Team Members: Paprika, Emma, Olu, and Saharat (Game)
Figure 1: Small restaurant (one dinner shift) (Actual Size on Canva)
We first focused on restaurant operations for guests whose numbers suprass the restaurant’s capacity, and we constructed a one dinner shift scenario at a small restaurant. From the top to bottom, our map begins with the input resources, followed by restaurant service capacity constraints, advertising and reputation demand factors, and ends with the closing procedures after guests leave. With resources and services to meet only a portion of guest demand, guests remain waiting for service to close. By the end of the dinner shift, the restaurant has either increased or decreased amounts of cash, star reviews, and food to be used for future restaurant services.
Figure 2: Spoon Fight: the game concept (Actual Size on Canva)
With “Spoon Fight” (a revised version of the game), we streamlined restaurant systems into a five day period of decisions. Former co-chef’s of “The Two Spoons” of restaurant now run their own restaurants, both vying to own their past establishment by winning the Golden Spoon award. Through five days of restaurant operations steawrdship in the game, players manage resources such as tables, cash, plates, food, and advertise to grow their customer base while also stifling their opponents restaurant patronage. Through our streamlined decisions, players experience the effects of their choices in both the game’s service and our game’s summary at the end of every day.
From a top-down look, both models illustrate the negatives of guest capacity surpassing demand. We added game elements that represent some of the important challenges of running a restaurant, including human and systemic limitations, through game mechanics that simplify these challenges and add an aesthetic of competition. The game of “Spoon Fight” also incorporates clear and direct negative outcomes to simulate game objectives of competitive restaurant systems.
