An interesting question...

         So, I was discussing the concept of my game in front of my GM last night, when she looked at me and she asked me a very unexpected question - "Do you think that you have the life experience to make a game about serving and accurately represent all aspects of the food and bev industry?"  This question has had me thinking all night, and thus, I will try and address it here.

          First off, the direct answer is No.  No, I do not have the experience to make this a 100% accurate experience of food and bev.  I've been serving for close to a year.  However, I DO believe that I have enough experience to express myself in a way that is relevant and strong enough to at least give an IDEA about what it's like to people that have never served before.

         She went on to say that in order to completely represent the whole experience, I would have to be in the shoes of all roles - Management, Line, and everything else.  I'd like to address that this game is from a server's point of view, and is not meant to be another restaurant management simulation (although, I think it would be interesting to be able to choose your role, but that would take me like 3 years to make this game. :-P).  The generic roles are Server, Bus, Dish, Line, Bar, Management.  That's a lot of roles, and we're not gonna even go into the sub-classes of these that exist.  Last night I was talking to a girl about when she used to host, there were sub-classes of host such as Controller, Scout, and I forgot what the other one was but it was equally as epic. 

       While I think it would be interesting to have a 100% accurate representation of the Food and Bev industry, I feel like the game would lose focus.  Sure it'd be nice to be able to portray the life of the line cooks, or the dish guy, or the busser in the nit and grit, and oh geez - actually making a game of REAL management - COMPLETELY different beasts of their own.  The game is about what a server has to go through each day at a crappy wage, PRAYING that people will be gracious enough to leave enough money to pay their rent. That all being said, I don't think I can properly pay homage to the whole experience without at least CONSIDERING the complexity of these other jobs.

       Given, I haven't even been serving a year, however, I do believe that I owe it to the industry as well as the people intarwebz to at least ATTEMPT to portray what being a server is like in the only way I know how - video games.  There now, I've come to my own conclusion whilst writing this blog.  Cool beans.

       Since I've written this post, it seems relevant for me to make the call out to people of food and bev to send me messages or write about what they would like to see in this game - from ALL roles.  I will fully admit that I'm quite ignorant compared to a lot of you.  You've seen days that I couldn't even imagine in this industry.  Everything you give me helps me to make the design a far stronger experience for the players that have never lived our lives.  So let em' roll in!


-- IN OTHER NEWS
I went back and redid chapter 3-4 of MJW's avoider tutorial, and am now on chapter 5 :)  I feel like I'm starting to get a grasp on the whole multiple .as file thing, as well as how to call different aspects of each.  It's all pretty exciting to me, and surprisingly, I'm having fun doing it (despite me swearing long ago that I would never code again!)  I don't go into work til 5:15, so Ill have quite a few hours to knock out some chapters.

ALSO SAN-FRAN ON SUNDAY THEN GDC ON MONDAY! WOOOOOOO!!!  I can't wait to meet thousands of people that rock my socks.

Day 2

So, today begins day 2 of my Actionscript 3 re-association.  If you're wondering what I'm teaching myself from, the link is here http://gamedev.michaeljameswilliams.com/2008/09/17/avoider-game-tutorial-1/ 
My buddy Jason suggested it to me and so far it's been pretty good.  I went up to Chapter 4 yesterday, and realized by the time i got there there were a slew of errors, so now I'm going back to Chapter 3 and redoing both of those before I go on :-P  I'm still not sure if I understand all of it, but, I guess that will come in due time with repetition.

Regarding design I've realized I haven't really even addressed the bartenders in my head yet.  They're probably the most pickup and drop off experience where I work, but I still feel like they should have some significance in 2.13.

Rep with hosts I believe should also have a big impact on the player's experience, as they're pretty much the hand of God when it comes to serving. Some follow the rules, sure, but some will do whatever they feel like, which can either help you, or make you miserable.

Lastly, before I begin my journey again, I feel like I need to figure out a way to make closing time important to the player without just expressing it in numbers -  Last night I had 2 tables about a half hour past close wanting to go drinks and the cooks to make more stuff the whatnot, and what do you know?  They both left me 2 dollars.  I was LIVID.  Throw things around and punch walls and scream obscenities livid.  The AC had to actually bake bread for these people past closing.  Anyway, aside from my bitching, I really want the player to be able to experience the same types of feelings of anger that servers have when tables sit around after close, because there's not a server alive out there that hasn't been kept after a long day running around everywhere, just to sit on their ass for the next hour waiting for that inevitable $1-$3 tip.

The Story Thus Far...

This is all concept work (visual) that was born from yesterday morning to the time I was cut last night.  My writing is pretty much chicken scratch, but the notes will likely be irrelevant come time for the final design.

This was the first page drawn, conceptualizing the main character build, as well as some of the elements of the game.  It's very possible that the bars and meters will be contextual.

More examples of characters, Management (Upper Left), Customers (Top Right, Bottom Left), and a server holding too many trays (Bottom Right) 

Pretty much concept about what happens when you collect tips (think sorta like Link getting a special item in the Zelda series) (Top), Little hellions usually mean at least an extra 5 minutes of work.  Period. (Bottom)

You can yell and scream all you want, but money is motivation.  Pay your non-tipped co-workers - it will save your ass.

And So It Begins...

There comes a time in one's life where they feel absolutely useless.  Mine came a few weeks ago when I realized that I've been out of college since November, and I'm still working as a server at a company that will not be named here.  Given, this is definitely my own fault - I've been rather lazy I suppose, up until this point.  About a week ago, I came to the realization I should be doing something productive whilst I wait for my resume to circulate and hopefully get me hired - something productive that makes the inner fire for making games burn again.  After days and days of being in a mental block, and playing tons of indie games later, I've come across a concept I know quite well, and will allow me to express myself.  Serving.

Welcome to the blog for 2.13 an hour, the blog where I'll post my progress going from a recent post graduate (One that knows nigh jack shit about programming in Actionscript 3, has enough art skills to barely get by, and is nowhere NEAR a genius designer) to a recent post graduate with prior said skills that has programmed, designed, and created assets for a game from conception to completion.

As previously mentioned, this game is about serving.  Yes, that's serving as in waiter at a restaurant serving.  Already, I can tell half of the whole 2 people reading this are probably thinking "Well, aren't there all of those restaurant games like Diner Dash and Restaurant City already out there?".  Yes.  Yes there are.  But those are games based around either restaurant management or something thats... well, more fun?   That seems to be a weird statement, but while I'm sure there will be some people that will find this fun, it's more made to educate.  There's a lot of shenanigans that servers go through for $2.13 an hour, and while some servers pull in some great money, it's hands down one of the most inconsistent jobs out there - from the workload to the income.  Then there's the whole corporate aspect that no one ever touches on in these games.  I want the player to be able to experience the feeling of the management breathing down your neck to keep true to corporate standards (when you're in their sight ;-P ).  I want the player to know the importance of social relations in food and bev, from the baby-mama-drama to host favoritism to paying the cooks to fly your food a little faster than normal.

All in all, while very full of tongue-in-cheek humor, the game is made to entertain servers, and educate people who have never been in our shoes about our daily lives - for good and for bad.