alt title: Food Coma: A P1 Reflection
P1 was an absolutely wild ride for me. My memories of 247G are still fresh since I took it this past Spring, but nothing could have prepared me for the speed at which we prepared this first project. I remember that at this point in the quarter for P1, we were still arguing about the name of our game. Only two days passed between our first playtest and our team’s first meeting regarding balancing changes that made their way into the final version of the game. The accelerated nature of this project definitely pushed me way out of my comfort zone, but I’m a much better designer for it — I’ll never forget our second team meeting, when our team finally entered the flow state and we just threw out good idea after good idea. This flow persisted into the final week of the project for all of us, and our P1 is 1000% better for it.
I couldn’t be more proud of the work our team accomplished on Cook Off! Not only do I think we created an effective teaching game that encourages players to learn more about budgeting, cooking in different contexts, and how to be creative with uncertainty in the ingredients they use to make food, but also an incredibly fun judging game that allows players to learn from each others’ experiences, cooking styles, and cultural backgrounds. Very early on we pivoted from a health-focused game due to uncertainty regarding inserting our personal biases into “health,” something that is very nebulous and often deeply rooted in every person’s cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. I’m incredibly thankful we did so, as we turned a potential weakness of a health-based teaching game into one of the core strengths of our final P1.
As mentioned previously, Cook Off! is a judging game that leans heavy into aesthetics of competition, challenge, and fellowship. The competition of course comes from the judging of the Player’s Choice and the Meal Card availability that allows players to directly compete for points and strategize around other players, denying them resources by buying ingredients or stealing resources they already have. The challenge is created through the Event Card system that constantly keeps players on their toes, encouraging them to keep a closer eye on their wallets. I very vividly remember a conversation I had with Luna regarding the Event Card system in which we made the switch from per-Meal Events and per-round Events, as they mentioned how quickly one’s financial situation can change. Of course, this system messes with some Events (e.g. economic recessions definitely last for more than just the course of one meal), but overall it encouraged players to budget harder and save more. Finally, fellowship. We wanted to encourage player interaction as much as we could due to a few reasons, chiefly that our original concept was a game called Potluck! in which players would collaboratively create dishes to satisfy a list of requirements. Although players in Cook Off! can no longer submit meals as a group, they can still trade and go after different goals (Meal Cards), which definitely improved and increased interactions between players.
Although it was challenging to keep up with other classwork, out-of-class playtests, and out-of-class meetings for making quick changes to the game, I know I’m a stronger designer for having completed this project. I have a newfound respect for the thought put into learning games that doesn’t necessarily exist in other serious games — creating MDAO that are not only cohesive BUT also teach the player something they can be assessed on in real life? Harder than it sounds, but easier after having made Cook Off! I definitely feel my intuition for creating cohesive MDAO for a specific goal has improved exponentially over the past three weeks, and I can’t wait to see where it takes me.
Finally, I can’t thank my teammates enough for putting up with my constant rules suggestions and late night WhatsApp messages, and I’m excited to see what everyone cooks up in P2!!!
