CS199 Reflection: Cooking Pals and Animals on Wheels – Noe Chicas

This quarter, I worked on Cooking Pals with Lucas and Butch a new rhythm platformer project with Lucas, currently called Animals on Wheels. Across both projects, I learned more about art, systems, collaboration, storytelling, and what it means to make games with people I care about.

A lot of this quarter began with a dinner invitation I received during the winter quarter. The email subject line read: “[Private Invitation] Dinner with Former CTO of Activision Blizzard Michael Vance.” Justin, my former teammate from my CS247G project Clearing, had invited me, along with Butch, Ryan, and Lucas, to dinner with Michael Vance.

I remember feeling excited, nervous, and a little unsure of why I had been invited into that room. I loved games, and I knew I wanted to keep making them, but the people around me felt like they were on another level. They had more experience, more confidence, and a clearer sense of what they were doing. I felt lucky to be there, but also unsure of whether I really stood out or belonged in that space yet. During that dinner, Butch talked about wanting to revisit Cooking Pals, a game where you cook with your pals—or, as the darker implication of the title suggests, maybe cook your pals too. The idea immediately caught my attention because it sounded strange, funny, disturbing, and emotional all at once. It felt like the kind of game that could be playful on the surface while still carrying something deeper underneath.

Later, Lucas encouraged me to ask Butch about working on Cooking Pals. Before I even fully asked, Butch also mentioned that he would be interested in having me possibly help section lead CS247G. Both moments meant a lot to me. They made me feel like other people were seeing ability in me before I fully saw it in myself. After that dinner, I went into the quarter feeling more confident that I could do something big. It was not that I suddenly felt completely ready, but I understood that Lucas and Butch saw me as someone capable enough to work alongside them. That made me want to rise to the level of trust they were giving me. That confidence became one of the biggest things I carried with me.

Cooking Pals

For Cooking Pals, I worked on several parts of the game such as the background scenes, cooking combinations, and food sprites. I created sprites for ingredients like cheese, lettuce, hamburger buns, and patties, and I worked on how these ingredients could combine into completed plates. This meant thinking through how individual food items would become meals, how the player would understand those combinations, and how the cooking system could feel readable during play.

GIF: current project with different item combinations

This work was different from what I had done in the past. Before this, I had mostly focused on basic mechanics like movement, player controls, or combat. Cooking Pals pushed me into more art-focused and systems-focused work. I had to think not only about whether something functioned, but whether it looked clear, whether it communicated the right information, and whether the colors, depth, and background details supported the feeling of the game.

Image: cooler where the player gets ingredients

For the cooler scene, I would want to revisit it by adding more visible inventory on the shelves. I think the space could feel more interactive if the shelves had ingredients, containers, or small details that showed this was a working restaurant storage area. Those could be sprites, and they would help the environment feel more alive.

Image: kitchen background

For the kitchen, I have gotten comments that it currently looks a little too much like a home kitchen. If I revisited it, I would be more intentional about the kind of environment I was creating. A restaurant kitchen should feel more industrial, crowded, and functional, with metal counters, storage racks, prep stations, and signs of repeated use.

Image: drive home scene

I also worked on the drive home scene. The outside is blurred, but I wanted to put more detail into the radio. From Butch and Lucas’s perspective, the radio could be used for news about recent missing people, strange reports, or updates that slowly reflect the player’s choices. I also thought it could be interesting if the player listened to a podcast every night. That could make the drive home feel like a ritual, while also giving the game another way to build tension.

One of the ideas I cared about most in Cooking Pals was the question of sacrifice. The game could have two paths: one where the player kills their pals, turns them into meals, and makes the restaurant thrive, and another where the player refuses to kill and has to fight for a different way forward. I wanted the game to give players, especially players like me, the choice not to kill. I wanted the critters to feel like characters people could connect with, not just resources. The game could present the “easy” option, but also let players struggle for the harder option: building a community of critters who work together to help the restaurant survive.

Systems, Scalability, and AI

Another thing I worked on this quarter was learning how to think more carefully about systems. Lucas pushed me to think about scalability, organization, and how to make game systems easier to build on later. This was especially useful because I have often approached games by focusing on the immediate mechanic or feature in front of me. However, I learned that AI can be especially weak when it comes to scalability, structure, and long-term consistency unless you are guiding it carefully. That changed how I think about using AI and if/how I use it. I want to use it as a tool that helps me build while still making sure I understand the design decisions behind what I am making.

Animals on Wheels

As progress on Cooking Pals became more sparse, Lucas and I also started talking about making another game together. After both of us had been excited by Rhythm Doctor, we began brainstorming a rhythm battler. Over time, the idea shifted into something closer to a rhythm platformer, mixing rhythm-based timing with platforming movement.

The project is currently called Animals on Wheels. The main character is Skate, a brown dog who rides a skateboard. He has a crush on Blade, a cat who rides roller blades. Before Skate can confess his feelings, he has to defeat Blade’s three evil exes in rhythm-based battles across a college campus.

GIF: small gameplay prototype of what we have right now

For this project, I worked on the storyboard, character design, character stories, and early gameplay brainstorming with Lucas. We talked through what the game should feel like mechanically and eventually moved toward the idea of a platformer mixed with Rhythm Doctor-inspired timing. I also started developing the characters and their roles in the story, including the evil exes and their music genres.

Image: rough character prototypes

I am currently trying to make the characters low-poly while still giving them distinct features. This summer, I want to begin modeling the characters in 3D more seriously. That is both exciting and intimidating for me. I love 3D modeling, but characters have always scared me more than props or objects. A prop can look wrong and still just be a prop. But a character is supposed to feel alive. I want to learn how to make characters that carry personality, emotion, and story.

Storytelling Through Games

A big reflection I had this quarter is that I want to make games that tell deeper stories. Through what Tracy said earlier this quarter, and through the research I have been doing in PWR (our research writing class at Stanford), I keep thinking about why we should still make games when AI can increasingly generate them. I think one answer is that games are not only products. Games are conversations between the developer and the player.

That idea became important to me when I first took CS247G. Some games have spoken to me in ways I needed at the time. They helped me grieve, understand myself, and feel things I did not know how to say directly. That is the kind of work I want to make. I do not just want to make games that function. I want to make games that reach someone.

That is also why I am excited to take CS347G: Serious Games next year. I want to keep working toward my personal goal of telling deeper stories through games. I want to learn more about how mechanics can carry meaning, how interaction can create emotion, and how games can hold themes like love, grief, identity, memory, and care.

With Animals on Wheels, I want to practice that. I want it to be a love story. I want it to be about insecurity, performance, wanting to be seen, and the courage it takes to move toward someone you care about. This year has been a rollercoaster for me, and I want to be able to tell some of that through a game like this.

What’s Next?

Next year, I want to keep trusting myself as a game developer. This quarter taught me that I am capable of more than I sometimes think I am. Even when we did not hit every benchmark, we still made meaningful progress. We made art, systems, story, mechanics, and plans for what these projects could become. More importantly, I made them with people I care about.

I am very grateful for the team I had this quarter and for the games I got to work on. I am grateful for Lucas, for the trust we built and for the feeling of making something with someone who cares about the project as much as I do. I am grateful for Butch, for bringing people into his ideas and for pushing me to think more seriously about my future. Through my talks with him, he also encouraged me to think seriously about co-terming, which means I might even stay at Stanford longer!

Working with Lucas and Butch helped me understand that making games is not only about the final product. It is also about the people you build with. Even when Cooking Pals did not hit every benchmark, I still felt proud of what we made because we were learning together! 

Moving forward, I want to trust that I can work toward something bigger. I want to keep learning art, systems, 3D modeling, storytelling, and collaboration. I want to use AI thoughtfully without letting it replace the intentional parts of game making. I want to keep making games with people I care about, and I want those games to carry feeling.

This quarter helped me realize that I am not only someone who watches other people make games. I am someone who can make them too. Next year, I want to step into that more fully. Not without fear, but with the belief that fear does not mean I am incapable. Cause I am capable.

And while there are many reasons I could point to for how I made it here, including my passion for game design, teaching games, and building projects with others, I think a huge reason was taking CS247G last year.

Image: my CS247G P2 group, one of the reasons I am here today

As I said, I want to tell stories through what I make. Playing games, writing games, and building games have shown me that games are an acceptable and powerful way to do that. CS247G helped me see that, and this quarter gave me another chance to keep practicing it. So with that, I want to also say thank you, Christina, for giving me the chance this quarter to once again make games. I want to continue building my strength here at Stanford by making games, and I am excited to see how else I can learn, grow, and create from here.