Gameplay Mechanic a Month: Real World Baking

Month 3 - March 2013

Mechanic Description:

The mechanic for this month is real world baking. That is, during the game you need to use real ingredients to make real food that you can actually eat at the end of the game.

Playable in the following game:

The Cookie Baking Game

Platform:

Paper and Your kitchen

Genre:

Real world

Game Description:

In "The Cookie Baking Game" players gather in someone's kitchen. Through a series of rounds they make their own cookies. Based on their performance in the rounds they'll be able to choose different flavours and chunks to add to their batter. This will mean that every player will have different flavoured cookies to share with the group.

The first round is a blind taste test to familiarise players with the ingredients. Each player is given a sample to eat and needs to work out which flavours are in the sample. The second round is a speed round, where players must attempt to prepare their basic batters as quickly as possible. The winner of this round gets first choice of the available flavours to add.

In the third round, players battle in Lemon Joust Club to win different chunks to put into their batter. Note: Lemon Joust Club was created by Tassos Stevens from the UK company Coney. In the fourth round, players need to guess the weight of a bowl filled with flour. The winner of this round gets to put their cookies in the oven first. While the cookies are baking, there is a trivia round wher players must answer questions relating to food, drink and baking.

Throughout the game, players will be collecting wrapped lollies as prizes. Once the cookies are done, the player who has the least wrapped lollies will lose and have to do all the cleaning up.

Screenshots:

Prepare for Guests to arrive Before the guests arrive, set up a station for each guest with the basic batter ingredients.	Make the Basic Batter Each player makes up the basic batter to see who finishes first.
Multiple Flavours and Chunks Players will get to battle for different flavours and chunks to add to their basic batter.	Put Dough onto Trays Once the dough has been created, put it on trays.
Pull Cookies out of Oven Cookies taste better fresh out of the oven.	Many Different Cookies to Eat The game allows for a lot of very different falvoured cookies to be made. Eat them all and play again to make different ones.

Gameplay Instructions:

1. Download the instructions below.
2. Go shopping to buy ingredients.
3. Invite friends over to your place.
4. Play the game and bake cookies.
5. Eat cookies.

Downloads:

The full PDF of the instructions and invite for guests. These instructions will tell you everything you need to know to host The Cookie Baking Game at your house.

Other Comments and Considerations:

This game was inspired by my idea for the Idea A Week Project called "Dinner: The Board Game".

Analysis:

An analysis of the gameplay mechanic written by me in March 2015.

Context:
I love baking. A lot. I was sick of games that were about cooking, but you didn’t get to actually eat anything since it was all virtual. I wanted to combine my love of games with my love of baking.

What Went Right:        

           
• People really like cookies.
           
• People who said they couldn’t bake got a sense of accomplishment.
           
• The initial part where people were making the batter was hilarious to see the different styles of baking.
           
• All of the cookies tasted delicious.
       

What Went Wrong:        

           
• The first phase of the game, guessing ingredients blindfolded was really hard for people who didn't know each other and were self-conscious. It immediately made some people feel like they knew nothing about baking and food and wasn't a good start to the game. Would be better if it was later on when people have been having fun mucking around with ingredients already.
           
• People didn’t really need to compete for ingredients since I had so many different types. People competed, but only because that was fun, not because they actually wanted the use the ingredients.
           
• There were lots of ingredients left over.
           
• The actual cooking time was a massive bottleneck. I only had one oven and cooking up 4 batches of cookies took a lot longer than expected. I needed to have more games to play during the baking time.
           
• The quiz was interesting, but got boring after a while.
           
• There were so many cookies at the end of it, people hardly ate any since they’d been eating most of the day already anyway.
           
• People were so friendly they didn’t really care who “lost”. Everyone ended up contributing to cleaning up anyways.
           
• The baking part and the games felt a little too all over the place. Refining the games and making it simpler would be better.
       

Hug Rating:
2 hugs

Verdict:
Cookies are delicious and with some refining and simplification this could become a very cool game for kids or small groups of friends to share the love of baking.