Nice Games Jam: "The Intergalactic Dining Consortium"

Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast! - A podcast by Ellen, Stephen, and Mark - Thursdays

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Your nice hosts settle their differences in opinions when it comes to food to serve up a fresh game design document in a new Nice Games Jam episode.PromptCreate a game with one of my favorite things, food! It cannot be about/or have mechanics that are cooking. Think: growing food, pairing foods, making an international food court, menu design, using foods in season, etc.Game typeDesign documentPlayer count1Rules(Stephen note: This is more of a set of notes taken during the episode outlining a game design document.)Human in an alien culture, giving recommendations for pairings for foodYou should need to learn the rules before you can break themGain credibilityPeople order categories of food and you put it on the plate (no cooking)Gamer JourneyYou’re a plater at an alien restaurantYou first do it like a human (based on taste)You get feedback that opposes basing plates on tastePlayer starts to get curious about how to make better plates to meet needsSense criteriaTouchSightTemperatureSpicinessTaste the “wine” to know what it “tastes” likeThe threat is if you do poorly you get shipped to another planet, they have different foods and different desires for foodsOptions to changeTwo ingredients (tomato and other tomato? Looks similar)Position of foodsContainer of foodsOrientation of foodsAesthetic of the restaurant?You design the specialCreate one dish for the special, you get an amount of feedback based on the size of the restaurantYou can tweak your dish based on the feedback you getThings change as you go through the game and impact what you have available and what patrons likeThe goal is for players to experiment with the different foods (positions, containers, etc.) so they begin to understand the rules of the gameThere can be clues with the background/worldbuilding so players can learn why the foods these aliens like are why they like themWhen do you get to influence cultures? Do you get to at all?Yes, you need to figure out a way to get aliens to love the food and not just like it