Chef’s Note: Please Read

Before laying it all out for you, there are two important things I’d like to share:

#1# This is not a detailed case study with “metrics”, research notes, wireframes and other artifacts from the process of making the game. Due to company policies, I cannot share that. What this is, is me sharing my role in the game. The lack of detail is intentional.

#2# This is a collaborative project, and I worked with a team of talented people. I am in no way taking credit for anything.

Plating: Laying it all out

I was asked to join the project in late 2022, knowing that I’d be resuming in January, I wanted to be prepared so I spent the holidays doing two things:

#1# Playing the prototype and making notes of things that could be improved as well as generating new ideas.

#2# Playing different cooking games.

By January, it felt like running after a bus in Lagos while soaking wet. This case study isn’t in any particular order as we had multiple iterations. There is no A B C, or D. We have A B C Z Y D A C D 😄. Makes sense? I hope so ☺️

Research and Prototype Playtesting

When I design, I draw inspiration from different things and not just the genre I’m working on. I decided that the best way for me to think outside the box is to not only play cooking games but explore other game genres.

I wasn’t just testing the game, I was studying it. It’s like walking into a house. You feel the wall with your fingers. What’s the texture? What kind of paint? Ouuu there’s a Butler. How and where did he welcome me? Did I feel warm? Or was he cold?

Heading back to the games I explored. I would pay attention to things like:

1# What happened after the splash screen?

2# Did I get a tutorial? What kind of tutorial? Was it text heavy? Or just a finger nudging you?

3# How often to they unlock new pieces?

4# What does the difficulty feel like? For some games, it starts of ass calm, you’re learning and the next, your house is on fire and you have a small bucket with holes.

5# When do we unlock new levels?

6# What kind of game currency do they use?

One thing I wanted to pay attention was the rate at which new pieces are unlocked. From the prototype, I unlocked new dishes so I wanted to see how games implemented something similar. I observed that when a new item is unlocked, the game becomes easy. They let the player get used to it. And slowly, it ramps up and you can barely keep up.

These observations helped me design the game better.

Series

I’ve always loved robots and cyberpunk aesthetics so learning more about the series was a delight. Things like robots, food and character personalities inspired and informed my game design choices.

Ideation Sessions


I worked closely with the Creative Director to manage and document our ideation sessions.

Spreadsheets and Documentation

Spreadsheets and I do not get along, but we had to put our differences aside for Rising Chef. And if you’re wondering, yes, we still do not get along. I used spreadsheets for loads of tasks on the project. From tracking assets to mapping out level progression.

Flowcharts

I designed flowcharts to give us a visual overview of different game components.

Locations

I worked on the game locations after stakeholders had decided on them. Once we had a good starting point with location one, I created a template from it and used that to work on the remaining five locations. This helped keep things consistent across the board. Anytime something was updated or a new component was introduced in one, I had to reflect that across the other locations too.

Food, Mechanics, and Combinations

I designed how the player interacts with the food and the possible combinations we could get. To aid with food mechanics design, I watched food recipes on Youtube and simplified the process. For example, I’d watch a quick recipe on preparing white rice and stew, mentally map out the steps the chef used in preparing the dish. Once I had a clear picture, I’d remove unnecessary steps from the cooking process. Something like: adding salt to water or washing rice isn’t that important in the context of our game. Once done, I’d translate my thoughts to simple flows that show ingredients and player interaction.

Kitchen Layout

After designing food and mechanics for the game, I created kitchen layouts for all 6 locations. Designing the kitchen layout was fun but challenging at the same time. The fun part? Creating a blueprint of the kitchen with different foods and equipment. The challenge? Well, deciding the best position to place food. For example, if the player has to fry fish, I’d need to ensure that the frying pan is close to the raw fish. That way it feels intuitive to click on. Working on the kitchen layout felt like solving a puzzle. I wasn’t just placing items randomly, I considered constraints and player experience.

Narrative: Game Dialogue

As a child, I had wanted to become an actor and this helped me with writing the dialogue. I used to download scripts from big Hollywood movies and learned about different acting techniques. One of them was method acting. And I used that knowledge to write the dialogue. I just simply pretended to be each character and write as they would speak. Since the game takes place in Lagos, Nigeria, we had to infuse Nigerian Pidgin English in the dialogue. So after writing the dialogue for all three locations, I translated key character dialogue to Pidgin. As the project progressed, I handed off the narrative to a colleague who refined the dialogue and updated the Pidgin English.

Tutorials

Tutorials were a bit tricky because we didn’t want to rely too much on text, but some features really needed it. For example, showing players where to find a recipe couldn’t be done with just visuals. I had to find a balance between what needed proper dialogue and what could be solved with simple nudges. Player and stakeholder feedback also helped refine the tutorial flow. I designed all the tutorials and wrote all the dialogue.

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

Taking the game apart and building it from the ground up meant I had to design low fidelity wireframes for all the existing screens in the prototype. Then after designing the game flow chart, I made notes of all the new pages and created low fidelity wireframes for each.

As we came up with new ideas or updates, I designed additional wireframes and made changes to the existing ones when feedback was received.

Recipe Book

After receiving player feedback from people who are not familiar with Nigerian food, we designed the recipe book. My role here was designing the concept document, a simple flowchart and wireframe mockups to show how the recipe book feature works.

Furniture

After working on the kitchen layout, I made a list of furniture that would suit each location. I also designed the different furniture upgrade stages.

Playtesting

I playtested the game to ensure it matches what was designed. I’d often have all the flowcharts and spreadsheets open on my laptop as I played. This helped me to check that everything worked as intended. Aside from playtesting, I joined live playtest sessions where I watched players play the game. Listening to them play taught me a valuable lesson, which I will share later.

Cutscene and Narrative

After multiple rounds of play testing, we realized that a cutscene was needed to help the players understand the game, the backstory and the character they would play as. Not only did I design the cutscene, I wrote the narrative.

VFX

I worked with the art team to outline VFX for the game. My job involved preparing a document and making a list of items that would need effects and then adding suggested effects. I researched effects from other games, looked at assets and also grabbed ideas from real world examples. For example, I added snippets from a YouTube video showing how frying fish looked like (the steam, smoke).

Paper Prototypes

I designed paper prototypes to test out how food is being served on the plate. This also helped us to spot issues with gameplay.

Boss Mode

Wanting to add more spice and heat in the Kitchen, the team thought it’s best to introduce “Boss Mode”. Working with the creative director, we came up with ideas and concepts for the Boss mode. After receiving approval, I translated the concept document to wireframe flows. That way everyone on the team had a visual idea of how it works. One thing I loved the most about “Boss Mode” is how it brings in the villain from the series and how we integrated a boss feature in a cooking game. During play testing, I carefully observed how players were taken by surprise as a Boss walks in demanding more orders. It certainly did what it was meant to do: cause chaos.

Post-mortem

After months of development, ideation, iterations, bugs, feedback and sleepless nights, we were done. Rising Chef was ready to be seen by the world. I had a new mission now, write the post-mortem for the game.

The post-mortem was a way for the team to learn from the entire development process: what went wrong, what went well and how we can improve moving forward. Also, it would serve as a reference for future/similar projects.

Once I had finished my part on the post-mortem, I could finally close my laptop and breathe.

We did it.

Chop Chop: Challenges

Just like any restaurant kitchen, we had some quiet days and days where everything is on fire. The rice is burning and a customer just ordered 10 boiled eggs but you only have 2 eggs left in the crate. While trying to juggle multiple orders, your cake mixer breaks.

We weren’t cooking but I thought that’d paint a picture of what it was like. Creative projects do have their challenges and this one isn’t an exception.

Managing multiple document dependencies was definitely a challenge. For example, if a dish was changed, I’d have to find every document where it appears and update the name. I kept track of every document and ensured they were updated as soon as changes were made. If something doesn’t get updated, it may lead to confusion and wrong implementation. Finding a good balance between fun and difficulty was definitely a challenge.

Another challenge is more personal. I had a lot of doubt in my ideas while working on this project. The times I could have said something, I didn’t. Hearing a stakeholder have the same idea in my head really taught me to speak up more. The worst that could happen is I get “No”.

Extracts: Personal Lessons

I thought about this part a lot and I would narrow down the lessons I learned to two:

#1# Don’t be afraid to speak your mind or share your ideas. I had a habit of dismissing my ideas and thinking they were not good enough. In the morning, I’d get an idea and I ignore it. I’ll use the recipe book as an example. During the ideation sessions, I knew we needed a recipe book but I shelved the idea. Months later, we had to implement it based on player feedback.

#2# Never assume people know. Even if it’s common to you, it might be strange to someone else. You have to consider that the people who will play your game may not be familiar with your culture and language.

Bon Appétit

About that thing I mentioned, sorry I ate it but thank you for stopping by, have a fabulous day ❤️