CHEF! September 16, 2026 CHEF! Day 4 Iteration 26

Difficulty Setting (Hard by Default During Development)

The game now has a difficulty setting: Easy, Medium or Hard. Easy skips most mechanics and Hard will have the most (perishable produce, individual spices and herbs, and more), so during development the game runs on Hard, where every mechanic is switched on. There's no in-game picker yet.
On Easy the plate supply never runs out. A dish still needs a plate, and that plate still goes dirty and needs washing, but when none is free a new one is added, so cooks never wait. On Medium and Hard the kitchen has exactly 30 plates, as in Iteration 25.
Measured over 10 games of 15 minutes each, with no dishwasher: Easy served 57 guests (the same as with a dishwasher) and ended up with about 61 plates and 56 of them dirty. Hard served exactly 30 and lost half its guests.
The Pantry card now shows the actual difficulty instead of always saying "Easy mode". Its note says ingredients are always in stock at every difficulty for now, which is still true.