GIRLS MADE PUDDING

So, the story about GIRLS MADE PUDDING is that I initially picked it up because it was the moonless moon developers (though I hadn’t played moonless moon at the time) and it had two girls on the cover, a bike, a maid(!), and the setting seemed to be travelling through towns. This combined many, MANY, of my favourite things. I picked it up and added it to my steam library.

Now as with most games that I buy, it ended up sitting there for quite the while until one day I had decided I wanted to play a relaxing game. When I found this title in my library I was like yes! That’s right! This looks amazing! So I installed it and played the first little bit and was already drawn in by the beautiful ost and cute character designs.

Then I realised that it was the moonless moon developers, and little old me thought it’d be better to play that game first before this. So I ended up putting this on break for a while until I did that.

And now I did! And those thoughts are in a previous post, and here I am making posts about this game instead!

Much like moonless moon, the OST is absolutely stellar. Both games have fantastic OSTs, so fantastic in fact that this game almost made me buy an acoustic guitar to learn it and play the OST, though I stopped myself because not only would that be a monetary expense for a hobby that I don’t know if I would commit to (though I have done the same for harmonica for exactly one song too), it would also be incredibly hard for me to transcribe as my ears were not the greatest musically despite me having years of piano experience. Instead I thought why not do the same for moonless moon? I actually know piano (sort of)! But I still can’t describe. I sent the composer a DM on twitter to see if there was any slim chance that I could get the sheet music (not actually sure if this is rude or not… though I did say it was fine if not possible).

Anyways, I’ve digressed a bit too much. My point being that the OST for these games are FANTASTIC. They hit the vibe perfectly for not only the games they are, but also just set such a good relaxing mood.

Back to what the game actually is. Girls Made Pudding is less of a game and more of a visual novel with gameplay elements. You drive around empty towns, pick up ingredients, manage a hunger/strength/sanity meter, and progress by cooking specific meals or investigating certain buildings. It’s a pretty simple game and the driving controls are pretty simple as well.

Now the thing is, I don’t want to call the gameplay elements “secondary” to the story. In fact, the gameplay elements add to the story and atmosphere quite a bit. The setting is that people have disappeared from some phenomenon where if someone isn’t looking at you, you disappear. Our characters, Sumibi and Nikomi, travel together in the hopes of recreating the pudding that Sumibi had at the cafe Nikomi had worked at before all this had happened.

Normally, I usually prefer these games to just be VNs where I can sort of click to advance the plot without worrying about various gameplay aspects. But what the gameplay does really well is sell you to this setting. You advance through town after town, going to empty houses, drifting past shores, all devoid of life or anything as Sumibi and NIkomi talk about their lives, what they’re doing, what they’re going to do, and more. For those reasons I could not call the gameplay secondary and consider it a part of the narrative experience (love it when games do this!)

Unfortunately this is not without downsides. The gameplay has a few quirks that I wish could’ve been tuned better, one big one is that cooking is a big part of keeping your sanity high and while I don’t mind it as much, the necessity to have to do so while Sumibi and Nikomi are talking sort of break the flow. Often times during character moments I would need to stop to cook and it interrupts when I wish it didn’t.

It can also be frustrating to have to cook one specific recipe and while I think the game does do a good job at giving you ingredients needed for a meal, it can get annoying to manage your inventory at the same time. The roadblocks also get a little tedious, and I wish there was some more variety to the events or towns as there are a set number of biomes.

That aside the writing is charming and I really liked the main characters. Sumibi and Nikomi have fun banter and their dialogue is exactly the kind of writing that I like. In many ways it’s reminiscent of Girls Last Tour (probably intentional). I enjoyed all their little talks about the dishes Nikomi would make and how Nikomi would attempt to flirt with Sumibi (despite being rejected).

If there was one knock I had to give the writing (besides some translation/typo errors), is that the game does eventually get to explaining around why the world is the way it is. I felt that this was a bit too much exposition at once and would’ve preferred the conversations to be a bit more natural and subtle at introducing the reasoning. Thankfully it’s not too long and I personally felt that the cause for the setting to be secondary to the main story itself.

Spoilers abound!

My favourite moment of the story is as we near the end. The journey to recreate Sumibi’s pudding that she had at Nikomi’s pudding is as most people would expect, pretty hard if not impossible. The journey starts on a whim, and the characters comment on the fact as well. But where the story really drives home one of the main themes is when Sumibi starts to realize that it was never about the pudding. In her words, if the goal of the journey is recreating a pudding she can’t remember, then the journey never has to end. She realizes that the destination wasn’t as important to her as she had thought. It was her journey with Nikomi that she began to treasure.

On the sort of flip side of this, Nikomi is much more goalless and really only travels with Sumibi because she was having fun doing so. The dynamic between the two and the way they both realize how they compliment each other is just so… perfect. Sumibi might be into another girl, but I can believe in my heart that these two will bond!!! Their goal might be “simple”, but it’s a goal that keeps them driven because what matters to them isn’t the end goal, its the journey itself. The two other side characters you meet, Marine and Yakime convey similar themes too. Marine is lost and listless and at one point even wants to disappear. But after meeting Sumibi and Nikomi, after getting some hope that her sister is out there somewhere, with a goal and purpose she’s able to continue moving on. Yakime has a similar goal of trying to take down the forcefield that might be causing this whole mess in the first place. Both goals seem impossible and insane, but its those very same insane goals that help keep them sane. It gives them purpose and a reason to continue, and even if the goal is impossible or pointless, the journey is more than enough.

Of course, that’s just one part of the message the game tries to convey in my opinion. On a more “global” setting, the game revolves around the connections we form with one another. We only disappear when nobody is looking at us anymore, this game just takes that to an extreme. I think it’s an interesting setting (even if I think the “reasoning” behind why this happens is a little weak) and it really adds to Sumibi and Nikomi’s need to stay with each other. This is where if I was more well versed with analysis I’d offer some deep introspective analysis as to how the game is making a social commentary on how we need others to survive or feel seen, but unfortunately I’m not at that level yet haha. I was also much more invested in Sumibi and Nikomi’s relationship to make too many notes about the world setting itself.

Anyways, this is all to say great game! They recently announced their next game and if nothing at least I’m super looking forward to the OST!