The planning and conception of this show is one of the first things I did at Tastemade. I developed the look of the main character and villains and researched and wrote the first few episodes. The actual animation and the planning for levels and NPCs was done by David Dutton and his team at Dutton Films (the guys who do 8 Bit Cinema, which I love).

The Idea of the 'game' was that you would play as the character of a Chef-In-Training who would defeat dishes to level-up his skills. Each level was a different culturally specific location where you would learn about the history and relevancy of a dish and its ingredients, leading up to a giant boss fight where the little chef would fight and defeat a giant version of the dish in question. These levels/Episodes were also purposeful riffs on various game types/tropes. So the episode about Germany and it's long history of beer brewing was also a Castlevania homage, the episode about fusion tacos in Los Angeles was also a downhill skateboarding game, etc. 

On the whole it didn't really end up being 8 bit, more like 16 (kind of a mix), which believe it or not people online were VERY perturbed by (yup, should have seen this coming). But 8 bit plays better as a name, and 16 bit is the lowest you can go and still have it look like anything. I still really love the look and feel of these; which you can watch on the Tastemade site here

Designs for Chef Gogo

Designs for Rameanie for the Japan/Ramen Episode

Other Villain Designs

One of my favorite designs from the series, a taco cat monster for the Los Angeles/Fusion Taco Episode that's part Taco Truck and part shameless Miyazaki ripoff. The logic here is mostly that 'Tacocat' backwards is 'Tacocat'.

And that I wanted an excuse to rip off Miyazaki.