Boil Cabbage, Make Soup - It's What You Do: The Review
- Antal Bokor
- 8 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Look at that guy. This little Onion just wants to do one thing, and that’s boil cabbage and make soup. (Is that two things? Or is it one process? This idle game is a cute (if somewhat spastic) desktop companion Onion that does nothing but make soup, spasmodically dance, and feed hungry travellers.
The idea behind an idle game is that you don’t really do anything. You can choose upgrades for your little guy, but you can also leave him be for hours as he goes about his tasks. Harvest cabbage, stir the pot, and serve the customers.
There have been a lot of great idle and clicker style games, and while Boil Cabbage Make Soup is incredibly cute and endearing, it doesn’t really do much to set itself apart from its competition. In fact, even for an idle game it can feel a bit hollow. Some idlers are great because of how they scale. Boil Cabbage Make Soup doesn’t really feel like it scales up to huge levels–even when you go from a few customers every few minutes to a few customers every few seconds.
As you serve customers their boiled cabbage soup, you’ll be making money that can go towards various upgrades. You can upgrade your Onion’s stats–like how fast he moves, and how much soup he can make at once–as well as upgrade your home island’s soup production. Some of the upgrade choices aren’t exactly clear as to what they actually do. “Cosiness” for instance just “makes your farm more cosy” but never actually says what that does beyond “This helps the onion relax more and feel less stressed.” I dumped a bunch of points into that, so I hope he’s living his best life.
Customers can also drop tickets as they pass by your soup stand. These tickets can be turned in for items that you can use to customize your island. While most of the customization choices are just fine, none of them were truly coveted or stood out.
That brings me to the bigger discussion about the game’s art style. While I appreciate its strange, surreal style, it’s not a very good looking game. It reminds me of a 90s game, like Neverhood or something like it–though this isn’t claymation like that was.
There is a multiplayer component, too. I never got to test it, but ostensibly you can visit your friends' islands and watch each other’s Onions. I guess you have to be into that sort of thing. Progression in Boil Cabbage Make Soup is so same-y I can’t imagine the joy of multiplayer would go beyond “oh, you have a different hat than me.”
Boil Cabbage Make Soup is a great impulse buy. At 4 bucks it’s priced a little bit out of my “why not?” range, but it’s not a terrible idler. I would have loved to see it scale up into a vast soup producing empire, or something else that is fun and surreal (to match the tone.) But I’ve had joy watching that little dude on my monitor for the last few days, and I guess that’s worth it.
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