Overcooked

Identical chefs let the game scale from solo to four players. Overcooked rejects asymmetric characters because it must work automatically for four players, a few friends, a pair or one person. Every chef has the exact same abilities and the exact same information.

It also draws players of very different skill, so roles get divided level by level and less experienced players can avoid tricky movement like dodging fireballs or crossing slippery platforms. Mark Brown contrasts this with symmetrical shooters like Resident Evil 5, where both players carry the same gear and often feel like they are playing alone.

Overcooked gets asymmetry from level design instead of characters. Weird kitchen layouts, dirty plates, random fires and burning patties create roles for identical chefs and then keep changing them, so in the best kitchens players never stop talking.

"Overcooked gets to be an asymmetrical game, without asymmetry." Mark Brown's point is that co-op communication can come from the level rather than from giving players different abilities or information.

Layouts make solo cooking slow, so passing ingredients wins. In the first Overcooked kitchen, a long central island makes walking from onions to chopping board to pot to conveyor belt tedious alone, while two players passing onions across the table cook much faster.

Later stages add paths too narrow for two chefs and maps split in two by moving vehicles. Without that pressure, the plan could stay as thin as "I'll make the burger, you do the pizza."

Time-based scoring turns the layout's nudge into real pressure. Slow meals lose customers and cost a penalty, fast deliveries earn big tips, and the final score counts meals delivered within a tight time limit. Because speed matters, players split into roles, such as one chopping and prepping patties while the other cooks and delivers.

Players talk heavily at the start of a level to pick roles and work out the most efficient way to cook the orders.

Fixed roles let teams stop talking, so Overcooked breaks them. Asymmetric co-op tends to settle into a predictable pattern where each player sticks to a role and stops communicating. Overcooked starts a level choreographed but ends it as a manic catastrophe, forcing players to re-plan aloud.

"No matter how well choreographed your kitchen is at the start of the level, it will have turned into a manic catastrophe by the end of the stage."

Cooking wait timers make players wander into each other's jobs. A burger takes a few seconds to fry, so players leave to help elsewhere instead of standing idle. If they stay away too long it burns and someone else must drop their own task to fix it.

Washing up works because nobody owns it. Washing up has no dedicated owner, no predictable rhythm, appears only later in a level, and nobody wants it. Each time clean plates run out, the flow breaks, meals burn and roles get reshuffled.

Mark Brown thinks it might be the key to Overcooked's success. "No one is the dedicated plate washer."

Levels change mid-play to wreck plans and restart the conversation. Moving chopping stations, ingredients on conveyor belts, shifting kitchens and nuisance rats destroy set-ups, so players must talk through new ones.

Kitchens sit on a swaying pirate ship, a hot air balloon, or are split by an earthquake. In one stage the balloon crashes into a restaurant halfway through, so players make sushi as well as salad.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes forces talk through split information. One player sees the bomb and the other holds the printed manual, so the first describes it, the second reads instructions, and without that exchange the bomb goes off.

Resident Evil Revelations 2 does the same with abilities: Claire has the firepower and Moira the stunning torch, so neither survives alone.

Super Mario Galaxy uses asymmetry to mix skill levels. The second player gets a floating cursor that collects star bits and stuns enemies while the first plays Mario as usual.