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Tasty: The Search for the Mending Blend
A game by the all-designer student team Skyscraper Games.
Published Jan 04, 2012.
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Skyscraper Games consists of Justin Benjamin Producer, BAGD planning, meetings, bug tracking, status reports, presentations, level design Wade Henricksen Design Lead, BAGD GDD, game oversight, playtesting, game content, level design, sound Jay Parsell Technical Director, BSGD technical architecture, TDD, source control, engine performance, technical oversight, sound Sang Kim Level Designer, BAGD level design, modeling, UDK rigging, character animator Todd Jacobson Character Artist, BAGD texturing, character design Kat Kuo Enemy NPC Artist, BFA enemy design, modeling, rigging Juan Monje Environment modeler, BAGD lead character modeling, rigging, environment textures |
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Introduction Game Flow Game Mechanics Game Characters Game Resources Game Environment Game Controls Visual Design Audio Design Behavior Design Physics Design Multiplayer Design Sprites Models Textures Fonts Source Sounds Music Source Flowchart Mockups |
Section I - Game Overview
Introduction
The player is a portly chef that has been thrust into a bizarre alternate dimension by a malevolent, hungry overlord. In order to earn the chef’s freedom, the player must navigate deviously designed 3D labyrinths in search of recipe ingredients, combating “bad” junk food NPCs along the way. The player will be able to dynamically alter the walls surrounding them by collecting ingredients and activating switches.
Genre
3rd person action/adventure puzzle
Target Audience
E10+ (Everyone 10 and up)
Game Flow
Starting out in your kitchen inside a building, the player is in a large single room kitchen tutorial area teaching them how to move. Navigating out to the outer open elevator, the player will be immediately taken in by the surrounding large garden hedgemaze as the chef is lowered into his garden labyrinth.
The player will be in the garden looking for 3 ingredients to complete the meal he was making upstairs, explained by a note the player finds. Upon finding the final ingredient, that is where the twist in the game occurs. While seemingly backtracking in the hedgemaze following the rabbit, the player will find he has ended up in an alternate dimension where mazes are on the walls in a big hub with multiple paths leading out from it.
There is a neutral NPC in the middle of the hub that gives you a list of ingredients you need to find so that you can make a meal for a hungry, angry overlord in this alternate dimension. The NPC will explain how you’ve been summoned here for the sole purpose to cook for them. From the hub it will be clearly marked which way to which ingredient. Each ingredient will require the player to traverse a different puzzle/maze to acquire said ingredient.
Upon acquiring all ingredients, the player makes a meal which grants him access back to his normal realm after a final confrontation with overlord, who is female. The player will want to progress and explore the different areas to regain their freedom. It will be action based with sections requiring the user to think which ingredient would go with what meal. The entire game should not take any longer than 30 minutes.
Section II – Mechanics & Characters
Game Mechanics
Movement: The player will be controlled with keyboard WASD keys or with an XBOX360 controller.
Damage: The player will have a set amount of health. Getting attacked by an enemy will take away from that health. Periodic healing spas will completely re-heal the player. NPCs have static health as well.
Points: No point system. Only collection.
Winning: To win, complete your hasenpfeffer meal by getting back to your realm.
Losing: If you die, you lose, and start back at a checkpoint.
Stats: The game tracks what ingredients you’ve collected and how many puzzle mazes they have completed. This will be utilized with a percentage score next to username on main menu.
Line of sight: Enemy NPCs can see through walls but not forever. Once out of a certain range, they stop tracking.
Noise detect: Enemies cannot detect noise, but will attack if they see you over a wall.
Game Characters
Cookie: Player controlled
HP: 100
Combat: Melee
Ability: Scent mode
Purpose: To act as the main character
Story: A portly chef in Europe just trying to make some hasenpfeffer!
Rabbit: Neutral NPC
HP: n/a
Combat: n/a
Ability: speed
Purpose: For the player to follow through the garden during tutorial.
Story: A rabbit you find roaming your garden.
Chips: Enemy NPC
HP: 10
Combat: melee
Ability: chomp
Purpose: Stop you from getting good food. Grunt-level enemy.
Story: A good bag of chips turned bad by the overlord.
Choco: Enemy NPC
HP: 20
Combat: melee
Ability: Chocolate spill
Purpose: Stop you from getting good food. Grunt-level enemy.
Story: A half-eaten chocolate bar out for revenge.
Vines: Enemy NPC
HP: 10b
Combat: Ranged
Ability: Entangle
Purpose: Stop you from getting good food. Grunt-level enemy.
Story: The vines of red do not like to be disturbed.
Overlord: Boss NPC
HP: 100
Combat: Melee/Ranged
Ability: Maze generation
Purpose: Stop you from getting back to your realm
Story: Once good, turned twisted and bent on bad food.
Section III - Resources & Environment
Game Resources
Equipment Purpose
Rolling Pin Main characters melee weapon.
Collectables
Carrot Ingredient to be acquired.
Potato Ingredient to be acquired.
Strawberry Ingredient to be acquired.
Rabbit Meat Ingredient to be acquired.
Letter Has ingredients on them
Sign Wooden post to show directions
Environment
Bush Acts as garden wall.
Healing pool Heals the player
Rock Acts as alternate dimension wall
Pot To put ingredients in
Char models
Chef main character
Rabbit neutral NPC
Chips enemy NPC
Choco enemy NPC
Vines enemy NPC
Overlord enemy NPC
Game Environment
Environment 1: Kitchen / Cookies Garden. This is the starting area the player familiarizes himself with. It is bright and colorful and will contain an entry-level maze introducing the player to the games’ main mechanics with a couple dynamic walls but no enemies.
There will be two main areas here. This inside kitchen, and the outside garden.
Environment 2: Overlord realm. A slightly darker but also colorful abstract realm with enemies in similarly styled simple maze area but with the small added difficulty of low level grunts.
There will be three main areas in this realm. Three distinct areas, and one central hub.
Area 1 is the hub. The hub is a big circular area with three connecting maze puzzles to explore, each with respective ingredients to be found there.
Area 2 is also inside the underground area with a multidimensional maze that requires pressing switches to access different parts of the maze.
Area 3 is an outside maze along the side of a rock face that has you ascending to the overlords lair with all required ingredients.
Section IV - Control & Design
Game Controls
Keyboard: WASD for movement
Spacebar to jump
Mouse: Left click to swing rolling pin
Right click to activate scent-mode
XBOX360: Analog stick to maneuver character.
RB to swing melee
A to jump
RT to activate scent-mode
Visual Design:
Look and feel: The game will be bright and colorful in the outside realm, and slightly darker but also colorful in the abstract realm. The look the game will have the color palette of World of Warcraft. Colorful and cartoony. The gameplay will reflect this with its physics and animation/humor style of Looney Toons.
Camera: 3rd person high over the shoulder. Distance from the character will be somewhere between Gears of War and the original Fallout.
Audio Design:
Music will be light and fun. Non distracting to play, but representative to surrounding area. Light and fun in the garden, dark and brooding (but still light in theme) in the abstract world.
Behavior Design:
Certain enemies will be able to detect destroyable walls and break through them to get at you. Each junk food NPC will have its own unique personality. The final boss will not need AI pathing as she will be stuck in one spot merged with the wall behind her. Normal grunt-level NPCs will require simple pathing along the inside of each maze area.
Physics Design:
The game will have normal world physics applied to the character, objects, and NPCs. When the character jumps, he comes back to the ground. Physics objects like boxes will naturally fall.
Multiplayer Design:
No multiplayer is planned for this game.
Appendix A - Story
Chef Cookie is the son of one of the best Chefs in all of Europe. Living up to his fathers’ standard had not been an easy task, and making the perfect meal is his goal day in and day out. Then came the day that he needed to make the dish he had always feared making. Hasenpfeffer. His dad made it perfectly, and he never wanted to make it imperfect. So he decided this was the day he would make it!
Leaving his kitchen, Cookie descends the elevator down into his garden to acquire some meat for the stew. When he finds a rabbit he begins to chase it down with his rolling pin to knock it out and bring it back upstairs for food preparation.
While chasing the rabbit however, the chef to his bewilderment ends up in an alternate dimension and the rabbit is nowhere to be seen!
He ends up in a dark and colorful realm filled with mazes and stuck in a large hub with a shady NPC telling him about an overlord and how the overlord is hungry and summoned you here to make food for them.
The chef must avoid junk food that has turned evil in this realm while acquiring new ingredients to make for the overlord. When the chef finally acquires all needed ingredients, he must face the overlord to feed them the meal they requested. When the chef enters the overlords’ room, you find out the overlord is in fact a crazed lady who is very hungry. The chef satisfies her hunger which changes the world around him back to the reality he was used to and he returns back home to finally make the hasenpfeffer.
Appendix B - Art List
Sprites:
Glow effect to surround ingredients.
Models:
Rolling Pin
Filename: RollingPin.mdl
Description: A rolling pin to be used for melee. No bones or physics needed.
Format: .mdl
Poly count: low poly
Size: a little longer than the length of an arm.
Carrot
Filename: Carrot.mdl
Description: an ingredient to be collected No bones or physics needed.
Format: .mdl
Poly count: low poly
Size: About 4 feet tall. Nice and big.
Potato
Filename: Potato.mdl
Description: an ingredient. No bones or physics needed.
Format: .mdl
Poly count: low poly
Size: a little longer than the length of an arm. Nice and big.
Strawberry
Filename: Strawberry.mdl
Description: An ingredient. No bones or physics needed.
Format: .mdl
Poly count: low poly
Size: a little longer than the length of an arm. Nice and big.
Rabbit
Filename: Rabbit.mdl
Description: a small rabbit that can hop. Will need bones and rigging.
Format: .mdl
Poly count: low poly
Size: About the size of a normal rabbit. A little bigger than normal.
Bush
Filename: Bush.mdl
Description: A bush that acts as a wall in Cookies, garden.
Format: .mdl
Poly count: low poly
Size: About 20 feet long, 4 feet tall. Should be tileable.
Chef
Filename: Chef.mdl
Description: a portly chef in an apron. Needs bones and rigging.
Format: .mdl
Size: About 5 feet tall.
Chips
Filename: Chips.mdl
Description: A crinkly bag of angry potato chips. Needs bones and rigging.
Format: .mdl
Poly count: medium poly
Size: About 4 feet tall.
Choco
Filename: Choco.mdl
Description: A half-eaten chocolate bar with plastic wrap for hands. Will need bones and rigging.
Format: .mdl
Poly count: medium poly
Size: About 4 feet tall.
Vines
Filename: Vines.mdl
Description: A red licorice enemy that is snakelike and moves on the ground. Will need bones and rigging.
Format: .mdl
Poly count: low poly
Size: About 1 feet tall. 20 feet long.
Overlord
Filename: Overlord.mdl
Description: The final boss. A female mounted into a wall. Will need bones and rigging.
Format: .mdl
Poly count: high poly
Size: About 10 feet tall.
Textures:
Grass
Filename: Grass.tga
Description: Grass in the garden.
Format: .tga
Size: 512x512 px
Tile
Filename: Tile.tga
Description: Kitchen tile.
Format: .tga
Size: 512x512 px
Wood
Filename: Wood.tga
Description: Table legs
Format: .tga
Size: 256x128 px
Counter top
Filename: Counter.tga
Description: kitchen counter
Format: .tga
Size: 512x512 px
Wallpaper
Filename: Wallpaper.tga
Description: Kitchen walls.
Format: .tga
Size: 512x512 px
Rock
Filename: Rock.tga
Description: Alternate dimension floor.
Format: .tga
Size: 512x512 px
Boulder
Filename: Boulder.tga
Description: Alt rock texture for physical rocks.
Format: .tga
Size: 1024x1024 px
Dirt
Filename: Dirt.tga
Description: Dirt around grass.
Format: .tga
Size: 512x512 px
Variously colored walls
Filename: xxxx.tga
Description: Around 4 or 5 different primary colors to act as different walls in the alternate dimension.
Format: .tga
Size: 512x512 px
Model textures
Filename: xxxx.tga
Description: A texture map for each model
Format: .tga
Size: 1024x1024 px
Fonts:
Chef Maze
Filename: ChefMaze.TTF
Description: A custom font for menu that is thick like IMPACT but a little more whimsical.
Format: .ttf
Source:
Textures will be a combination of being pulled from DigiPen’s library and created by our texture artists.
Appendix C - Audio List
Sounds:
Pickup #1
Filename: pickup1.wav
Description: The chef says “alright!” when he picks up an ingredient.
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
Pickup #2
Filename: pickup2.wav
Description: The chef says “eureeka!” when he picks up an ingredient.
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
Pickup #3
Filename: pickup3.wav
Description: The chef says “yes!” when he picks up an ingredient.
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
Pickup #4
Filename: pickup4.wav
Description: The chef says “super duper!” when he picks up an ingredient.
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
wind
Filename: wind.wav
Description: ambient wind
channels: stereo
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: yes
compress: no
oomph #1
Filename: oomph1.wav
Description: player gets hit
channels: stereo
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
oomph #2
Filename: oomph2.wav
Description: player gets hit
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
whoosh
Filename: whoosh.wav
Description: player swings rolling pin
channels: stereo
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
thunk #1
Filename: thunk1.wav
Description: rolling pin strikes enemy.
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
thunk #2
Filename: thunk2.wav
Description: alt rolling pin strikes enemy.
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
bonk #1
Filename: bonk1.wav
Description: rolling pin strikes rock.
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
bonk #2
Filename: bonk2.wav
Description: alt rolling pin strikes rock.
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
pshhhh #1
Filename: pshhh1.wav
Description: rolling pin strikes bush.
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
pshhhh #2
Filename: pshhh2.wav
Description: alt rolling pin strikes bush.
channels: mono
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: no
compress: no
Music:
menu
Filename: menu.ogg
Description: menu music.
channels: stereo
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: yes
compress: 160kbps
overworld
Filename: overworld.ogg
Description: kitchen and garden music.
channels: stereo
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: yes
compress: 160kbps
abstract world
Filename: underworld.ogg
Description: abstract world area music.
channels: stereo
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: yes
compress: 160kbps
boss
Filename: boss.ogg
Description: boss music.
channels: stereo
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: yes
compress: 160kbps
credits
Filename: credits.ogg
Description: credits music.
channels: stereo
frequency: 44.1 kHz
looping: yes
compress: 160kbps
Source:
Sounds and music will be a combination of being pulled from DigiPen’s library and created by our team.
Appendix D – Interface Flow
Menu rough mockup
Tasty ©DigiPen 2012