Midnight Ramen

[quote][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop][b]Warning: AI Slop[/b][/url] This game is partially made with talentless, soulless AI generated content.[/quote] Midnight Ramen looks and feels like a mobile app, and not a mobile game, a mobile e-book... this is more of a book than a game as the pretext of running a ramen stand is just a wrapper around the core experience, which is reading a high school anime club dropout fan-fiction. At least it's not one of those ones where it's all about the author and his imaginary girlfriend. Instead, it's about the various customers and their stories as you plod through several nights worth of bad writing and a dash of cringe. The bad writing is interlaced with bad Cook, Serve, Delicious! style mobile app gameplay as you tap on your iPhone screen to drag and drop various ingredients to fulfil orders, and your reward is more crappy e-book writing. I say "tap on your iPhone screen" but you can't, because this apparently never got approved by Apple or Google's app stores. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. The developers didn't design the game for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at around 1440p, there's no support for the state-of-the-art 4K or higher resolutions. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers. The game features simple, cartoony 2D graphics, of the type you normally expect to see in low effort mobile apps. 3D graphics programming does require a degree of skill and competence and unfortunately not all developers have the budget or talent to deliver this, despite 3D graphics cards hitting the mainstream in the 1990's. Considering this is being evaluated as a PC game, having the graphics phoned in like this isn't going to result in a high quality, visually impressive game that PC gamers are used to seeing. As mentioned, this features really godawful, "wrong" looking AI slop instead of genuinely and sincerely created game assets. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating real game assets or couldn't afford to hire someone who does, but it also doesn't matter. What matters is that this looks bad because of that decision. AI slop sticks out like a sore thumb... and it comes across as insulting. There's also the old adage that those who lack the budget and talent to make their own game assets usually lack the budget and talent to do the rest of the job of game development properly, too, and that's glaringly obvious here. Arrogantly, the developers demand you should find a way to plug headphones into your gaming PC to experience the craptastic audio they shovelled into this. I run a 9.2 surround sound system for my gaming rig, I'm not interested in downgrading just because the developers demand I experience the game in a compromised manner. Developers must never dictate to gamers how a game should be consumed, it's their JOB to ensure a game is experienced well on any gaming rig. Failure to do this is a failure on their part, and not the gamers. The controls can't be customised because the game has such a dumbed down, simplified interface that it's just iPhone screen tapping stuff. The fact that the interface is this dumbed down might be seen as a problem in itself, however... this is a fairly shallow experience if you're the kind of gamer that likes to play games with deep, rich control schemes and interaction. You'll get none of that here. This looks and feels like a mobile app, but I wasn't able to find it on the app stores. Maybe it was removed, maybe it was rejected by Apple and Google (they do have more rigorous quality standards than Valve does for Steam, after all). Regardless, for all intents and purposes Midnight Ramen might as well be a mobile app, it has the same limitations and dumbed down qualities. It's impossible to recommend such a game to PC gamers. We don't spend all this money building gaming rigs so we can pretend they're iPhones and play games that might as well be mobile apps. These technical shortcomings push this game below minimum standards for any competently developed modern PC game. It's hard to describe this as a game, the focus is more like that of an e-book/visual novel, there's only minor, shallow and uninteresting gameplay elements. The crux of this is to push some very low quality, badly done fan-fiction tier writing, where we see once more a developer fail to understand the importance of "Show, don't tell", and for whatever reason, weren't able to convey their narrative through gameplay, giving us endless lines of badly written e-book text instead. My gaming rig is not a kindle. Let's talk about pricing and the actual value this has for gamers. Is this game one of the best of the 140,000+ games on Steam? Midnight Ramen has the pathetically optimistic price of $12 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Because this is the kind of game you can just play for free on mobile phones, it's impossible to recommend anyone should pay money for the same experience on Steam. For comparison, the $12 asking price for this game could get you games like "Halo: The Master Chief Collection", "Dead Cells" or "SCUM". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. The quality problems and defects with this game makes the asking price totally unrealistic. It's impossible to recommend this to gamers here on Steam. The use of AI slop is a direct insult to gamers and real, ethical content creators and artists everywhere. AI models are trained on copyrighted intellectual property without permission from the owners.

Game was relatively okay until they admitted they were using Gen AI - MONTHS after releasing the game and getting a bunch of peoples purchases. Slop game by a slop team. Get Gen AI out of games and get Devs that don't disclose their usage of it from the get go out of games too.

Visual Novel meets Ramen Stand - Da ich diese Art von Visual Novels sehr mag, hab ich mir gedacht ich hol mir das Spiel (zudem liebe ich Ramen <3) Dieses Spiel ist ein absolutes Must Read für alle, die gerne Visual Novels lesen und nebenbei gerne kochen und sich Lebensgeschichten anhören. Genau wie andere Vertreter dieses Genres steht sie den Großen und Bekannten in nichts nach. Im Gegenteil - sie ist ein echter Diamant - mit (teils sehr trauriger) Story, tollen Charakteren und vor allem tollem Artwork. Ich liebe den Style der Charaktere und des gesamten Spiels. Hier wurde mitgedacht und alle wachsen einem Tag für Tag ans Herz. Emotionen kommen rüber und tragen die Story. Unglaublich gut und toll in Szene gesetzt. Insgesamt benötigt man zum komplettieren um die 5 - 6 Stunden. Man arbeitet in einem Ramen Straßenimbiss und bedient Verstorbene. Diese Geister erzählen einem ihre Lebensgeschichten. Nebenbei bereitet man ihre Bestellungen zu und serviert =) Die Hintergrundmusik und die Töne passen sehr gut, stören nicht und untermalen die Geschichte. Errungenschaften sind allesamt gut machbar, da man wenn man die Geschichte einmal durchgespielt hat, die Chapter direkt auswählen kann. Teils für andere Enden, teils zum nachmachen der Errungenschaften, die man verpasst hat =) Von mir gibt es hier eine klare Empfehlung für alle, die eine tolle Geschichte erleben möchten, Charaktere im Jenseits und Diesseits begleiten und eine ruhige, liebevolle und teils traurig und ernste Story lesen wollen. (Und ganz klar: Ramen lieben und ein bisschen interaktiv die Geschichte begleiten wollen). Klare Herzensempfehlung von mir <3

I love the game so much. You learn how to make different kinds of ramen, meet all kinds of late-night customers, and slowly learn their stories while cooking for them. What made the game really special to me is that half of the customers are spirits of people who passed away, while the others are still living with regret, guilt, or things they never got to say. Some people come hoping to reconnect with someone they lost, and some spirits still cannot let go of their past. The ramen shop becomes a safe and quiet place where people can talk and share memories. The ending also really stayed with me. It didn’t feel loud or dramatic, but it was quiet and meaningful in a way that hits harder. Highly recommended if you enjoy cozy games with emotional storytelling. The game connects to real life, we don’t always get perfect closure, but we still have to learn how to live with what happened. I know letting go is not always easy. It’s not about erasing the past. It’s about learning to carry it in a softer way so you can keep moving forward with your life. Sometimes it still comes back in waves. Certain places, music, or memories can bring it up again. That doesn’t mean you haven’t moved on. It just means it mattered. If this is something you relate to, I hope you are gentle with yourself, and I hope things slowly get easier for you over time.

В принципе, всё хорошее, что можно сказать об этой игре, уже описали в других обзорах, и мне нет особого смысла повторяться. Это визуальная новелла, в которой еда служит просто фреймингом для истории (и способом сэкономить на ассетах, но какая разница). Почти как на поминках гиперфиксация на еде служит способом не думать о. Я в очередной раз поражен тем, как хорошо работают простые истории, если их рассказывать просто. Два маленьких замечания: 1) я не стал выполнять условия для какой то секретной концовки, потому что не верю, что она будет лучше обычной. 2) лоу фай музыка всё таки не для моего поколения, поэтому я бы поставил что-то вроде Цунэкити Судзуки, как это сделали в дораме по Midnight Diner.

[h2] For anyone who plans to buy this game: it includes very sensitive topics.[/h2] You've been warned. [h3] Pros: [/h3] + art style. It fits the whole narrative perfectly. + plot. 4 hours of me trying not to cry, and another 30 minutes that completely made me burst into tears. + music. Just a cherry on top of the whole vibe of this VN. + cooking. Making ramen is actually fun! I wish they had made a free mode where I could just chill while listening to the lo-fi. + achievements. Very easy to get all of them. + emoticons. The food-themed emoticons are so cute! Mostly I write down pros and cons in my reviews, but in this game, [b]I didn't notice any drawbacks.[/b] Absolutely recommend this game. [spoiler]The story about Grant and Adora made me cry. I managed to hold my tears back for the whole game, but then...[/spoiler]

who's cutting onions in my room???? this is definitely for fans of coffee talk and similar games, though with much less freedom to cook whatever you like. *please* mind the trigger warnings, most notably death and suicide talk. nothing graphic, it's a sweet, slightly dark visual novel about ramen, found family and learning to move on.

不要深夜玩，會哭

在购买游戏之前就做好了这个游戏很平淡的心理建设，但是玩起来还是觉得有点太无聊了，玩了一半就不太想玩了，放了很久为了全成就才又打开玩完了，全程都在抑制自己快进对话的冲动。 是因为游戏中的做饭元素购入的，但是做饭也只是推动故事情节发展的小互动，每个人的深夜故事都太老套了，属于看了开头就能猜到结尾，觉得有些无聊。 最反感的是养父女的组合，不管文字如何粉饰，我非常不喜欢单身老男人领养小女孩的故事，故事把男的塑造的越好我就越觉得恐怖，这种正面形象也会对现实生活产生重大影响吧。如果游戏中是养母女的组合我会觉得好很多很多。 这个游戏呈现的内容让我觉得不值得我花的钱。

有如麻雀雖小卻五臟俱全，內容有完整的起承轉合。 製作出一碗拉麵的操作還是滑鼠比較直覺一點，手把也可以操作，兩種都試過的我因為喜歡用手把玩遊戲所以就算每個步驟都要看一下按鍵對應的行為也還是選擇用手把玩完。 人物之間的對話很適合被延伸更多討論，諸如人生的意義、對於死亡的看法、如何認識自己、如何釐清想法…等的主題都可以抓出來另外與人討論。 模擬做拉麵的過程太舒壓了，許願作者出一款可以一直出餐的模擬經營遊戲XD