Kitchen Frenzy
A Flavour Fusion of Stress & Cooking
‘Kitchen Frenzy’ is an interactive desktop experience that simulates the pressures of being a chef in a busy kitchen, inspired by its less-immersive counterpart, Overcooked by Team17 & Ghost Town Games.
Users are required to chop, boil, plate and serve as fast as they can to keep up with the seemingly non-stop flood of customer orders. Extensive research on the digital culture of Simulation revealed the idea of the Simulacra, fostered by Jean Baudrillard, that revolves around the notion that simulations have replaced the real world, resulting in a loss of authenticity and meaning.
This principle drove the game design of Kitchen Frenzy, where the cooking process is extremely streamlined in a set of very basic steps. To accompany this, adhering to the second stage of the Simulacra, in which the simulation becomes a distortion of reality, a toon-style aesthetic was adopted that also makes the experience easy for users to comprehend and enjoy, keeping in tone with the upbeat and bustling atmosphere of the game.
The full gameplay can be watched at:
Designer's Notes
The entire project was made in the Unity3D game engine and programmed using C#. All models were personally made in Blender3D, with all the sprites being made in Adobe Illustrator. Below is a series of video updates that highlight the development of the game whenever a new mechanic is developed.
Once all the game mechanics were finalised, a virtual game world was created to surround the kitchen in order to add to the immersion, as well as sound effects. Below is a screenshot of the Unity project.
Kitchen Frenzy was an incredibly large-scale task for its small 2-week time frame, but was handled incredibly well given the workload. The entire project is a blend of 3d assets, functional code, integrated sound effects, post-processing, interface and environment design, lighting, and more.