Team : 9
Position : Game/level designer, pitcher
Duration : 2 months (2018)
Available here
Full walkthrough : here
In this Shoot’Em Up, you control a little pat of fat facing an army of angry vegetables. By expanding the three damaging spheres orbiting around the avatar, you can try to survive in this kitchen adorable nightmare … and leave your mark on the online leaderboard.
Cook’em Up was part of the “Shoot’Em Up Workshop” organized by the CNAM-ENJMIN in 2017.
The goal was to make a Shoot’Em Up with a little twist. After a wide brainstorm, I proposed the idea to transform the sharp, rectiline dynamic of classical Shoot’em up into something smoother, more circular and watery. Defeating ennemies by bending spheres, rather than firing shots.
My main inspiration where the Expension Sphere mecanics of League of Legends’ champion Aurelion Sol, with his three damaging sphere of astral energy graviting toward him. I always found orbital movements satisfying and deeply wanted to use them in a game somehow and this was the perfect opportunity.
Avatar The Last Airbender’s Waterbending was of course a very powerfull inspiration, with the idea of having to rely on an exterior source of damages and abilities. I also checked the circular movement of the Circle Sword in the 2017 mobile game The Swords, where the player can control the expension of a swirling circular weapon to block an ennemy’s sword.
Those where the main references Cook’em Up was designed upon.
Our graphic designers submitted the idea of having the game take place in a cooking pan, rather than the mystical tornado we initially thought of as an arena and everyone jumped enthousiastly on this idea. We based our vision of a fun and cute game, contrasting with a Die & Retry tendancy, with a satisfying gameplay mecanic.
We designed our ennemies accordingly: the corn moves in a circular path, spiting popcorn-bullets, the zucchini blocks the player and needs to loose all four tomatos to be defeated and the pepper breaks the circular pattern by charging in a very fast and rectiline way.
In order to follow the kitchen theme, we thought of 5 different stages, and 20 levels in total.
The main challenge was to design multiple levels that would be coherent to the circular central core of the game. So we went for a round arena, where ennemies could pop by surprise.
Ennemies where by the way designed in accordance with this concept :
-The Corn has a circular pathway and is able to shoot in a linear way.
-The Pepper breaks this circularity by charging in a fast-rectiline way.
-The Zucchini blocks the sphere of fat and the player.
If the players defeat all 15 levels, they are to be on the online leaderboard with their associated score (in Kcal)