Be a Culinary Champion!
by Jeff Olson · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 12/28/2002 (12:55 am) · 5 replies
Mmm...creative juices flowing tonight.
Many years ago there was a game called Pizza Tycoon put out by Microprose. You had to run a chain of Pizza shops and invent new pizza types.
I spent more time combining pizza types then I did actually playing the real game. Customers would judge the pizza on the toppings you put on, the amount, how long it took to cook and how well it went together.
Also, how many have heard of Iron Chef? It's this Japanese cooking challenge show on Food Network.
So here's the idea: A cooking game. You'd be a chef at a restaurant
Your skills would be based on an RPG type roll. Knife skills, "taste" skills, etc...or maybe there would be no RPG type skills. Maybe you'd just have to learn cullinary skills as you went.
Part of the time you would cook customers orders and basically be over worked (Think Monolith Burger from SpaceQuest ;)
And in your spare time you'd create culinary masterpeices and hope to get noticed by the cooking gameshow...with some sort of clever name I can't think of right now.
Then in the cook off you'd need to use your skills to cook something spectacular. You'd also have many different ingredients, ways to prepare the indgredients and ways to cook the dishes.
You'd be judged on how the dishes looked, tasted and how complex they are.
It'd be great! Plus you'd get a chance to use foie gras! (fatty goose liver)
Many years ago there was a game called Pizza Tycoon put out by Microprose. You had to run a chain of Pizza shops and invent new pizza types.
I spent more time combining pizza types then I did actually playing the real game. Customers would judge the pizza on the toppings you put on, the amount, how long it took to cook and how well it went together.
Also, how many have heard of Iron Chef? It's this Japanese cooking challenge show on Food Network.
So here's the idea: A cooking game. You'd be a chef at a restaurant
Your skills would be based on an RPG type roll. Knife skills, "taste" skills, etc...or maybe there would be no RPG type skills. Maybe you'd just have to learn cullinary skills as you went.
Part of the time you would cook customers orders and basically be over worked (Think Monolith Burger from SpaceQuest ;)
And in your spare time you'd create culinary masterpeices and hope to get noticed by the cooking gameshow...with some sort of clever name I can't think of right now.
Then in the cook off you'd need to use your skills to cook something spectacular. You'd also have many different ingredients, ways to prepare the indgredients and ways to cook the dishes.
You'd be judged on how the dishes looked, tasted and how complex they are.
It'd be great! Plus you'd get a chance to use foie gras! (fatty goose liver)
About the author
#2
01/03/2003 (9:55 pm)
Hey. Cool. 
#3
01/06/2003 (9:58 am)
Japan has several cooking titles for different consoles. Most of them fall into the sim or love sim category, though. Like Bistro Cupid or Sushi Chef.
#4
First off, to make this game awesome, the team should have a few culinary artists as advisors, however, the player should be able to play and not know jack about cooking. There should be resources available in the game (cookbooks, books on herbs, etc). Ideally, the player would be able to try these recipies in real life and see how they taste. The player in a sense could use this game to learn cooking, and thusly, not only will the character get better at his cooking skills (knife cutting, tasting, etc), but the player too will be better at combining the right tastes.
Also, going off of the Iron Chef thing, you could make an online competition out of it if you did it just right. You could make it similar in that two people go head to head using a main ingredient determined at random, and they'd go at it.
Cool idea!
01/06/2003 (10:26 am)
Jeff, that is a very cool idea! Lez Brainstorm:First off, to make this game awesome, the team should have a few culinary artists as advisors, however, the player should be able to play and not know jack about cooking. There should be resources available in the game (cookbooks, books on herbs, etc). Ideally, the player would be able to try these recipies in real life and see how they taste. The player in a sense could use this game to learn cooking, and thusly, not only will the character get better at his cooking skills (knife cutting, tasting, etc), but the player too will be better at combining the right tastes.
Also, going off of the Iron Chef thing, you could make an online competition out of it if you did it just right. You could make it similar in that two people go head to head using a main ingredient determined at random, and they'd go at it.
Cool idea!
#5
Definitly any team making a game like this would need some culinary help. Maybe they could even enroll in cooking classes...I know the college where I go has some, I bet it'd be fun too! (I like cooking)
As for ingame cookbooks, herb books and the like I think that is an excellent idea. I think both an indepth guide and a quick guide would be good. For example when you look at the card for Herb A it would have some quick info at the top
Herb A tastes salty and goes well with Herb B and Spice E. Best used on Fish and Poultry.
As for trying the recipies in real life, yet again a good plan. Perhaps this could be both a learn cooking product and a game!
That way, like you say, both the character and the player would learn more about cooking! Everyone loves educational titles these days!
As for online play, why limit it to just two people? It sounds kinda silly to have a "virtual" cookoff, but I bet it would be a riot!
01/06/2003 (5:20 pm)
Alright! People like this idea.Definitly any team making a game like this would need some culinary help. Maybe they could even enroll in cooking classes...I know the college where I go has some, I bet it'd be fun too! (I like cooking)
As for ingame cookbooks, herb books and the like I think that is an excellent idea. I think both an indepth guide and a quick guide would be good. For example when you look at the card for Herb A it would have some quick info at the top
Herb A tastes salty and goes well with Herb B and Spice E. Best used on Fish and Poultry.
As for trying the recipies in real life, yet again a good plan. Perhaps this could be both a learn cooking product and a game!
That way, like you say, both the character and the player would learn more about cooking! Everyone loves educational titles these days!
As for online play, why limit it to just two people? It sounds kinda silly to have a "virtual" cookoff, but I bet it would be a riot!
Torque Owner James Hills
www.ataleinthedesert.com
I just had to plug it :) there is a 96 hour play session of the beta going on right now (starts at 6 p.m. Friday, Jan 3), visit the URL above to download the client and jump right in :)
Cheers,
James Hills