KitchenWare started with a desire to translate this very experience into a game. As Zakk was preparing his next issue of the magazine we discussed the idea of putting together a game to showcase on the site. The idea began as a table-top RPG but soon shifted to a video game because I now work in video game design. But, we asked ourselves, how do you distill the frustration and chaos of working in restaurants into a game? At the same time, how do you maintain the wonderful and adrenaline-fueled fun of working in restaurants?
The direction of the game came from two things: WarioWare and its brief, simple but fun mini-games and my experiences working in restaurants or stories I heard from others. At that point, my design partner, Kevin, and I started to throw out ideas and create prototypes. I started my journey in the kitchen as a dishwasher at a mom-and-pop-style cafe at the age of 14. I dreaded, repeat, dreaded Sunday mornings. Up at 5:30 to be at the restaurant at 6 to be greeted with piles upon piles of the dishes from the morning prep. Sometimes the fear and pressure would be so intense the only reprieve from the dish demon was inside the bathroom for a quick sit down. Even though this job was extremely hard it cemented my desire to see where this career would go. Over the course of the next 15 years, I would see many different culinary adventures, catering, sautee, many “clopens,” competitions, and countless doubles, love, loss, sweat, blood, and tears intertwined with it all. Until one day I decided to shift to a career I’ve wanted since childhood, game design.
We set out, as all game designers do, to make the games fun, first and foremost. The problem, however, was in our limitations. We’re a two-person team. There were many times when our ideas grew beyond what we were capable of executing, even using the criteria of the WarioWare mini-games and our limited resources, but Kevin was there to corral my ideas and to shape the games into something we never expected. Some prototypes didn’t change, others morphed with the limitations and others became something completely different.
Kevin and I handled the development and design, but since neither of us are artists or musicians, we needed help giving the games a distinct character through music and art. Many of the people who helped us do that, I’m happy to say, work or have worked in the service industry. Games like “Oui Chef” and “Walk-in Waterworks” were simple games based on memory and timing mechanics respectively. “Oui Chef” was inspired by my own experiences working in a call kitchen where I had to mentally keep track of my orders. “Walk-in Waterworks” was simply based on the most popular crying spot in the kitchen. Both of these games came together smoothly, but neither would be as wicked awesome as they are without the artists who helped us.
We accomplished a lot of goals working on this project. The main one I hoped we accomplished, though, is creating a game that is as fun and relatable to those who work in the industry as well as enjoyable and insightful for those who don’t. But, you be the judge.
We sincerely hope you have as much fun playing KitchenWare as we had making it!
Sincerely, DR.KG Productions
