Food and drink idea: Cravings

[Frank_Stein]

There's been a lot of ideas over time about exactly how to make food and drink something valuable. A couple ideas I've seen before have involved bonuses for individual items, having a "favorite" food or drink specific to your character, or having a hunger system.

I think I've got an idea that simplifies all of that while combining the best elements.

Occasionally, your character would get a craving for a specific food or drink. However, they only get a vague hint about what it is. It's completely ignorable, but satisfying it will confer a bonus. The trick is, you don't necessarily have to satisfy it with the specific item, but how close you are to it increases the value of the bonus

An example: A craving for a burger might give the message "You could go for something savoury"

Weak bonus: Any food
Okay bonus: Any food with a meat component
Strong bonus: Any food with a meat component thats sandwich based
Full bonus: Specific item

Cravings are random, as well as the bonus it gives. There's also room for the chef and bartender to do some creative thinking in trying to match food to people

[Haprenti]

''You suddenly feel the need for something MONSTRUOUS''

[Sitoutumaton]

"I hope the chef made lots-a spaghetti!"

[LuigiThirty]

You feel the need. The need for Swede.

[Gannets]

this is a cute idea

[Wisecrack34]

"You crave mortals"

[Frank_Stein]

this is a cute idea

Thanks! I was thinking, this makes it a little fun without being important, keeps variety as a factor without bogging it down to specifics, and isn't too gameable where people are going to be trying to min/max their spaceman's with the best food/drink/drug combos. There's a bit of player interaction between the person describing what they need and the Chef/Bartender offering suggestions. And, I figure having randomized effects and larger groups of foods means less work than implementing individual effects for the large variety of food items we have now.

Player could get a little audible tummy rumble sound effect to alert them that getting a food bonus is possible, with the accompanying flavor text. Then they get a little window of time to resolve it either by themself or getting help from the chef or barman.

Bonuses could be stuff like:

• Extra healing from eating
  
• Extra bit of stamina
  
• Extra bit of stamina recovery
  
• Shorter Stun times
  
• Extra resistance to damage types
  

With the lengths and strengths of the effects dependant on how well you did matching the craving to the consumable. 

Giving the Chef some way to get a second hint to narrow the possibilities down might be a good idea. It could be as simple as examining the person, or maybe the person gets a few tries to get it right, receiving additional feedback to encourage sampling

[cyberTripping]

As for making it easier to land on the right item, maybe the hint takes into account the form of the meal as well? Sometimes you just don't feel like soup or are a bit burnt out on sandwiches, yknow.