So, here’s an early look at some very work-in-progress shots of Cook, Serve, Delicious!

First off, here’s the main play area. These screenshots are about two weeks old, so the game is always evolving into the final product, but it’s still a good visual on how the style of the game looks. This is one of the twenty food purchase screens (ignore the code on the top left), though I haven’t written any text for it yet because that’s one of the final things to do in the game (click to enlarge):


On the left is a list of Boosters and Detractors, which I will break down next week. You can also see how many potential stars this food can upgrade to (in this case, only one), among other things. I got the visual style idea when walking into a Baskin Robbins and seeing their menus on the wall. It was striking, and something I wanted to try for CSD.


Below is a gameplay screen of CSD, which is already kinda outdated but gives you a look at the layout and visuals (click to enlarge):


There’s some stuff missing here (the top UI area, etc.) but you can see that the main UI is up and ready. You can click those buttons next to the ingredients or simply press the key shown. Remember, the entire game can be controlled via keyboard or mouse…it’s up to you! Also, I totally botched up that guy’s order and will likely get a BAD rating. Oops.

Really, when you compare this screen and ONR2, there’s not a whole lot of difference as far as UI goes. I think the way ONR2 was set up worked effectively, which is why I’m not dramatically changing anything as far as user friendly visual looks/placement of menus go. If it works, stick with it! Much has changed in the way orders are displayed on the left however (the bars with numbers). Now, you can see bars moving up and down with smoke billowing out to signify cooking, with gold highlights now indicating food is ready (and not necessarily a perfect order) and blue highlights signaling more prep work is needed (such as after boiling pasta, but needing to dress up the noodles on the plate). You’ll know whether an order is perfect/average/bad once you send that order out, with some really nifty effects. But you’ll see all that later.

Another thing to report is that the music (Jonathan Geer) and art (Sara Gross) is now 100% complete. It’s all up to me now. No pressure or anything.

Well that’s it for now, but I’ll be back next week with more food reveals and the breakdown of Boosters and Detractors. Till then, I hope you had a good E3 week! It certainly inspired me to work hard on the game…after seeing all that blood and gore for 95% of the E3 game trailers, it’s nice to get back to simple cooking fun!