George Hewitt

Systems and Gameplay Designer

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Early Bird Diner

2024

Systems Design Gameplay Design Programming
Solo Project

A casual mobile game where players run a diner, prepping food and serving customers.
Players tailor orders for tips and maximum profit, upgrading for new ingredients, recipes and facilities.

Platform
Android

Using
Unity
C# Programming

Available

GitHub
Playstore (Closed Testing)

Goals

Create and balance systems and mechanics, including economy, upgrades and progression.

Develop C# and Unity proficiency, maintaining good programming principles, such as inheritance, modularity and scalability.

Learn about mobile game design and monetization.

Develop UI suitable for the genre, theme and mobile platform.

Game Loops

Original One-Sheet Design Doc

UI Wireframe - Open Phase

UI Wireframe - Prep Phase

Key Design Decisions

Optimized for mobile with a simple game loop and short play sessions.

UI design follows genre conventions to meet player expectations.

The layout considers player intuition e.g. dragging ingredients forwards.

Only essential information is shown, such as a collapsible recipes tab.

Design evolved during development through testing and time constraints, with a focus on delivering a strong sense of progression.

Inspiration

Good Pizza, Great Pizza

Drag and drop food prep.
Happy customers for faster progression.
Upgrades for new ingredients and improved restaurant.

Lemon Cake

Fast paced food prep.
Upgrades for new ingredients and recipes.
Cozy game aesthetic.

Boba Tale

Drag and drop counter-service prep.
Upgrades for new ingredients.
Minimal-style UI.

Features

Economy system with tips, increasing base costs, upgrades and monetisation.

Scaling difficulty and complexity.

Tutorial for each game phase.

Game Screens

Prep Phase

Open Phase

Round Summary

Fail State

Contact Me