Requirements:
1.Maps app (Google or Apple Maps)
2.Money to buy food
3.Discord
Rules:
1.A player selects a location nearby to get food for, the player must not buy a drink
2.All players enter the food they bought into the discord on server
3/One of the other players enters a drink that they would like to combine with the food on the discord server
4.The player must then try and find said drink, buy it and enjoy their meal with it
5.Pictures of the full meal are then posted on a separate channel on the server for full meals
6.Players then share their reviews of the meal combo on that channel
Artist Statement:
One of my main inspirations for this piece was the game Uncle Roy All Around You. The premise of Uncle Roy All Around you is that the city in which the player is in serves as the arena in which the game takes place. They are then instructed online to complete a number of tasks to help find Uncle Roy. This puts forward the question “Would you be there for a stranger in need?”, to which most players would answer “Yes”. Although I drew inspiration from this game, I decided to go for a generally lower stakes premise which is allowing your meal to be completed by a stranger. In my game, players allow other players to select the beverage to be drunk together with their meal. In response to the question asked of the players in Uncle Roy All Around You, “Would you let a stranger select the beverage for your next meal”. The answers to this question were less straightforward with players in my playtests asking to what extent is the other player a “stranger” etc. Although I chose food and beverage to lower the stakes, it creates a paradox in the sense that lending help in some cases is something people are more willing to do for strangers than allowing to choose what they consume, because of course you wouldn’t eat a random meal or drink a random glass of unknown liquid lying in the subway simply because it could contain all manner of harmful substances. To this end I created the balance between reducing the high pressure environment of a seemingly life and death situation to a more lighthearted one which still bore some weight.
Another source of inspiration for this game is the plethora of online arcade cooking games in which players are meant to put together different meals when given multiple ingredients and are then scored based on the coherence between the meal they made and the standards that were being requested in the game. However, I took out the scoring aspect as a objective element whereas if certain ingredients or combos don’t match in particular meals then a certain number is given as a score and rather opted for the more subjective route where players write their own reviews based on how they feel after they tasted the meal.
As you can see, all sorts of interesting combinations arise from the game, with some players aiming more for humor while others are genuinely suggesting a combination that they like. Either way, it is great fun and everyone is a winner.