Recipe For Success (+ VR)

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Recipe For Success VR

​

​

​

​

​

After the Game Jam, I decided to port Recipe For Success to Virtual Reality. The original design always had the goal of being "just as immersive as Virtual Reality", but it became clear to me that the most natural environment for Recipe For Success would be Virtual Reality, so I ported the game to VR, trying to maintain as much as I could from the original. Technically speaking, controlling the physics and the grabbable objects was challenging, especially with frequent physics-related bugs, but the mechanics and gameplay were fairly easily adapted to Virtual Reality, showing how strong and organic the original design foundation for the game was. 

​

​

Mechanics and Objectives

​

The gameplay in Recipe For Success is organic, intuitive, and straightforward. Players have to cook patties, open up buns with one of the knives, assemble the burger with a bottom bun, a patty, and a top bun on a plate, and then serve it to the customer. 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Picking Up Objects and Assembling Burgers

​

Players can pick up a variety of objects in the level by holding their right mouse button. The way the objects work is that if they start overlapping with a collision volume created around the player character's hand, they get attached to a socket point at the character's hand. When the player releases the button, the object's simulated physics are turned on until its vertical velocity reaches zero. To assemble burgers, players have to first open up a bun with one of the knives, which will separate the top and bottom parts of the bun, and then get a cooked patty (a burnt or raw one will not work) on a plate. To make it easier for the player, I decided to make it so that the order in which the player places the items on the plate doesn't matter, and players also can't take objects off the plate.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Cooking

In Recipe For Success, cooking burgers is very easy: simply put the raw burger on the stovetop and wait. It will play a different sound and change color when it gets completely done. If left much more than necessary, burgers can also burn, making them useless. In Recipe For Success, optimizing your time is key, and, because cooking is the most time-consuming action in the game, players need to always have some burgers cooking if they want to be effective.

​

​

​

​

​

Project Final Thoughts

​

I had a blast developing Recipe For Success for the Orlando Game Jam 2024, and I'm very proud of the result and impressed with what I could achieve in only 2 days. I received a lot of good feedback, and some people genuinely enjoyed playing my game and had a good time with it, that feeling you get when people have fun with the project you developed, especially in a 2-day solo game jam, is priceless. It was very challenging to come up with a fun experience that would also fit the very serious theme of homelessness, but I think I hit a good balance between an engaging and interesting experience, and a thought-provoking story to raise awareness of the issue. After the Jam, porting the game to VR was challenging, but was also rewarding. Virtual Reality added a lot to Recipe For Success, and I'm proud of how the game feels natural in both PC and VR. In conclusion, I would say Recipe For Success is, well, a Success.

​

​

Project Gallery

​

​