Pankkake

SPRING 2020
GAME DESIGN // UNITY // C# // UI // PHYSICAL COMPUTING // INTERACTION design

PANKKAKE

Start game above by pressing Space!

Pankkake is a single-player arcade style game created by Emily Zhao, Maxwell Dayvson Da Silva and me. The player is a pancake chef who must complete stacks on their pan according to the provided recipe. For every aphrodisiac ingredient collected, the player’s Sexy Bar goes up and activates the Sexy Bonus Round once full. High scores are recorded at the end of the game.

MDA

the game’s Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics

• Aesthetic: Challenge

  • Player is required to collect the correct food items according to the provided recipe while avoiding wrong items on a static screen.

• Dynamics

  • The Health Bar on the top left of the screen provides limitations to the challenge. The game is over once the player’s health bar depletes completely from collecting wrong food items.

  • The Sexy Bar on the top right of the screen encourages player to continue on with the challenge for extra bonus points. Certain food items are aphrodisiac. Once the player collects enough aphrodisiacs to fill the Sexy Bar, they get access to the time-limited Sexy Bonus Round. The Sexy Bar empties after each bonus round.

• Mechanics

  • Main Game:

    • The pan moves left and right across the platform with keyboard arrows.

    • A recipe is shown on the right of the screen for the player to follow, and gets regenerated each time player completes a stack.

    • Random food items fall from the top of the screen.

    • Each correct food item collected adds10 points to total score. Completing a stack adds additional 10 points.

  • Sexy Bonus Round:

    • The whipped cream bottle moves left and right across the platform and shoots whipped cream with keyboard arrows.

    • Stacks of pancakes move across the platform.

    • Each stack successfully shot adds to 20 points to total score.

IDEATION

Pankkake is my final project for the class New Arcade, where students are to reimagine and build arcade games using Unity engine to create the digital game, and physical computing / fabrication to build a cabinet to house the game.

As I was learning to use Unity, I created a series of player-vs-enemies scenarios to learn how to script various behaviors and chose a stack of pancakes as my main player. Why? Because I fucking love pancakes!!!!!

When midterms came, I decided to stick to the pancake theme and design a good game play for it.

I considered factors that make for a good game experience, based on the quote “Fun = voluntary effort to overcome unnecessary obstacles”:

• Voluntary

• Magic circle

• Uncertainty

• Goal oriented

I also researched popular games from the Golden Age for inspirations in terms of visual style, screen dynamics, and game mechanics.

CONCEPT

I first decided on designing a game with a static screen. I focused on having a clear goal in the game and an element of uncertainty to raise the stakes within the single screen. After looking at photos of stacks of pancakes on Google Image search for ideas, the goal of my game became very clear: stacking pancakes!

The simple goal was to stack the correct items onto each other in a pan to gain points, and avoid wrong items. The uncertainty of the game lies in the unpredictability of the falling ingredients.

I also created a physical controller for this game, utilizing a pan and a gyroscope. All the artwork, scripting in Unity, and physical physical computing were done by me. This was how my midterm came out:

PLAYTESTING & ITERATIONS

After presenting and playtesting my midterm (named STACKED at the time), I decided to continue working on this game for my final project. I teamed up with Emily for this final, who was in charge of creating and finalizing all visual assets (created on Adobe Illustrator). I was in charge of UI, scripting and sound design in Unity.

The two of us brainstormed on how to make the game more complex and engaging. The current game I had was fine, but it was too slow, and got boring after a few rounds. The game is over if the player collects one wrong item, making the entire game play pretty flat.

To solve that issue, I thought of adding a health bar to give the player more room to make mistakes and learn the game, and sped up the speed of the falling items to keep the player engaged.

Emily came up with the idea of having a “sexy mode” for the game, and calling the game Pankkake to give it more of a personality. We decided on having special aphrodisiac items that the player can collect to achieve the Sexy Bonus Round. This dynamic will keep the player more incentive to continue on with their challenge.

We also added an intro screen to allow players to voluntarily enter the game with some context.

For our final touch, our friend Max joined in to help store the high scores through an API on the Game Over page.

THE UNMADE ARCADE CABINET

After creating the pan controller for my midterm, I expanded my physical design to a full “arcade cabinet” experience, though it’s more of a cart than a cabinet. Inspired by crepe carts on the streets, I modelled a vision of what the physical interactions and aesthetic of this game would look like, using the Rhinoceros 3D modelling program.

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 putting all of us inside our homes, I was not able to access materials nor facilities to carry out the fabrication part of this project.

I imagine a stationary cart with two pans that are attached onto the cart by screw. The pan would be able to turn left/right while staying stuck in place.

The game will be displayed on a 75″ screen that is mounted onto a wooden backing, attached to the flat surface of the cart.

The roof of the cart is decorated with giant stacks of pancakes and tons of toppings.