Design Concept Notebook

This is my first post to document my game design and development for the Restaurant Simulation.

After reading an interesting post via reddit recently, i started defining my game concept in terms of its main mechanic, secondary mechanics and the progression which will dictate my games direction. Thinking about my game idea in this way helped me to understand where I needed to concentrate in order to make an experience fun and engaging. As a simulation, I originally wanted the program to not even be about fun, but rather a realistic representation of a restaurant. An exercise in designing and implementing an eco-system, where input is random but the outputs represent the realities of a small business.

The future may lead to me implementing more features from this original vein, but narrowing the scope is for now a better route for me to see through and finish the project.

Today I have been working on writing up a description of the main view, what a "level" should look like and what is interactive. The game will be at first a player directed "time management" style game. Think Diner Dash or Barrr. As I learn more about programming I'd like to be able to implement an automatic mode where the agents are able to act independently, allowing the player to switch between agents.

I'll be working on my own art for the game so I've been doodling little sketches, which help me to think about the way I want to implement things such as menus, game state indicators and of course the layout and style of art.

Next step, continue learning from the Cherno and get a Level up and running, and put some alpha art tiles in this blog!