Game: Food Devils (Demo)
Developer: Studio Daimon (Italy)
Publisher: Studio Daimon
Genre: Tactics RPG · Roguelite
Demo: Free · full Prologue · out now
Early Access: November 3, 2026
Platform: PC (Steam)
Steam Deck: Not optimized yet
🍖 How we reviewed it: we played the new Steam Next Fest demo of Food Devils on PC. This is a demo preview, so treat it as early impressions rather than a final verdict on the game. Our take also draws on the experiences of other players who’ve tried the demo.
5–6Hours of Prologue
2Playable Devils
5Romanceable Devils
4Biomes
Nov 3Early Access
🌶️ Know this first: your demo progress carries over. The new Next Fest demo includes the entire Prologue (about 5–6 hours), and its saves will carry over to Early Access on November 3. If you played the June demo, though, those saves aren’t compatible, so you’ll need to start a new game. Steam Deck players, beware: the developers say the game isn’t optimized for Deck yet, so play at your own risk.
👨🍳 The Last Chef in a Post-Apocalyptic World
In Food Devils, you run the last restaurant at the end of the world. Lure in human adventurers with monstrous food, have them sign Devil Contracts with the Food Devils, then send them on expeditions to hunt monsters and collect wicked ingredients for your kitchen.
It comes from Studio Daimon, the small Italian indie team behind Path of the Midnight Sun, after almost four years of development. Their pitch is a weird mix of Tactics RPG, roguelite, and hot Devils.
Hunt it. Cook it. Sign a contract with it. Maybe date it.
Every run starts with a party of one Food Devil and up to four human adventurers who stopped by your restaurant. You plan every move on grid-based tactical maps, scavenge as many ingredients as you can, and head home to cook them into dishes that bring in more customers and power up your team. The new demo adds two playable Devils, Hunter and Poison, each with its own Devil Contracts, skills and strategies, plus a full English voice-over from a cast of professional voice actors.
Our take on the demo: “Food Devils is a wild blend of tactical RPG depth and roguelite replayability that’ll hook you if you love strategy with personality and charm.”
On the Map, Then in the Kitchen
⚔️ The Expedition
- Turn-based, grid-based tactical battles in procedurally generated expeditions
- Four distinct biomes, each with its own monsters and loot
- Classes like Warrior, Shielder, Mage and Healer, boosted by Devil Contracts
🍳 The Restaurant
- Cook your loot into monstrous dishes
- Decorate your cozy little restaurant with all sorts of furniture
- Lure in hungry adventurers, each with randomized looks and stats
The structure works. One player who loves both tactics games and roguelikes calls the combination amazingly fun, saying the loop is addicting without being too punishing. Another enjoyed the gameplay too, adding that the characters reminded them of the old AdventureQuest games they played in high school.
The Best Bits of Three Genres
One player summed up the appeal neatly: it’s like taking the best of three very different games and genres.
Fire Emblem
Tactical combat
Grid-based battles where positioning, classes and party composition decide the fight.
Darkest Dungeon
Expendable heroes
A roster of human adventurers you recruit, upgrade, and sometimes lose along the way.
Extraction Games
Risk vs. reward
Grab as many ingredients as you can on each expedition, then get your haul home.
💀 Stakes Without the Restart
Here’s a smart design choice: even if you lose all your humans, you can keep going without starting a new save file. But the game still gives you every reason to protect them, so you can hang on to your really good adventurers. One player calls it a really smart way to add stakes, and we agree. Losing a great unit stings, but it never ends your restaurant.
💘 Devil Contracts & Romance
Run your restaurant well enough and the Food Devils may take a special interest in you, letting your adventurers forge Devil Contracts with them to boost their strength. Between runs, you can uncover the Devils’ mysteries and grow closer to them, if you dare. You can romance any of the five Devils, or even pair them with each other.
Where It Stumbles
⚠️ Not Quite Ready to Serve
1. Harsh turn limits and constant reinforcements. The most detailed criticism comes from one Kickstarter backer playing on the default difficulty. A strict turn counter that ends the map, combined with enemy reinforcements arriving across the map, made it feel less like strategy and more like a blind sprint. They lost an entire run because one enemy was still alive when the turns ran out. Their suggestion: make reinforcements a bonus source of ingredients rather than a run-ender. Dropping to Easy loosens the turn limits, but this is worth the developers’ attention.
2. A busy, noisy UI. One player who otherwise sees huge potential found the interface so colourful and packed with details that it wasn’t obvious which information mattered. Attacks layer on lots of extra effects, like Prey, Burn and Predator, which adds depth but also clutter.
3. Uneven character art. The same player thinks the enemies, Food Devils and major characters look good, but the randomized human adventurers don’t match the quality of the rest.
4. The cooking is a bit of a button press. One player found cooking more like farming in a gacha game than an exciting part of the loop. They’d love a short, not-too-difficult cooking mini-game to make it something you actually want to take part in.
🛠️ Known Issues & Feedback
The developers’ only known issue is a brief lag when opening the Expedition Preparation screen, which they’re investigating. Found a bug? Press F9 in-game to open the bug report form, or share feedback in the Steam discussions or on Discord. The team says player feedback has already improved the game “tremendously” since the June demo.
Things to Know
📋 Before You Play
• The demo is free on Steam now, with the full Prologue (5–6 hours) and two playable Devils
• Early Access launches November 3. The price hasn’t been announced yet
• New demo saves carry over to Early Access. June demo saves don’t
• Single-player · full controller support · Windows only · 6 languages, with full English audio
• Light on hardware: a 2.4 GHz dual-core CPU, 6 GB RAM, a 1 GB VRAM GPU and 8 GB of storage
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
| The Good |
The Bad |
The Ugly |
| Tactics + RogueliteAn addictive loop that isn’t too punishing. |
Busy UILots of colour and detail, not enough clarity. |
Turn LimitsOne straggler can sink a whole run on default difficulty. |
| Smart StakesLose your humans and keep your save. Just protect your best. |
Shallow CookingMore button press than mini-game. |
— |
| A Huge DemoThe whole 5–6 hour Prologue, with saves that carry over. |
Uneven ArtHuman adventurers lag behind the Devils. |
— |
| Full Voice ActingA professional English cast for an unhinged crew. |
Not Deck-ReadyOptimization is still to come. |
— |
| Devil Contracts & RomanceFive Devils to power up with, and to fall for. |
— |
— |
The Verdict (So Far)
Food Devils has a premise you’ll either love or roll your eyes at, but underneath the hot Devils and monster recipes is a seriously promising tactics roguelite. Combat has real depth, the “keep your save, lose your heroes” structure gives every run stakes without punishing you too hard, and a 5–6 hour Prologue with saves that carry over is about as generous as demos get.
It’s not all polished yet. The turn limits and reinforcements can feel arbitrary on default difficulty, the UI is cluttered, and cooking needs to be more than a button press. But Studio Daimon has clearly been listening since June, and there are still a couple of weeks until Early Access.
The honest read: if you like Fire Emblem-style tactics, roguelite runs, or just a cast of devils with personality, the demo is well worth your time, and your progress comes with you on November 3.
For more game reviews, check out our full reviews section.
Score Breakdown
Contracts, Customization & Romance8.0/10
Cooking & Restaurant6.5/10
Turn Limits & Reinforcements6.0/10
Demo Impressions
7.8/10
Food Devils (Demo) — Studio Daimon
A spicy tactics roguelite with real bite. It just needs a little more seasoning before November 3.
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