Studio Daimon has confirmed that the strategy RPG Gourmet Demons will launch on November 5, with a free demo offering around 4 hours of gameplay now available on Steam. The game combines hunting, cooking, restaurant management, and tactical exploration into an interconnected gameplay loop.
Game Director Alfred Kamon explained that players need to hunt monsters for ingredients and cook dishes that strengthen the party. The restaurant's furniture layout affects the types of adventurers who visit and their personal traits; players can then recruit these characters to lead them on the next expedition. The development team opted against including cooking minigames, aiming to let players return more quickly to character interactions and tactical gameplay.
Demon contracts are a crucial part of character building. Adventurers have fixed base stats and personal traits, but signing contracts with different demons changes their class, appearance, and starting abilities. This allows the same character to fulfill different roles, which, combined with skill packs, events, and the "Main Rule" chosen at the start of each run, creates diverse team compositions.
An expedition party consists of one demon and up to four human adventurers. Demons consume Calories to unleash powerful attacks, while human characters generate this resource through battlefield actions. The method of gaining Calories depends on the current run's Main Rule, such as ending movement near a campfire or causing summoned creatures to explode.
Resource accumulation comes with risks: for every point of Calorie an adventurer generates, they also gain one point of Hunger. Excessive hunger can lead to permanent character death. Kamon stated that this design flips the common usage of powerful veteran characters in Fire Emblem, with its risk-reward trade-offs inspired by Roguelike games such as Darkest Dungeon and Wizard of Legend.
Players' management and combat choices will also alter the restaurant's development path. Following the "Poison Demon" philosophy may introduce a currency system to the originally free restaurant and unlock enhanced starting skills; embracing the "Vegetarian Demon" unlocks a pacifist route, encouraging players to subdue monsters rather than kill them. These world-changing features are still under development.
Relationships between demons also influence tactical choices. Typically, when a specific demon serves as the expedition leader, the entire team uses that demon's contract. If demons build sufficiently close bonds, some members can switch to another demon's contract, mixing starting skills and Main Rules. Growing relationships also unlock long-term progression abilities, with some support dialogues tied to the main story's development.