Arcane Eats is a breakout indie title in late 2025, famously described by its community as “Slay the Spire meets Overcooked.” Developed by Wonderbelly Games, it is a cozy yet chaotic roguelike deckbuilder where you use magical ingredients and kitchen tools to feed hordes of hungry monsters rather than slaying them.
As of December 2025, a popular free demo is currently available on Steam, with the full game slated for a 2026 release.
1. The Core Concept: Culinary Combat
In Arcane Eats, “combat” is actually a dinner rush. Your health bar is your Mental Health, which depletes when customers get “hangry” or impatient.
- The “Cook Time” Mechanic: Unlike most deckbuilders where cards act instantly, food cards in this game have a turn timer. You play an ingredient onto an enchanted skillet, and it takes 1, 2, or 3 turns to “cook” before you can serve it.
- Combo Stacking: You can stack multiple ingredients (like Red Dragon Ribs and Elemental Spices) into a single pan. This creates a more “filling” meal that satisfies higher hunger meters in one go.
- Hostile Customers: Patrons don’t just sit there; they can “swipe” ingredients off your pans, hit you with debuffs that clog your deck with “dirty dishes,” or hurl complaints that deal mental damage.
2. The Three Cooking Guilds (Factions)
Your playstyle changes significantly depending on which guild you choose, each acting as a different “class” or deck type:
- The Hearth: Focused on hearty, meaty meals. They use “Spice” to deal extra hunger damage and can “burn” cards to thin out their deck.
- The Grove (Druids): Focuses on vegetarian cuisine and growth. They have “Mushroom” cards that literally grow and evolve while sitting in your hand.
- The Order (Wizards): Inspired by molecular gastronomy. They require precision and specific “plating” orders to trigger powerful combo effects.
3. Management and Flavor
Between “shifts,” you navigate a fantasy map (Savory Springs) to improve your restaurant:
- Recruit a Crew: Hire waitstaff and sous chefs who provide passive buffs, such as speeding up cook times or cleaning up deck-clogging cards.
- Celebrity Chefs: You aim to impress legendary food judges like Gorgon Ramsey, Wolfman Puck, and Guy Fairy to earn a 3-Mythril Star rating.
- The Hunger: A mysterious eldritch entity that serves as the game’s ultimate antagonist, threatening to consume the world if the cooking guilds cannot keep up with its appetite.
4. Current Status (December 2025)
- Demo: A public demo was released on November 4, 2025, and recently featured in the Wholesome Snack showcase (Dec 9).
- Platform: Currently confirmed for PC (Windows) and is noted as being fully playable on the Steam Deck.
- Art Style: It features a vibrant, hand-animated aesthetic heavily inspired by Studio Ghibli and food-centric anime like Delicious in Dungeon.