Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Game Design - Mission IV - Idea - Grease Joint


Remember Pressure Cooker?
Of course you don't. It was a game for the Atari 2600 released in 1983 where you, the 'chef' on a burger place, had to juggle the take-away orders of three demanding clients. A screen showed you combinations of cheese, onion, lettuce and tomato that each customer wanted while a conveyor belt dropped patties on top of buns. Ingredients were literally hurtled at you and you had to either bounce them back or take them to a patty. If you matched a desired combination, the top half of the bun would be thrown at you so you could close a burger and take it to one of the three bags. If you filled either of the bags, you'd have points counted: 


Even though it was a fine concept (at least I loved it dearly) it saw very few remakes in the last 31 years. So I suggest a reboot on the concept: you're a burger-flipper on a grease joint and a waitress yells orders at you non-stop. You must assemble burgers at the fastest rate possible with making as few mistakes as you can - maybe throw in an extra ingredient and get creativity bonuses, but if you get an ingredient that doesn't "match" the combination, you lose points instead for poor taste. In the beginning you don't know what matches, so you will probably lose many creativity points, but trial and error will get you places (after all, practice makes perfect). We can throw in a few extra concepts like cooking levels (rare, medium or well done) to make combinations harder to master and maybe the waitress speaks in code like in old American diners. It's simple mechanics with lots of potential for fun (and frustration and trial and error, which are all part of engaging gameplay).



No comments:

Post a Comment