One of the best-reviewed new games on Steam right now is about feeding raccoons and cryptids with the cosmic, Lynchian oven of your eerie woodland house

Even in our era of accelerating electric woe, there's a timeless comfort to be found in the simple act of cooking for a friend. The fulfilment of providing that basic hospitality is what developer The Rat Zone is trying to capture in Creature Kitchen, a laid-back cooking sim that released on Steam last week: It's just you, the ingredients scattered around your inscrutable woodland home, the yawning cosmic void contained within your oven, and the unsated hungers of the night creatures answering the call of the culinary witching hour.