Baking Bonanza

Inspiration

Our project, Baking Bonanza was inspired by the old game "Purble Place". In the game, the player creates cupcakes based on orders from customers using tools and machines for frosting and other forms of decoration. Another game we were inspired by was "Cooking Fever", a game where the player must create as many meals for customers as possible given a time limit.

What it does

Our game is a baking/decoration simulation game where players decorate cakes based on orders from customers. However, the "Bonanza" part of our title comes from the abundance of confusing orders and tricky phrases. Players will receive three orders per level, each having different expectations and challenges based on the difficulty of the level (Easy, Medium, Hard). A star is awarded for perfect orders, which are accomplished by decorating a cake without missing any requirement from customers. All orders will contain frosting, filling, and a topping. Higher difficulty levels will also ask for the cake height and amount of candles on the cake.

How we built it

For our game, we took concepts and game mechanics from Purble Place and Cooking Fever. We simplified these concepts and twisted the mechanics. For example, instead of cupcakes like Purble Place, our game features regular cakes. Instead of implementing a timer like Cooking Fever to pressure players during levels, we made our game have some confusing orders. Players need to apply logic to these confusing orders to satisfy the customer.

Challenges we ran into

When we first started coding the game, our idea was that players would look at a drawing of each order and players would type in their answers based on what they saw. We had issues adding images to the game in a way that wasn't clunky or ruined the text-based theme of the game. Additionally, we received feedback from friends that our game was a bit too easy, even at harder difficulties, because it took no critical thinking to get 3 stars in each level. We decided we would make all orders text-based, but make orders have confusing wording and oddly specific requests. Our game also had an issue of being unaesthetic in terms of how quickly lines were printed into the terminal. We fixed this by adding a wait time and blank space in between each line, making it easier to read the text.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Something we are proud of is improving the aesthetic of our game as well developed it. Our ASCII text headers for each level brought excitement to the game as each section of the game had a grand introduction.

What we learned

Since we used replit for the creation of Baking Bonanza, we learned the advantages and disadvantages of replit compared to other code compilers/editors. For example, replit is an easy way to collaborate on code, especially when each group member needs to edit the code at home.

What's next for Baking Bonanza

Our group can research different ways replit displays images to users so that we can include images in our game. Right now, our game has three levels that can be completed in a short amount of time. In the future, new levels could be made with more difficult orders or even for meals other than cakes.