Cooking Show

Hon hon!! Cool your burners, folks!!

Tenna, Chapter 3

The Cooking Show (JP: お料理番組), or Cooking Challenge (JP: お料理チャレンジ), is one of the minigames in Tenna's TV Time show. It is first playable in Round 1 after completing The Legend of Tenna's Desert Board.

In 97 seconds, Susie and Ralsei cook in the background, while Kris moves sideways to serve food across the bar. The timer is meant to align with the Physical Challenge track, minus ten seconds.

After its first completion, the party is sent to the Green Room after receiving their Evaluation for Round 1, which includes chef results. Afterwards, it becomes replayable in the Arcade. The Cooking Show also later reappears during Tenna's encounter, though it only involves Kris avoiding the fire.

Gameplay

Moving Kris

Kris as a server

To earn POINTs, Kris must collect food with the plate on top of their head and feed them to Shadowguys or special guests, which are Lanino and Elnina.

At times, food spawns from the top of the screen. Kris can walk LEFT or RIGHT to move around to touch the food, stacking it on their plate. Kris can also jump by pressing the "[CANCEL]" button.

• In midair, Kris cannot change their trajectory. Collecting food in midair displays the word "CATCH!" and gives 1 POINT.
• If food hits Kris rather than the plate or stack, the food gets pushed to the side instead of joining the stack.
• The higher the stack, the slower Kris moves. It also causes Kris to not jump as high, and causes a delay between pressing the jump button and actually jumping.
• A high stack also causes the food to sway left and right despite Kris slowing down. This becomes noticeable after five stacked food. At seven, it the stack begins to sway more. Despite this, food counts as stacked if it reaches any part of the stack, or if it touches the base plate.
• The first food spawns randomly after 30-60 frames; after that, the next food spawns after frames, rounded up, where is the amount of seconds remaining when the previous fire spawned. (This means the maximum rate, one per 32 frames, is reached at 16 seconds left.)

Feeding guests

Regular guest Shadowguy

Shadowguys move from the right side to the left. Pressing the "[CONFIRM]" button causes Kris to throw their current stack of food.

• If the food hits a Shadowguy, Kris earns POINTs depending on how much food was stacked.
• A higher stack also causes a delay after pressing the button to throw before the food is actually thrown.

The "SPECIAL GUEST" is either Lanino or Elnina, who enter from the left side as a sound denotes their visit. The two are distressed after their breakup, and quickly move left and right in Kris's range in the row behind the Shadowguys. They appear four times for roughly 10 seconds, and exit to the right.

• The time Lanino/Elnina appear are roughly as follows: 88 seconds, 66 seconds, 39 seconds, and 14 seconds.
• If Kris hits them with the food, bonus POINTs are earned, which is a higher amount than hitting Shadowguys.

Scoring

Fireballs

Susie as a chef

At times, Susie creates fireballs while cooking. This causes the stray fireballs to appear from either the left or right side of the path Kris moves on. Kris can jump over them using the CANCEL button.

• Jumping over one earns 2 POINTs.
• Kris loses POINTs if they get hit by a flame, causing the stack to be discarded and cannot be thrown. The taller the stack, the more POINTs are lost when hit.
• The first fire spawns after 270 frames; after that, the next fire spawns after frames, rounded up, where is the amount of seconds remaining when the previous fire spawned.

POINT gain

POINTs can be earned or lost by doing any of the following:

• 1 POINT: "CATCH!" appears when Kris jumps and catches the food.
• 2 POINTs: When Kris jumps over a fireball.
• -3 POINTs: If Kris gets hit by a fireball and has no food on the plate, and if Kris accidentally walks over food.

Stack #	POINTs earned	Bonus POINTs	Fireball hit
1	3	44	-4
2	7	49	-5
3	12	55	-6
4	18	62	-7
5	24	70	-8
5+

POPULARITY

Ralsei as a chef

The "POPULARITY" meter is the 5-star ranking on the screen, which acts as a secondary timer for the Cooking Show. There are three tiers:

• First tier: 5 shining stars, with the POPULARITY text in yellow and a light blue background.
• Second tier: 5 stars, with the POPULARITY text being white, and a blue background.
• Third tier: the stars and text gradually turning black, with the background turning red.

If the POPULARITY meter is emptied, the Cooking Show ends early and neither POINTs nor rank are rewarded, and the game is replayed until the party succeeds. If the POPULARITY meter is filled during Round 1, the game immediately ends and the party is awarded a T-rank. This does not apply to the Arcade version, where the T-rank requires earning a large amount of POINTs surpassing the amount needed to fill the POPULARITY meter.

The POPULARITY meter is calculated based on the number of POINTs earned and how long it has been since the start of the minigame, acting as a required number of POINTs that must be obtained. The requirement starts at -200 and slowly increases; 0.05 per frame at the start, gradually increasing to 0.15 per frame by 50 seconds in. The requirement hits 0 around 61 seconds in (when the timer is 39), and ends at 173.5. The bar reaches the maximum at 400 POINTs above the requirement.

Chef results

The "CHEF RESULTS" is the overall POINTs earned during the Cooking Show. For TV Time's Round 1 Evaluation, it is listed as "CHEF SCORE". Kris receives a rank based on total POINTs earned at the end of the timer:

• T-rank: earn at least 640 POINTs when replaying in the Arcade. In Round 1, it is re-filling the POPULARITY meter back to the first tier with at least 10 seconds left on the timer.
• S-rank: earn at least 450 POINTs.
• A-rank: earn at least 380 POINTs.
• B-rank: earn at least 300 POINTs.
• C-rank: earn at least 200 POINTs.
• Z-rank: earn fewer than 200 POINTs.

Losing nine times in a row during Round 1 is supposed to disable the lose condition, but due to an oversight, this does not actually occur, unlike in Round 2's Rock Video minigame. As a result, getting Z-rank still requires actively playing the minigame well enough to finish without running out of POPULARITY; one strategy is to consistently feed Shadowguys exactly two stacks of food while getting hit by some fires along the way.

Creation and development

The Cooking Show minigame was created by Ondy, who was a guest programmer.

The description of Susie's apron on Fangamer credits that Chess worked on the spritework. On day two of the UNDERTALE 10th Anniversary Stream, Dan Moore apologizes and explains that Chess made a Bluesky post revealing that she also drew dog food. He shares a print of Chess's Bluesky post where she recalls drawing the dog food and other foods for the Cooking Show. Toby Fox also refers to it as "Delta dog food" during the stream.

Dialogue

Round 1

Before minigame

• [Susie] What the...
• [Susie] The hell did you do to us!?
• [Tenna] Hon hon!! Cool your burners, folks!!
• [Tenna] Today's ...
• [Tenna] Is the COOKING CHANNEL!
• [Susie] Oh, okay. That actually makes sense.
• [Tenna] Kris, your mother used to cooking shows, didn't she?
• [Tenna] Oh, how she'd LAUGH, glowingly, along with each new recipe,
• [Tenna] Feverishly taking notes on each step to make them for her family...
• [Tenna] As you and your pretended the chefs were bungling the simplest parts!
• [Tenna] "Darn!! I overcooked the water!!"
• [Tenna] "Oops!! No!! I keep breaking the eggs!! Oops!!"
• [Tenna] AHAHAHA!! Hahaha!! That sure was , wasn't it?
• [Tenna] Now, are you ready or what!?
• [Instructions please]
  • [Tenna] Here are the instructions for the .
  • [Tenna] FOOD is FALLING! KRIS, CATCH the food on your head to STACK IT UP!
  • [Tenna] THROW it to customers with [(CONFIRM)]! If the food touches them, they'll gobble it up!
  • [Tenna] SPECIAL CUSTOMERS will sometimes appear! They're worth POINTs, don't miss 'em!
  • [Tenna] SUSIE will probably cook BURNING FIRE. JUMP over it with [(CANCEL)]!
  • [Tenna] Missed food will also turn into BURNING FIRE, so be careful!
  • [Tenna] Big stack, POINTs! But... You'll MOVE and JUMP slower! Be careful!
  • [Tenna] Last until the end to But if the POPULARITY GAUGE runs out, it's GAME OVER!
  • [Tenna] Now don't touch that dial, OR that fire!
  • [Tenna] Because...
  • [Tenna]
• [Let's go]
  • [Tenna] THAT's what I like to hear!
  • [Tenna] Now get those pans over easy, or these eggs are gonna be TOUGH!
  • [Tenna]

Minigame cleared

• [Tenna] THAAAAT'S IT!!!
• [Tenna] Well, would you LOOK at those smiling customers!?
• [Tenna] They're happy as yet-to-be-cooked clams!
• [Tenna] And Kris, YOU'RE just as happy, aren't you?
• [Tenna] You remember how FUN watching cooking shows was too, don't you!?
• [Susie] So did we win?
• [Tenna] What do you THINK? That was the most UNFORGETTABLE show in prime time!!
• [Tenna] MIKE! Show the results OF THE BOARD!!!

Minigame failed

• [Loss #1]
  • [Tenna] Hey, you know those famous STARS they award to incredible restaurants...?
  • [Tenna] You just got a NEGATIVE ONE!! The world's first Anti-Good Restaurant!!
  • [Tenna] Gotta give it to ya, you're trailblazers!
  • [Tenna] Alright, one more try! Let's again!!
• [Additional losses]
  • [Tenna] You lost <number> TIMES?!
  • [Tenna] Can someone go check if the fire is defective!? [Loss #2]
  • [Tenna] The audience is starting to question the quality of the popcorn! [Loss #3]
  • [Tenna] If that famous angry chef gets here, we're gonna get shut down! [Loss #4]
  • [Tenna] The food is going cold! The actor's union isn't gonna like this! [Loss #5]
  • [Tenna] I'll admit it! I'm using imitation fire! But you can do it! [Loss #6]
  • [Tenna] With the screen going so grey I thought this was an infomercial! [Loss #7]
  • [Tenna] One more loss and Susie will be replaced with a paid actor! [Loss #8]
  • [Loss #9]
    • [Tenna] All right, that's it. We're turning off the lose condition.
    • [Tenna] You happy!?

Bonus round

• [Tenna] Ahhh... Kris, remember when your brother was here?
• [Tenna] You used to spend so, so, much time with him.
• [Tenna] With me.
• [Tenna] Watching cartoons. Playing games.
• [Tenna] Smiling. Laughing. Crying.
• [Tenna] Why?
• [Tenna] Why don't you two do that anymore...?
• [Tenna] What!? He went to COLLEGE?
• [Tenna] Well... why'd he have to go do THAT!?
• [Tenna] You. Can learn. ANYTHING! On TV!
• [Tenna] Ahahahah!!!
• [Tenna] Yes. The instructions. Right. The INSTRUCTIONS!!!!
• [Tenna] They're coming out of the pipes.
• [Tenna] They're crawling out of the pipes.
• [Tenna] Where are they going...!?
• [Tenna] Hahaha... I... don't... KNOW!!
• [Tenna] Ahahahahahaha!!!

Gallery

• 
  Cooking Show poster featuring Ralsei
• 
  Kris's server outfit; unused
• 
  Susie's chef outfit
• 
  Ralsei's chef outfit
• 
  Special guest Lanino
• 
  Special guest Elnina
• 
  Tenna dancing from his version of the minigame

Trivia

Activating the "Pulsar Cannons" with the "W" key

• If the "W" key is pressed during the Cooking Show, lasers and explosions shoot across the Popularity Meter.
  • This Easter egg is a reference to the unused images for Ralsei's Manual, the controls section of which contained a "Cooking" section, where the "Z", "X", and "C" keys were said to control "Butter", while the "W" key would control "Pulsar Cannons".
• The line "If that famous angry chef gets here, we're gonna get shut down!" is most likely a reference to Gordon Ramsay.