Three emotions I can see our game evoking are tranquility, whimsy, and jubilation. Our concept is focused around a Daikon Radish boy, who as of now “goes to the supermarket.” I can see many opportunities for cute and comforting gameplay that is more discovery and sensational oriented, mixed in with some possible naughtiness for a little challenge aspect as well.
My Moodboard reflects some of these emotions. The colors are more greens, beiges and soft pastels to elicit tranquil and happy feelings. The foods mostly all have cute little happy faces and it looks carefully cluttered to add that whimsical, magical feeling as well. I also included a lot of first person POV images because many of my ideas are stemming around cute little hands grabbing things.
My spotify playlist is similar. I could see many of these songs in the background of challenges the player might have to complete, but also they could just be upbeat, kind of silly background music to elicit happy feelings.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2riYZv8CsHnmeTtYG6r56V?si=670dc754cdef4991
Three concepts:
- Expansion game. Daikon Radish boy exploits capitalism to grow his small grocery business, and learns in the process the tradeoffs of being a huge exploitative company vs a small, family run business. He starts with a small food stand and can only sell five things. He makes friends in the process who he has short conversations with and they donate to his business and always buy from him. This upgrades to a small quickie mart where his little brother works with him. The same people from before start buying from him and spread word to the rest of the neighborhood. He makes new friends and earns so much he must expand to be a full grocery store that requires him to hire more neighborhood people. Eventually his money expands exponentially and he opens a second store, but now he does not know all of the people he hires. Eventually his restaurant becomes a huge chain, and then he has enough money to manufacture goods at his own processing factories. This turns into exploitation, he tries to make good decisions for his workers but he doesn’t understand them anymore. What choices will he have to make in the end, and what does he learn from this experience? He wanted to level up in the beginning, but now it seems he must either continue to level up at the cost of the livelihood of others or walk away.
The types of fun in this game would be mainly narrative, discovery, and expression. The narrative is above. The discovery has to do with the new friends you meet, the new different opportunities to expand, and the new items you can choose for your inventory. Along with choosing these items also comes expression, where the player can pick these items specifically and choose what their grocery store looks like with customizations.
- Finding your way home game. Daikon Radish boy wants to find his family. He awakens in the supermarket, sees a picture of the wall of a big farm, and realizes he wants to find where he came from. There are different phases and locations that he advances to throughout the game, and he can only talk to other food items for the entire game. He starts in the grocery store and must run around all of the isles asking other food friends for help, and they talk to him briefly and some require him to complete mini games like scavenger hunt games, puzzle matching games, etc. that eventually get him a map of the city to take him to a train. In the city he does similar things with pieces of trash he finds and foods on fruit stands to finally get to the train that takes him to the countryside. On the train he must complete more puzzles while he “waits” for the train to arrive. Once he gets there he realizes that his real family are the friends he made along the way… or maybe he is just happy to reach his family at the farm.
The types of fun in this game would be challenge and narrative. The radish boy must complete many puzzles to move on, possibly with levels and higher levels of difficulty of the same challenges but in different locations. The narrative aspect again comes from the story above. Perhaps challenges that are not completed right end with the daikon boy getting eaten or smashed or something like that that would restart the game at the last saved place before the lost challenge.
- Aesthetic food creation/ sensation game. The player in first person POV walks through a really cute/ satisfying grocery store and picks out whatever groceries they want given their specific level. They can grab groceries, feel them, shake them, smell them etc. They can take the groceries back to their kitchen and make whatever they want with them! Literally any recipe, the end result will look like however the player assembles it. In the end they can take a picture of their creation for their “cookbook” and serve it to their family, and level up. Specific ingredients in the grocery store that are available depend on the player’s level. Eventually, more complicated foods can be found in the grocery store so players can make more complicated dishes with multiple courses.
The types of fun in this game would be expression, discovery and sensation. The expression comes from the player being able to creatively come up with whatever dishes they want. There is no penalty for creating a dish that doesn’t work, the player can just start over and try again, which encourages creativity. The discovery aspect comes from the new foods that become available in the grocery store and the new types of dishes that can be made. Perhaps the family’s reactions at the end can also be “discovered.” Lastly is sensation. This game would be highly aesthetic-oriented, and players would have a lot of interaction with the way specific foods move around and react to different types of cooking. The sounds would also be important- from the crinkling of packages, to peeling fruits and veggies, to slicing things with a knife, to running water to cooking sounds, there are lots of opportunities for sensation here.
