Need Feedback on Game Theme/Topic

Hello, Brad !

To be honest and short - even though I do not know any game that would simulate the process of going out for a good meal (your game would be a novelty, then) - I do not like this game theme at all. I enjoy almost all kinds of games, Magic:the Gathering, Agricola, Middle-Earth:The Wizards, Settlers of Catan, RoboRally, Puerto Rico, Race for the Galaxy, Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, Galaxy Trucker and Kaboodle. For me, an interesting game for adults (and your idea of a game sounds like an adult game) should have some universally amusing/ funny/ witty approach like Cranium, Taboo or Pictionary. Adult games do not benefit from simulating a small facette from everyday life. They have to offer something we do not get to perform casually every other day. In your case, the notion of going out and having some good food sounds as an ok distraction from our 9-to-5-jobs, but it's not something I would like to see in a game. I think that a game should offer some kind of excitement we are not able to summon up on our own. The simple question would be here: Why should I bother with the game if it so much easier to go out and spend some time with my real friends at a real restaurant ?

Please note that these thoughts on your game theme are mine and mine alone. They do not represent a public opinion nor do they come from an experienced game publisher/designer - I imagined being nothing but a casual gamer-customer seeing your game on a Wal-Mart shelf :-)

Best,
Crensh

Hi Brad,

thanks for your response. I always feel somehow...bad when people ask me about games they have in mind and I tell them what I think. I'm glad if my rant was of any help ;-)

Concerning your question about Agricola:
I also have no interest in farming whatsoever. Maybe it is the aspect of successfully achieving some kind of material wealth that binds us to the game, be it a farm, a medieval village or a fantasy empire. The notion of building something is alluring because most of us like to create sandcastles, lego fortresses, etc. by tinkering with it. The idea of building and developing stuff brought me to a change of your game's perspective.
Then I instantly got the idea of a game in which you actively run your own restaurant instead of going out for a meal in a passive way. While this certainly is not a unique theme, at least it is not as overused as your average "humans-looting-dragon-dungeons" or "building-medieval-something"-setting. It can certainly become a complex economic Eurogame that offers you many choices, moves forward and evolves around the different aspects of running a restaurant.

What I liked most about it: it still is the idea of your son, just not from an exclusively adult perspective.

Here are some things that started dancing in my head:

You begin as an average entrepreneur, struggling to offer people the best meal for their money while attracting more clients and handle difficult customers.

You execute the role of a

a.) cook
b.) steward
c.) house keeper
d.) chief manager
e.) food deliverer
f.) live musician
etc.

-You get shared turns with other players, each takes a certain amount of time in the game. You decide what you do this turn and perform your action. The outcome would look somewhat like that:
The housekeeper keeps the shack clean - the deliverer gets the food into the restaurant - the cook prepares the meals - the steward brings the meals to the customers - the chief manager can calm down angry clients, etc.

-Maybe you can also focus on the cooking as one of your main procedure for the game - you would want to combine fruits, vegetables, fish, seafood, meat, poultry, spice and pasta into some decent meals, depending on what the customers would like to get. While you spend your starting budget for some ingredients from the deliverer, you and your opponents must prepare best for the customers that will arrive tonight. The more customers you get, the more prestige rating you receive. Then you need more room for your restaurant, more cooks and more stewards follow. Just add some paper money from Monopoly you receive after each evening of meal-serving so you can spend it on your next turn for food and rent and you have a lot of potential for a commercially successful game - a family game.

---> Now, THIS would be a game that both kids and adults would like to play :-)

While the game's economic system may sound as an immense task, there are no unique/impossible gaming mechanisms. You can start at taking a look at "Dungeon Lords" by the great Czech game designer Vlaada Chvatil - if you examine it closer you will notice that it bears several striking similarities to "Agricola". You can begin by developing a small economic system for the exchange of money and food components.

edit: corrected some spelling and syntax mistakes.