Isle of Food - Cooking Adventure

Explore a living island, gather fresh ingredients, and cook imaginative dishes through fully interactive gameplay.

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Inspiration

Isle of Food was inspired by games about cooking, fishing, and hunting, and by the idea of merging these activities into one experience where ingredients truly matter. You do not just catch or pick something; you later cook with it and use it to grow your restaurant on a tropical island.

Key references include Bait for its relaxed VR pacing and exploration, Lost Recipes for hands-on interaction with food, and the anime Toriko, which presents a world entirely built around gourmet culture and rare ingredients.

Game Trailer
Watch commercial game trailer

What it does

Isle of Food is currently in a pre-alpha / early alpha state. This standalone Quest build focuses on exploration and ingredient gathering on a tropical island. Cooking, fishing, and full progression are part of the design vision but are not yet implemented.

Hunting video
Watch hunting video

The target gameplay loop is built around exploring the island, collecting ingredients, cooking dishes, and using the results to upgrade gear and the restaurant. In this build, players can hunt, farm, collect ingredients, manage equipment and inventory through a hybrid UI, interact with a 3D-printer-style shop, and experience basic guest behaviour supported by ambient music.

Gathering Screenshot

How we built it

Isle of Food has been in active development for about a year by a small core team of three: a Game Designer, an Unreal Engine Engineer, and a Lead 3D Artist. For the Meta competition, we spent roughly one month preparing this specific pre-alpha Quest build.

During the competition period, our team worked in an intensive development sprint, spending approximately 10–12 hours per day with almost no days off. This focused effort allowed us to accelerate the project by an estimated two months compared to our normal development pace.

The project originally started as a PC-focused version, so this milestone concentrated on adapting the game for standalone Quest and Android. The main focus was optimisation and stability while preserving the island atmosphere and visual clarity. During this month, we stabilised the hybrid UI (watch-based equipment, inventory, 3D printer shop, recipe book), gathering and farming interactions, bow and slingshot hunting, basic guest behaviour, and a 3D music player. Cooking, fishing, and deeper progression were deliberately postponed to keep the build focused and playable on Quest.

Landscape screenshot

Challenges we ran into

Design and UX

A key challenge was creating a VR interface that avoids both flat 2D widgets and fully diegetic systems that can feel slow or uncomfortable. Instead, we implemented a hybrid approach where familiar 2D UX logic is executed through physical 3D elements in the world, preserving clarity, speed, and predictability.

Watch 3D UI/UX

Technical and performance

Another challenge was achieving stable performance on standalone Quest hardware. Since the project originated as a PC build, we had to heavily optimise geometry, materials, and scene complexity to reach consistent frame rates without sacrificing interaction quality or the feeling of a living island.

Accomplishments that we’re proud of

Even at the pre-alpha stage, this build delivers a coherent sandbox experience. The hybrid UI functions as a unified interaction flow rather than isolated features, and gathering-focused gameplay already feels interconnected. Players can explore, collect, manage items, and experiment with systems in a way that clearly communicates the intended direction of the game.

What we learned

This milestone reinforced that effective VR UX comes from carefully combining familiar 2D interaction logic with spatial 3D elements, prioritising clarity and feedback. We also learned the importance of strictly limiting scope per milestone, focusing on a single playable slice instead of spreading effort across unfinished systems.

Watch Farming cycle

What’s next for Isle of Food – Cooking Adventure

The next phase focuses on implementing cooking and fishing as fully interactive core systems, adding onboarding and tutorial flows, and connecting gathering, cooking, and progression into a complete gameplay loop. Reaching this point will define when Isle of Food is ready for App Lab or Meta Store submission.

Updates during the competition

  1. UX / UI

  2. Guest AI
    Guest AI screenshot

  3. Bow mechanic
    Bow gameplay screenshot

  4. Slingshot mechanic
    Slingshot gameplay screenshot

  5. Farming (planting and harvesting)
    Farming gameplay video

  6. Music Player
    3D Music player gameplay video

  7. Platform and performance Optimised the level for Android and standalone Quest hardware (project initially started as a PC version)
    Landscape gameplay screenshot

Meta Quest Store page
Isle of Food on Meta Quest

Additional materials
Press kit (screenshots, logos, videos): Google Drive
Website: istifagames.com

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