that even the most ordinary objects can hold extraordinary potential.
