Remember to use your power ups, they do not roll over to subsequent levels.
Always keep working at one station and stay there until the ingredient is finished.
Meats take longer to cook than other foods so delay cooking these until necessary.
The more time Anna spends cooking at a station, the faster she will cook.
Prevent flames from [...] [...more]
I know this particular level is quite tough for some players. I’m not sure what makes it so tough, perhaps the sheer length of it, or maybe the fact that it uses some rather tough combination ingredients. But for sure episode 15 is a steep step up from levels 1-14, and this is probably what [...] [...more]
I know this particular level is quite tough for some players. I’m not sure what makes it so tough, perhaps the sheer length of it, or maybe the fact that it uses some rather tough combination ingredients. But for sure episode 15 is a steep step up from levels 1-14, and this is probably what causes the most frustration where players were previously able to breeze through the game relatively easily, only to hit a wall on this level. But, this challenge presents an opportunity to learn more ingredient types and fine tune the basic techniques.
For this level in general, I don’t pay much attention to getting classic combos, except for the first level. This level is simply about finding the correct ingredients for the dish, maxing the combos, and getting as many bonus flame points as possible. There are enough ingredients in each dish and enough dishes to allow for random classic combos to help gain enough points to simply pass. I have no desire to earn Top Chef on this level as I feel it’s tough enough getting 62,400 points to pass, let alone the 68,800 required for Top Chef. That 6,400 points may not seem like much, but simply passing the level feels like a great enough accomplishment.
That said, this level really requires multiple plays. I needed to learn which ingredient types matched which ingredients, and how to manage my powerups when it got tough, before I could begin really trying to pass the level. Essentially, once I learn all the types of ingredients that the recipes require, and the general set of ingredients I had at my disposal, it is really just a matter of putting that knowledge to practice.
I can, however, offer some general tips for this level, and the video above should help in seeing the general flow. The first dish is relatively easy to stack up on classic combos. As I did in the video, just stick to the lime+lemon+shrimp+scallop+garlic+onion combos as much as possible. For the other dishes, a high star score is not required to pass the level. I noticed that the star score for a dish on this level will often jump from 3-stars to 5-stars with just a single ingredient completion. So it is possible to be slightly lower than the amount of points required for 5 stars, while still having a very strong score for any particular dish. Generally, don’t worry about getting 5 stars on each dish in this level, as it is very difficult, and unnecessary, to do.
As for powerups, I try not to use the classic combo powerup(bottom left). I try to use the ingredient finder(bottom middle) when I cannot recall which ingredients match the given ingredient type, so the usage for this powerup doesn’t really change from the general case. The speed powerup(bottom right) is most useful in the last round with all the meats. It is useful here to maintain chain combos as all the meats required for this dish really slow Anna down too much to maintain a max chain bonus, and sometimes a flame bonus for each dish.
As I said before, however, this level is really a level that requires multiple plays. It is greatly more difficult that the previous episodes, and the satisfaction in passing it is duly great. But, once you complete this level, the good news is that only one more remains until you are crowned victor and Top Chef. The last level is also relatively easy compared to the second challenge and I passed it in a single attempt, but that may be due to the skills and knowledge gained from the second challenge. Overall, however, the best advice I can give here is practice makes perfect, and the tips and video above should help guide you in the right direction. Good luck.
Powerups in the Top Chef game can be very confusing. In addition, when experimenting with them, precious time is ticking off the clock, combos are decreasing, and flames are going out. This led me to not use combos until I had already completed several levels so as not to fail new levels. However, powerups are [...] [...more]
Powerups in the Top Chef game can be very confusing. In addition, when experimenting with them, precious time is ticking off the clock, combos are decreasing, and flames are going out. This led me to not use combos until I had already completed several levels so as not to fail new levels. However, powerups are a very powerful and useful feature that can make earning Top Chef much easier.
In general, some powerups are available only in later levels. Beginning levels have both fewer powerups and fewer types of powerups available. However, the powerups do not roll over to the next challenge so they must be used or they will be lost. Each challenge begins with a set amount of powerups and there is no way to get more powerups during the challenge. With all powerups there is a x1, x2, etc. in the lower right corner of each powerup that signifies how many of each powerup is available to use. There are two essential groups of powerups, ingredient shuffling and cooking related powerups.
Shuffle Powerups
The ingredient shuffling powerups are the simplest type of powerup to use. The shuffle powerups, unsurprisingly, shuffle the ingredients available. If we find ourselves with no ingredients that fit the recipe, we can simply use the appropriate shuffle powerup to get a new batch of ingredients, and probably a match for the recipe.They are located in the top row of the powerup area. From left to right they are Shuffle Vegetables, Shuffle Meats, and Shuffle Flavoring. In the image to the right we have one each of Shuffle Vegetable and Shuffle Meat, and four Shuffle Flavoring powerups, as signified by the number in the lower right corner of each powerup. Shuffle powerups are colored and labeled to match the type of ingredients they shuffle, so meat shuffling powerups have a picture of meat and are colored pink. Below is an example of using these three powerups.
Cooking Powerups
The next type of powerup are cooking related powerups. From left to right in the image above they are Experience, Intuition, and Skill. These powerups have a duration of 30 seconds, so make sure you have used all of each powerup’s time before you use another cooking powerup if you want to get as much benefit out of them as possible.
The Skill powerup, on the bottom right, is the simplest to use, as it makes Anna cook faster. I like to use it when I am actively cooking meat, and I know I will lose my flame bonus if I do not cook it faster. I also use it at the end of the level, if I haven’t already, to get bonus time points added to my score. The graphical effect this powerup has is to create blue glowing light around Anna’s head.
The Experience powerup aids in finding ingredients that are classic combos with ingredients on your cooking stage. To use it, first click the powerup, then mouse over the image of the ingredient for which you want a combo. The ingredients in the ingredient panel that are classic combos with the ingredient in your cooking slot will be highlighted. You can then choose an ingredient that was highlighted, place it in an empty slot, and you will receive a classic combo bonus of 250 points instantly. If there are no ingredients highlighted then use a shuffle powerup to get new ingredients and probably a match. The graphical effect this powerup has makes blue sparkles appear around ingredients on the cooking station. This is a rather complex process so below is a video showing how to use all three cooking powerups.
The second powerup on the bottom row is the Intuition powerup that finds ingredients that match the recipe for a given cooking slot. To use it, first click the powerup, then mouse over a cooking slot with a recipe in it but no ingredient. Mouse directly over the text of the recipe and the ingredients in the ingredient panel that match the recipe for this given slot will be highlighted. Next simply choose a highlighted ingredient and place it in your cooking slot for a flame bonus. On ingredient completion the flame bonus will give you 250 points per flame. The graphical effect this powerup has makes blue sparkles appear around ingredients on the cooking station, similar to the Experience powerup. See the video below for a simple demonstration.
With some practice you can be using powerups with ease. During later levels, especially the levels with multiple ethnic recipes, the Intuition powerup can be extremely useful until you learn all the types of ingredients. Likewise using the Experience powerup can provide a significant boost to your overall score and help in getting Top Chef on each level. The shuffle powerups are quite useful for when you can’t find a certain ingredient and when you don’t have any of the other powerups available. So, mastering powerups should provide a great boost to your score and help you on the road to becoming Top Chef!
I have been reading on some message boards and other places on the internet about difficulty in passing a certain stage and people wanting to know how to win a certain level. Here, and in this series of posts, I will be writing about my techniques and my hints that will help alleviate the issues [...] [...more]
I have been reading on some message boards and other places on the internet about difficulty in passing a certain stage and people wanting to know how to win a certain level. Here, and in this series of posts, I will be writing about my techniques and my hints that will help alleviate the issues some people are having. It is my goal to guide people in the right direction, rather than just telling them what to do on each level. Level based instructions are great, but I think a large part of the enjoyment I get from this game is the freedom I have in creating my dishes, so for someone to tell my how to play each level would rob me of much enjoyment. So here is post two in this series where I instruct you on classic combos.
One of the main mechanics for getting bonus points is the “classic combo” system. Each classic combo you get will add 250 points to your score instantly, which can be quite a boost in some levels and necessary in others. Essentially this works by cooking two ingredients that go well together at the same time. So say we are asked to choose an ingredient that is red and we choose a tomato. Next we are asked to choose an ingredient that is white and we choose mozzarella cheese. Once we drag the mozzarella from the ingredient area to a cooking station we are granted bonus points for pairing the two ingredients together. Note that we need not be actively cooking either ingredient to get the bonus, and the bonus does not exclude us from getting other bonuses. For example we could then add a third ingredient, say bacon, which would give us a classic combo with the tomato we have on a cooking station. The ingredients must, however, be currently on the cooking table in order to get a classic combo. So for example say we finish cooking the tomato and then drag bacon onto a cooking station, we would not get the classic combo bonus because the tomato is no longer on the cooking table. Following is a video of getting a classic combo bonus.
As the video illustrates, we can get multiple combos on the same item, provided we are sharp enough to spot all the combos. Which brings me to my next point; we must know which ingredients go together to get the combos. The only other way to get combos without knowing which ingredients go together is randomly, which will not net you enough points for 5 stars or enough points for later levels. To this end I post the master list of classic combos. Get a list of all classic combos.
Be warned, however, that it is indeed an exhaustive list so it is very long. I find the best way to use it is with the help of the search function in Adobe Acrobat. So if you have trouble finding classic combos for a certain ingredient you can just search till you find it. I search using the format “Ingredient is” so for example if I were having trouble finding combos for eggplant I would search for “Eggplant is” which would then show me on the next line all other ingredients that are classic combos with eggplant.
So I hope these game hints helped a few people on their road to becoming Top Chef.
The Top Chef video game, much akin to other time management games, requires you to manage your time wisely in order to succeed. Top Chef also combines knowledge of ingredient pairings to the traditional time management faire. In order to excel at Top Chef, a player must be both excellent at managing time and excellent [...] [...more]
The Top Chef video game, much akin to other time management games, requires you to manage your time wisely in order to succeed. Top Chef also combines knowledge of ingredient pairings to the traditional time management faire. In order to excel at Top Chef, a player must be both excellent at managing time and excellent at choosing ingredients that go well together. There are several techniques that are essential to mastering the complexities of Top Chef including knowledge of ingredients and how to pace Anna’s cooking.
The first technique, and probably the most important, is to always keep Anna working at one station at a time. So, once cooking begins, we simply choose our first ingredient and immediately start Anna cooking on that one ingredient. We then have the time it takes to finish cooking that one ingredient to select the other ingredients for this set. Use this time wisely to choose ingredients that go well together and that will reward you with as many classic combos as possible. More information on which ingredients grant bonuses will follow in a later section. This time can also be used to plan choosing ingredients, because we may not always want to put a red onion in a red slot. If for example there is another empty slot that requires a Mexican spicy ingredient, and there is no red chili pepper, but there is paprika available, then we would place the red onion in the Mexican spicy slot and the paprika in the red slot. These sorts of decisions must take place rather quickly in order to avoid Anna stalling on a dish and losing a flame or losing your max combo bonus. More on the types of power ups and how they affect your score will follow later.
I will be covering more skills, tips, videos, and bonuses in subsequent posts to help make you into a Top Chef!
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The ingredient shuffling powerups are the simplest type of powerup to use. The shuffle powerups, unsurprisingly, shuffle the ingredients available. If we find ourselves with no ingredients that fit the recipe, we can simply use the appropriate shuffle powerup to get a new batch of ingredients, and probably a match for the recipe.They are located in the top row of the powerup area. From left to right they are Shuffle Vegetables, Shuffle Meats, and Shuffle Flavoring. In the image to the right we have one each of Shuffle Vegetable and Shuffle Meat, and four Shuffle Flavoring powerups, as signified by the number in the lower right corner of each powerup. Shuffle powerups are colored and labeled to match the type of ingredients they shuffle, so meat shuffling powerups have a picture of meat and are colored pink. Below is an example of using these three powerups.