Nice concept, however I would do some key changes to it:
Use a "confirm" and "cancel" input instead of what you've got going on with Z and C for the crate, I don't think it's a bad concept but I think it's overcomplicating it. Space to start interacting with the crate, then arrow keys to navigate and space to grab things, and an input to exit interaction. Personally I think it would feel more intuitive than how it currently is.
Some "recipes" could use more flexibility, for example: putting utensils on the stove first and then putting the food inside them, as opposed to putting in the food first (personally I always boil water first and then put the noodles/whatever else in, which is why I tried that despite the tutorial telling me to do otherwise. Surprised that boiling water counts as ruined?).
Crate UI is way too huge, though I guess the size is part of it being a placeholder too.
It's weird that some actions like mixing ingredients in a bowl are automatic, but others like cutting the noodles are not. Makes me feel like putting them into the bowl at all is an extra step that should be cut, but logically that's not the case. Also, why would the noodles become whole again if I walk away mid cutting?
Some other situational feedback:
A certain tutorial (I think the second one to mention so) says to press H for past tutorials, instead of T.
Cut noodles can't be put down on the cutting board again, which, after my boiling water counted as dubious food, and I had them grabbed on top of my head, could then only go to the trash or a plate but not the bowl.
For some reason I can pick up cut noodles from the plate while carrying my pot with a burnt mess and water inside.
The mortar appears to be bugged. After mashing the tomato, I can't pick it up to put it into the pan. If I walk away then it becomes uninteractable, if I don't then I can press space once more for a progress bar to show up again, but this one can't progress, so I can only walk away. Only way to pick it up is by carrying a pan and interacting with it.
Aren't we going to drain the pasta?
Cooking bars are far too fast to do anything the tutorial tells you to in between without it getting burned.
Two-step cooking could be nice; have dishes requiring ingredients to be added halfway, so instead of having one cooking bar, you have two.
A counter placed itself once while closing build mode. Removed itself again when opening it again, and then didn't come back.
Thanks for playing and for all the good feedback! A lot of your points are definitely being fixed or looked at for next demo day. I'm still working on making the mechanics "flow" better so there's definitely room for improvement, in particular letting players put any food into any dish that could (logically) hold it. I also need to communicate certain things to the player better which means the tutorial I slapped together needs work. Cooks timings will be tuned, as well as the bugs you mentioned fixed.
Aren't we going to drain the pasta?
That's something I hadn't thought of and no one else has brought up. Perhaps? I'd have to think of a non-intrusive way of implementing that, but overall I'm trying to remove any inconsequential annoyances (like having egg shells after cracking open the eggs, or dirty workstations have cutting noodles or smashing tomatoes).
Two-step cooking could be nice; have dishes requiring ingredients to be added halfway, so instead of having one cooking bar, you have two.
That's also something I hadn't considered (yet). It'd be relatively simple to implement with how I set up the recipe/cooking system.
Building mode resets the player's position.
That's so that the player can't place an object where they were, exit build mode, and be stuck in or on top of furniture ;)
Thanks for playing! Adding somewhat intelligible food models (and other bits of polish) are the next step, now that I think the concept is pretty solid.
Whenever anything cooks I check if there's a valid recipe for the current ingredients (cooking water doesn't turn into anything rn, so there's not), and water isn't a "finished food" so it doesn't burn, so that's why it becomes dubious food. Obviously an oversight, I can give it an exception. In fact I may add a mechanic where recipes requiring water in pots cook faster if you first pre-boiled the water.
Were the omelet and bread on the same plate? I think that might cause the bug. Again that's something I didn't really think of before and can fix.
Thanks again for playing! And hopefully, if this project gets far enough along, you'll be able to design your own player character which means cute anime girls among other things.
I haven't played Overcooked or any other cooking game for that matter, so I don't really have a frame of reference, but this was pretty neat. Feels like you've got all the necessary mechanics functioning properly, and the controls were easy to adjust to. Only thing was that I felt like things cook a little too quickly, but I don't know if that's part of the design for these sorts of games.
I enjoy cooking, so this was fun to try. I think movement and timings were biggest issues. Keybinds are fine. Feels like designing kitchen had some impact, but it was mostly negated by recipe timing.
Thanks for playing, glad you had fun. You really went above and beyond by making a video, I'll definitely be picking that apart to look for things I can improve and build upon.
Thanks for giving it a go. The tutorial will definitely get a face-lift, I just needed to get something out in time. Right now ingredients are only allowed to go into dishes that will produce a secondary food, so eggs can go into bowls because that makes "mixed eggs" but eggs don't have any valid recipes involving a plate so that's not allowed. But I'm heavily considering changing it to be less hand-holdy and more realistic, where any ingredient can go in any dish so long as it makes sense (so eggs could go onto plates, but milk can't).
Comments
Nice concept, however I would do some key changes to it:
Some other situational feedback:
Hoping to see more next demoday!
Thanks for playing and for all the good feedback! A lot of your points are definitely being fixed or looked at for next demo day. I'm still working on making the mechanics "flow" better so there's definitely room for improvement, in particular letting players put any food into any dish that could (logically) hold it. I also need to communicate certain things to the player better which means the tutorial I slapped together needs work. Cooks timings will be tuned, as well as the bugs you mentioned fixed.
That's something I hadn't thought of and no one else has brought up. Perhaps? I'd have to think of a non-intrusive way of implementing that, but overall I'm trying to remove any inconsequential annoyances (like having egg shells after cracking open the eggs, or dirty workstations have cutting noodles or smashing tomatoes).
That's also something I hadn't considered (yet). It'd be relatively simple to implement with how I set up the recipe/cooking system.That's so that the player can't place an object where they were, exit build mode, and be stuck in or on top of furniture ;)
The pasta was just a funny detail, it can be understandable to skip that step hahah.
Looks like a nice concept! Reminded me of the old Runescape days a bit.
-I like the main character being paper mario-y, it's cute!
-Why does boiling water turn it into dubious food? I was gonna put in the noodles once it was actually boiling!
-I made spaghet. Very good.
-I can't serve the omelet and bread for some reason, it won't let me put the plate on the table
-A bit hard to tell what things are since they're all grey stuff but that's to be expected, looking forward to seeing it modeled
P.S: Please consider making the player character a cute anime girl
Thanks for playing! Adding somewhat intelligible food models (and other bits of polish) are the next step, now that I think the concept is pretty solid.
Whenever anything cooks I check if there's a valid recipe for the current ingredients (cooking water doesn't turn into anything rn, so there's not), and water isn't a "finished food" so it doesn't burn, so that's why it becomes dubious food. Obviously an oversight, I can give it an exception. In fact I may add a mechanic where recipes requiring water in pots cook faster if you first pre-boiled the water.
Were the omelet and bread on the same plate? I think that might cause the bug. Again that's something I didn't really think of before and can fix.
Thanks again for playing! And hopefully, if this project gets far enough along, you'll be able to design your own player character which means cute anime girls among other things.
They were indeed on the same plate! I thought they were supposed to be
I haven't played Overcooked or any other cooking game for that matter, so I don't really have a frame of reference, but this was pretty neat. Feels like you've got all the necessary mechanics functioning properly, and the controls were easy to adjust to. Only thing was that I felt like things cook a little too quickly, but I don't know if that's part of the design for these sorts of games.
Thanks for taking a chance and giving it a go! I definitely still need to adjust the timings on things
I enjoy cooking, so this was fun to try. I think movement and timings were biggest issues. Keybinds are fine. Feels like designing kitchen had some impact, but it was mostly negated by recipe timing.
Thanks for playing, glad you had fun. You really went above and beyond by making a video, I'll definitely be picking that apart to look for things I can improve and build upon.
Heyo playing this.
-I tried to use the plate to pick up the eggs from the pan, like you can in Overcooked. Didn't work.
-Honestly, this tutorial is really taking me out of it.
I bailed on this one a little early. The tutorials are a bit heavy-handed. I think it could be really neat though. Keep up the progress!
Thanks for giving it a go. The tutorial will definitely get a face-lift, I just needed to get something out in time. Right now ingredients are only allowed to go into dishes that will produce a secondary food, so eggs can go into bowls because that makes "mixed eggs" but eggs don't have any valid recipes involving a plate so that's not allowed. But I'm heavily considering changing it to be less hand-holdy and more realistic, where any ingredient can go in any dish so long as it makes sense (so eggs could go onto plates, but milk can't).