Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article is from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag), author: Lushark

Top chefs from China, how to chase the top of the world.

Someone once asked on the Internet: what should couples do before marriage but not after marriage?

Then he got a high praise: "Let's play the breakup Kitchen together."

Although "breakup Kitchen" is only a folk name for the "Overcooked" series in China, the common name is not only better known than the official translation of "messing around in the kitchen" or "boiled", but it has even spread overseas and gained recognition-after all, couples from any country may be at odds with playing the game together.

In this game, players have to cooperate to complete dishes, deliver dishes, and wash dishes, so as to get as high a score as possible. Although the painting style is lovely and easy to use, in the course of actual play, players usually experience a cruel reality-"1 is not necessarily greater than 2".

Many levels in the game require players to coordinate in order to get high scores, but usually not to mention tacit cooperation, due to the existence of the character collision mechanism, many times they will slow each other down.

Bilibili user "also recorded by starfish" these 10 seconds is my full understanding of the breakup kitchen. "the food is overcooked, unable to keep up with diners' orders, and even the kitchen is on fire." This is a common occurrence in the game, novice players will inevitably experience a "busy get a negative score."

Compared with the frustration caused by the failure of the game itself, what is easier for players to "go up" is the negative emotions brought about by complaining about each other. Some people complain that the object is "so stupid that they refuse to admit their mistakes". Others realized for the first time that their partner turned out to be a "stress freak"....

There are also many videos on bilibili showing couples arguing about playing "breakup Kitchen". As a result, some players call it "emotional touchstone"-want to know each other's ability to cooperate and work under pressure. Want to know whether the two sides will fall out because of different ideas? Then bring ta to play breakup Kitchen.

There is a saying among players that "break up the kitchen, break up the family and perish", which may not be entirely a joke. But even so, "breakup Kitchen" is often seen as a "casual game" that, together with a "double trip", supports half of all mainframe experience stores in shopping malls.

Some home shopping malls also use the "breakup kitchen" as a display, so when it comes to the "breakup kitchen", most people think of the top "meal" operation brought by novice couples, but in fact, the game also has a group of real "top chefs".

In the years since the game was released, a group of players are still working tirelessly on how to get the highest possible score at each level, and among them, there is no shortage of "top chefs" from China.

Akiba and Benben are one of them, and they worked together not long ago to set a new world record.

Because of its ease of use and multi-player cooperation, breakup Kitchen is often one of the first recommended games for many people after buying NS. The same is true of Akiba, who first came into contact with breakup Kitchen 2 on NS while studying in the United States in 2019.

Before that, Akiba was a fairly mild gamer, rarely playing single-player games, preferring party games that he could play with friends, and "breakup Kitchen" was just what he liked.

At first, Akiba only played with friends he knew in real life, but when he encountered the high and difficult level 6-2 in the game, his original companion chose to give up after many failures. Fortunately, one of the major improvements of "breakup Kitchen 2" over the previous generation is to support online access. Akiba, who encountered her first breakup, started the process of finding a partner on the Internet.

The terrain in the middle of the map is constantly changing, making it easy for players to fall into the water, which is much more difficult for newcomers than the final checkpoint. it is a well-known "dissuasion point" in the game, according to the player's record on the website HowLongtoBeat, the main task of "breakup Kitchen 2" usually takes only about 10 hours. But half a year later, Akiba has spent nearly 300 hours in the breakup Kitchen 2 game, when he has already completed all the three-star tasks in the game, but he is still not done.

Players on HowLongtoBeat recorded that during this period, Akiba mainly used channels such as Discord to find teammates. For Internet couplets, it is not difficult to find companions to play with, but it is difficult to find partners who are neck and neck.

At that time, in a NS online group that brought together a large number of "breakup kitchen" enthusiasts in Europe and the United States, players could even apply to participate in the "Premium Chef examination", which was assessed by experts. After passing the examination, they could join their own sub-channels to find players of the same level more easily. Akiba spent a happy time here.

But after 300 hours of training, even in this "super chef" community, Akiba has become one of the best, and it is difficult to find a partner who can keep up with him.

It was at this time that Akiba, who had studied almost entirely on his own, accidentally learned that "there is someone outside the sky"-a Chinese player named "Egg" uploaded some of his own "breakup Kitchen 2" play records on YouTube and bilibili. The skills and scores are higher than those of Akiba before.

More importantly, the player named Egg mentioned a website with the domain name overcooked.greeny.dev, where a group of top players recorded their level scores and ranked the site accordingly. In other words, this is the "breakup Kitchen 2" world record website set up by players spontaneously, and it is a place for the world's real "top chefs" to learn from each other.

Akiba, the real "Top of Huashan", made several attempts to open the door of the new world, but found that he could not catch up with the results of the balls at all, and later learned that it was because the NS version of the game locked 30 frames that it was doomed to fail to achieve some of the operations in the 60-frame PC version.

Akiba then turned to Steam and began to attack some world records, which may not even have occurred to him: the first 300 hours was just the beginning.

2 compared with the NS platform, although there is no lack of experts on the PC platform, the atmosphere of online communication is relatively weak, and most players only combine with regular teammates they know.

Although the world record website has been established for some time, but the competition is not fierce, Egg and her partner Rabbit once won the world record for all 81 levels in breakup Kitchen 2.

The balls that are now out of the pit were once a well-deserved legend in Hu Naozhen. As Akiba returned to China from the United States, the improvement of network conditions allowed him to connect with more domestic players, and he took the initiative to find a lot of experts to cooperate. He also successfully realized his dream and set a record with his "guide" egg partner, and some other players became acquainted with each other under Akiba's matchmaking.

Akiba said he still prefers to play with local players compared to overseas experts, and in addition to being more emotionally close, Chinese players are usually more executive than their European and American counterparts in this small-scale cooperative game.

On the other hand, the World Records website requires challengers to upload complete videos of individual games to other video sites as vouchers, while most people give videos a simple "XX off XXXX score", even if passers-by happen to see these videos.

The recorded videos uploaded by early balls, but when Akiba uploaded his records to bilibili, he often carefully wrote a title and profile that could be understood by ordinary viewers, which made his videos broadcast over 10,000 from time to time, attracting some attention. it also led him to establish an exchange group with thousands of members, including rookies who had just entered the pit and masters who chased world records like Akiba.

From the highest number of videos played by Akiba, it is not difficult to feel this "art of naming." although Akiba doesn't think he did it on purpose, he just did it because he wanted to do it. but his "catfish effect" has to some extent activated the domestic community of the "breakup kitchen". On the world record website, there are more and more ID of Chinese players, and new masters are springing up.

Nine of the top 10 pairs in the "breakup Kitchen 2" scoring table are Chinese players who are called "stupid gods" by many players in the circle, and also stand out during this period.

In some ways, Benben is a player very similar to Akiba-he has now devoted 3800 hours to the "breakup Kitchen" series, but before that, he rarely played games until he was quarantined at home because of the epidemic. Before he began to study the "breakup kitchen" that he had been exposed to offline.

In other ways, Benben is the opposite of Akiba-although it does not exclude cooperation with others, Benben itself is more immersed in single-player mode and rarely takes the initiative to find others online.

On the current world record website, Benben won the record of 70 levels in the latest version of the game, ranking first in total score, while in breakup Kitchen 2, he also occupied 58 individual championships and came in second.

In the "breakup Kitchen" single-player mode, players need to switch back and forth between the two characters to finish the dish. Akiba feels that this is a rather lonely and lonely mode. He hardly touches it, while Benben thinks that all the operations in this mode are controllable, everything depends on himself, and it is more fun to challenge himself.

Benben uploaded some records of single-player mode in his early days, and other players also found that it was probably because of this mentality and experience that Benben entered the hole not early, but soon became a famous "stupid god" in the circle. Invited by many people, and set many records in the cooperation mode together.

Akiba and Benben, also familiar partners, won a lot of records together, and in early March, they broke their jungle 1-1 record, and the video also made "breakup Kitchen" popular with bilibili for a long time.

According to the data released earlier, the "breakup Kitchen" series has sold at least 1.5 million units on various platforms, which can be regarded as a best-selling work in independent games and has a wide audience in China.

But after all, it is only a small group of people who are chasing the limit, and the attention they attract is quite limited.

In more than three years, Akiba has accumulated 40,000 followers-a small UP for bilibili at best, but an absolute "top stream" in the recording circle of "breakup Kitchen". Other people, even at the same level and more diligent video, have at most a few thousand fans.

At first, Akiba didn't quite understand why he was favored by traffic, but later he realized that it might be because his video title was so high-profile, and this also drew some criticism for him-after all, there are hundreds of hurdles in the "breakup Kitchen" series. Some people in the circle feel that breaking one or two records is not worth mentioning. Akiba's title is just "grandstanding."

Akiba has a clear conscience about these things, and what he can do is to invite collaborators to co-contribute as much as possible in the video, bringing some traffic to each other-he is even the only UP owner in the circle who has the right to "co-contribute".

On the other hand, popular videos sometimes bring hot troubles.

The score video of "breakup Kitchen" is still a relatively ornamental type, and even players who have never played the game can feel the heat in the kitchen and the skills of the players from the dazzling "throwing dishes" and the non-stop "side food delivery". But specific to the strategy and implementation, the average player is only a "layman watching the fun" after all, it is difficult to judge whether there is room for improvement by details like Akiba.

When he introduced me to the difference between the handle and the keyboard, Akiba casually dug up a number of examples to introduce and analyze to me, so in those recorded videos, I can often see a comparison of cooperative players. These speeches usually can not really understand the operation of players from a strategic point of view, but can only comment on superficial contents such as "Xiao Lan cuts more vegetables and washes more dishes than Xiao Hong". But it's easy to hit the corresponding players.

As soon as the number of videos is high, there will be barrage and quarrels. Akiba himself has long been unimpressed by these comments, but he still often comforts his teammates.

This may also be the reason why some challengers are reluctant to let their records be seen by too many people. For them, challenging records is a matter of their own, has nothing to do with honor, and does not need the affirmation of others. Benben said that he is only using the World Records website as a tool, and the main use is "when I want to see if I have played before and how much I have hit, it is very convenient to find out."

In fact, for some kitchen players, the limits they pursue are more than those included in the record site-some try to complete more orders, others just to prove that a particular skill is workable. there is even a group of players who focus on the four-man model of Circus 3-4, which can achieve both balance and performance while pursuing high scores.

In this level, there is a "human cannon" that can fire players out. Bilibili UP's "unknown captain" and teammates hold a record of 6108 points in this level, even if there is no audience, these players are performing for themselves.

This may be the charm of "breakup Kitchen"-it is not just a happy parody game, in each level, it is not difficult for players to feel the hidden "order" under the chaotic scene, and players can optimize their strategies by reviewing and summarizing them. I can feel my mind becoming clearer, my skills more skillful and my teammates more and more tacit in trying over and over again.

Both Akiba and Benben said that their deepest memory of the game was that they could play tirelessly for hours with their peers, just like rock climbing, trying their best to reach the visible summit.

Conclusion now, as Akiba has gone to the United States again, Benben is no longer affected by the epidemic, and the two have spent much less time and energy on the "breakup kitchen".

They have broken many records set by their predecessors, and now some of their records are being overtaken by others.

But this is also the attraction of the breakup Kitchen-there are hundreds of levels in the game, many of which do not even reach the known theoretical limit, not to mention that these theoretical records can also be broken.

Due to the hegemonic list of Chinese players and the more lively community atmosphere, many new Japanese and South Korean players will also choose to upload videos to bilibili and form teams with Chinese teammates, making cross-border exchanges closer than before. Stronger teams may also be born.

Korean players and Chinese players in bilibili chat in English into a new challenger continues to appear, the former name will gradually disappear from the list. But Akiba says he doesn't care so much about his record now, and the feelings and self-confidence left by this experience will never be erased from his heart.

Of course, equally valuable are the friends the game brings to him-people with very different personalities come together on Mini Game, and in so much cooperation, he has never had a quarrel with his teammates.

"break up Kitchen does not break up", which is Akiba's goal when he set up the communication group, and it is still his blessing to other players who love the game.

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