GamerBingo - Cooking Mode

One of my recent side-projects has been a bingo-creator for speedrunning games. I don't game often, but when I do I tend to play one game to the exclusion of all others, and before long find myself looking for new challenges. Playing a bingo card is a great way to extend the playability of a game, especially when it's a game one of the kids enjoys too and we can race.

There are a few bingo generators out there for games, but none of them was quite what I wanted. So I knocked up my own, and here it is: GamerBingo. So far, it's got custom generators for Minecraft, Valheim, and Helldivers, with more on the way.

But this post isn't about the games, it's about a little side track. A side project within a side project, if you like.

I, when I'm not playing games or working on side projects, enjoy cooking. Most Sunday afternoons I can be found locked away in my kitchen creating something. Occasionally, it's something edible. But I have a tendency to fall into routines, and familiar dishes. I like cooking new things, but I often struggle to think of something.

That irritation has been eating away at me for a few years, and I had been considering some sort of randomised recipe generator. Something that spat out a protein, a carb, some vegetables, and some random ingredient like marmite or tabasco. The problem I found with my little test version of this was that generating one meal at a time wasn't working. It wasn't creating anything exciting, and I'd just click over and over until I landed on something relatively easy. It didn't solve the problem.

But then, while working on the bingo project, it occurred to me that this is an ideal solution to that irritation. A recipe bingo generator. And here's the result!

The main advantage of this, as opposed to the one-at-a-time generator, is that it can generate a decent set of options all at once. That means it's not presenting me with a binary yes or no to a single option, it's getting me to pick the best option from a set. It changes the experience. I know I can still click "Generate" until I end up with something comfortable, but I find myself not doing that.

It's relatively simple - it has collections of ingredients and cooking techniques, and fills the card in such a way that each line - row, column, and diagonal - usually include one of each of the major types of item. It can generate vegan, vegetarian, and pescatarian cards as well.

Now my weekend routine is quite different. I use the recipe bingo generator to create a new card, and then pick a line I can make something out of. It's pushed me to use ingredients and techniques outside of my comfort zone, and I'm rediscovering the joy of cooking again.

16 July 2024   |   games, cooking