In our P3 game, we are placing worker treatment by employers, as well as worker management, as a high value for our game. We want to make a commentary on the expendability of workers as perceived by upper management of larger workplaces, and want players to wrestle with the values of self-success (in the form of achieving a restaurant) and ethical treatment of their workers (chefs); will your restaurant be more successful if you just leave one of your employees to die? By the end of the gameplay experience, we want players to question whether they prioritized the restaurant they worked hard to establish, or the living beings that make the foundation of the restaurant’s improved success.
The main gameplay loop will rely on a basis of in-game days: players will manage a restaurant and will have to take special care for the ingredients they purchase, the dishes they choose to offer, and the customers they’ll have to please (which will come at varying times with varying demands, not all of which can be met). The player will fulfil a gameplay loop of making decisions regarding how their restaurant operates, seeing how that decision affects their staff/working team, and then subsequently seeing how that decision affects their income for the day. They will also have to interact with their chefs and create social bonds, to make sure they are happy/see if their needs are met. Every so often (~3 days), the player can hire a new chef, which will shift the workplace dynamics, and greatly affect the restaurant.
In terms of arcs, we perceive narrative arcs as stories relating to the manageable chefs. This can include the player making choices to assist the chef in their personal endeavors, resolve conflicts between chefs that may or may not lead to disruption of the workday, and make decisions that may determine the physical safety of their chefs, at the expense of the success of their restaurant. While these choices will provide feedback like our loops, feedback for these decisions come in the form of permanent consequences on the world and the characters, which will hopefully evoke an emotional response (shock) from the player, but which they can still learn from while they continually play the game.
