By Jenna Hume

Do you like to cook and travel? Then this new game is the one for you! Brunette Games is excited to announce the release of Me2Zen’s Restaurant Rescue. We put our previous experience on Cooking Confidential and other titles to the test crafting the narrative and writing all dialogue for this game. Players can cook new dishes, travel across the U.S., and renovate restaurants! 

Restaurant Rescue tells the story of the Spatz family--dad and chef Eli, mom and interior designer Zoe, introverted teen Lucas, wild child Winnie, and the loyal dachshund, Basil. In an effort to spend more time together, the Spatz family decides to start a restaurant makeover business and travel across the U.S., helping aspiring restaurant owners achieve their dreams. Will this family business thrive or fail? Play to find out!

Official Description

Welcome to Restaurant Rescue - Cooking Game! 🍔👩‍🍳Got the cooking fever? Join Eli Spatz, famous master chef, and his family as they travel around and help renovate and rescue struggling restaurants! Cook, serve and design--your restaurant story starts here!

Renovate and decorate restaurants in your own unique way, cook dishes, and serve customers with ease. With its beautifully designed 3D graphics and a captivating story filled with love, drama, and danger, this game will offer you a truly immersive, one-of-a-kind cooking experience!

Upgrade your kitchen and decorate restaurants with new flooring, furniture, and decorations to attract more customers. Enjoy cooking food, beat levels and explore a variety of different cuisines as you unlock new restaurants. Plus, you will be challenged by nail-biting time management tasks that test your cooking skills and quick thinking. Manage orders and race against the clock!

🧁This Cooking Game Features:

- Design and renovate restaurants with your own personal touch

- Cook global recipes to impress your customers

- Enjoy stunning 3D graphics

- Discover a captivating restaurant story with twists and turns

- Serve customers and manage orders to test your time management skills

- Unlock various restaurants, such as a BBQ food truck, bakery, Italian restaurant, taco truck, steak house, Thai restaurant, and more.

- Upgrade your kitchen and revive struggling restaurants

- Play offline and for free!

🍳Get ready to COOK, DECORATE, and UPGRADE! Whether you're a fan of time management games or cooking games, Restaurant Rescue: Cooking Games has it all. This crazy cooking game will provide you with endless hours of fun as you progress through its levels and experience new challenges.

Download Restaurant Rescue - Cooking Game today, and let your restaurant story begin!

Restaurant Rescue is available to play today on the Google Play Store.

We're thrilled to announce Brunette Games made it to the final voting round in PocketGamer Connect's Mobile Game Awards. We're up for the award in two categories:

1. Best Service Provider - Please vote for us here!
2. Game of the Year - This one is for the game we designed and wrote with the Jam City team for Netflix Games, Wild Things: Animal Adventures, which you can vote for here!

It's an honor to get the nomination for Best Service Provider, especially as we celebrate seven years in the industry. We've provided narrative, scriptwriting, and voice-over services to clients on 36 released games, many of them topping the app store charts and enjoyed by millions (billions?) of players worldwide.

Our clients range from super-small studios--literally just one guy in Shanghai, for example!--all the way up to major publishers like Jam City and studios backed by big names like Supercell. They all entrust us with the stories in their games, and for that we express our gratitude. We hope we've earned that trust over the years.

Wild Things: Animal Adventures is a project very near and dear to our hearts. It began with a pre-pandemic, in-person kickoff--when our team was flown out to Jam City's Culver City headquarters--and continued for more than a year as we collaborated with Ryan Kaufman, Jam City's then-VP of narrative, Chris Tremmel, the veteran creative director (both now with PLAI LABS), and their talented teams. The nomination is well-deserved, and we look forward to seeing the title snag the win!

Here's the game in the latest Netflix sizzle trailer. Wish us luck! Voting closes April 6, and we'd love to get your click in our favor. Thank you.

Anthony Valterra, Lisa Brunette, and Dexter Woltman at the Riot Games office in St. Louis, back in 2019.

By Lisa Brunette

I’m thrilled to announce three promotions within our team this year. First is Dexter Woltman to a lead role, taking responsibility for our core creative crew. In this young industry, Dexter’s practically a veteran at this point, having completed his first Brunette Games assignment as a freelancer back in 2018, when he was simultaneously studying scriptwriting at Webster University. It’s been personally gratifying to have recognized Dexter’s potential in my game design classes and then watched him make a real name for himself as a game writer and narrative designer. He’s been integral to Brunette Games’ success.

In addition to that key promotion, Anthony Valterra is now chief operating officer. As my husband as well as my right hand, Anthony has been a terrific partner through this now seven-year indie adventure. We all continue to admire how well he wears various hats, whether that’s contract guru, payroll whiz, or creative consultant. We rely on his past experience in both brand and grant management, and we appreciate the color he brings to our table reads with his distinct character voices.

Lastly is my own move to chief executive officer. I’ve known faux “CEOs” at tiny startups who attempted to fill those shoes too early on, and mainly by default. But as the studio’s sole owner, I believed it was important to create a real career path for myself, and I wanted to earn that title––which I did, over seven years. While I never set out specifically to become a CEO, as I saw the opportunity to create and lead a dedicated team of interactive storytellers, I naturally advanced into it. My strategic vision for Brunette Games has held us in good stead as we’ve grown since 2016, having designed, written, and continued to support the narratives on 36 released client titles and counting, for some of the greatest studios in the industry, including the world’s best-known IPs.

Here’s a round-robin Q&A featuring those of us in new roles.

Dexter Woltman, lead writer | designer. This pic prompted a teammate to say, "Remember us little people when your modeling career takes off."

Dexter Woltman, Lead Writer | Designer

What can clients expect from working with Brunette Games?

Clients can expect top-of-the-line service from industry professionals—both veterans with decades of experience and rising standouts with an exceptional knack for storytelling. With a focus on teamwork, we deliver quality narrative design with an always-fresh perspective. We work hard to ensure our clients are satisfied, and top-performing titles like Merge Mansion and Sweet Escapes showcase the utmost dedication we bring to a project.

What's one of your favorite stories in a TV show, movie, or book?

My favorite movie of the last year is “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” It's a satisfying, character-driven story that doesn't get lost in the shuffle of its multiverse hijinks. With powerful performances and top-notch writing, it mixes humor and emotion with spectacular set pieces. Ultimately, it's a story about acceptance—and I think we can all learn a little from it.

COO Anthony Valterra, sporting a sweatshirt emblazoned with the classic brand he once managed at Wizards of the Coast.

Anthony Valterra, Chief Operating Officer (COO)

What's your favorite thing about working for Brunette Games?

Getting to see a game we have worked on find its audience and be appreciated. We’ve worked on a number of indie titles that performed above expectations. That is always very satisfying.

What does a perfect day look like for you?

A project completed, followed by a new project coming in. It is always a joy to see a project completed. And it is always exciting to see something new coming in the door!

CEO Lisa Brunette, who started the whole thing.

Lisa Brunette, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

What makes Brunette Games’ work so valuable to clients? 

Without expert narrative input at the concept stages, I don’t think Lily’s Garden and Matchington Mansion––two of our most well-known efforts––would have become the hits they are today. Our clients get a lot of bang for their buck working with us, and we don’t even charge royalties on any of these games, which earn millions of dollars a month.

What’s a surprising/interesting fact about you? 

I’ve been writing for 30+ years, and I was a journalist prior to finding a home in the game industry. I interviewed a lot of quirky characters, including the designer of the Batmobile! For that I got autographed photos of the car for my two brothers, who were both mechanics at the time.

Join me in congratulating Dexter and Anthony on the promotions, and a shout-out to our clients, who make our work––and their games––possible.