Simple Sandwich
3D couch-competitive party game
Simple Sandwich is a 3D, top down "couch competitive" romp in which up to 4 players take control fo a slice of bread with small arms and legs and compete to make the most and BEST sandwiches as possible before the time runs out! AI creeps that wander around make up sandwich ingredients (slice of lettuce, tomato, burger, ect). When close to an ingredient creep, players can absorb them to add to their sandwich by jumping onto them. After stacking several ingredients, players jump onto bread creeps and move to the dinner plate to complete the sandwich and earn points.
Download Prototype View full documentation View BlogIntent.
The intent of Simple Sandwich is to create a fast paced, frantic, and humourous couch competitive experience in which enjoyment is derived from the silliness of the gameplay and player interaction, i.e “screwing over your friends”. Players will experience hectic competition in which the tide can be turned easily at the last second as they disrupt and out-sandwich their opponents, resulting in lots of laughs at the end of a close game.
Varying Ingredients.
Different ingredients give different amounts of points. Following Sandwich Recipes by combining specific ingredients grantss huge Recipe Point Bonuses. Monster sandwiches can also be made using unwanted combinations (think mayo and jam sandwich) these monster sandwiches then attack enemy players, this can be used as a distraction or for self defense.
Gameplay is fast paced, frantic, and humorous couch competitive experience in which enjoyment is derived from the silliness of the gameplay and player interaction.
Craftable Recipes.
A recipe book contained within the game explains the various ingredient combinations that earn bonuses upon sandwich completion. If all ingredients on a sandwich follow a specific recipe and the bottom of the sandwich is reached while on the Plate, a bonus amount of points specific to the recipe will be added to the player’s score. Depending on the recipe followed players will gain bonus points when completing their sandwich for the difficulty and amount of the ingredients collected.
Specific recipes / combinations of sandwiches that would be considered unfavorable or gross are marked as “bad sandwiches” aka monster sandwiches. These ingredients for example would be mayo, and jam, tomato and jelly, ect. When created these monster sandwiches move towards and attack other players directly by following them until they are in range. When in range these monster sandwiches will attack by hitting another player thus killing themselves (by crumbling to the ground) and removing the most recently gained ingredient from the attacked player.
My Role.
Overview.
I served as a Designer on the project and created the main menu, user interface, particle effects, camera/wave systems, level setup, and overall polish on many of the combat and character systems.
Using the assets created by the art team I constructed the levels to add both detail to the game world, and structure for players.
Other than level design I created the basis for the movement script the ingredients use to path around the levels, along with designing the recipe and collection systems.
After the completion of the alpha build I worked with the lead programmer Josh Grazda to develop a kickstarter page for a potential steam release. While this kickstarter did not meet the required funding amount it allowed Simple Sandwich to be viewed by a larger audience. While we still plan on a steam release the game will most likely be free.
Conceptualization.
As Students attending Champlain College for Game Development, our starting team of 5 members had 3 weeks to create 3 different game prototypes. We would then choose from the 3 to pursue development for the rest of the semester! While our first two passes had potential, we wanted to try and create something that was easy to play, fun to work on and above all - fun to play.
It wasn't until the third and final prototype was conceptualized during a fateful encounter with an incompetent delicatessen. We called a brainstorming meeting to try and nail down our next idea - and that's when it happened, I ended up running late to this meeting due to an error in my food order.
Outraged, I stormed into the meeting room and explained with a loud proclamation that all he wanted was 'A simple sandwich!'. The team broke down into laughter and we began building the concept for this next game prototype around this event - and ended up pursuing it as our final project!
Systems Design.
I designed the core systems and ingredient combining mechanic of Simple Sandwich while working in tandem with Karl Lewis the other designer on the team. With the two programmers I oversaw, tested, and implimented key components such as the original AI movement, and behavior, and camera shift.
Level Design.
Using the models created by the artists on the team I created multiple test levels that were used to test varying systems that eventually merged into the final main play area of Simple Sandwich. While this level is relatively simple in the space that players can move around, I wanted to make sure players could grasp the feeling of the kitchen around them.
The iteration of the level progressed as different ways of completing the players sandwich were concepted. Originally the player simply had to jump onto a bread peice to complete their sandwich resulting in the player immediately gaining points. The limitation of these bread items meant that players had to act quickly and resulted in players fighting for quantity and not quality of their sandwich recipes. It also meant that players creating monster sandwiches to attack their enemies could spawn one right next to an enemy player resulting in unfair damage. To balance this out a plate was added to the level that players must bring their completed sandwich to before being awarded with points. This buffed the reward impact of the recipes and encouraged players to explore more possiblities.
The Team.