Hurry and chope your seats with Steve, game designer of Makan Mania! Hear how he has cooked up in his design process, challenges from creating Makan Mania, and his love for hawker food!
Hi! I’m Steve, the game designer of Makan Mania. So Makan Mania is a dice game that is themed around the CBD hawker lunch rush, so if you're an office worker you will know this very well. That's the main inspiration behind this fast-paced dice game.
Q: How has your relationship with hawker food culture influenced the game design Makan Mania?
I guess mostly when I dine at Hawker centers it's outdoors, it's a lot of people, and the food is hot. It’s a sweltering experience I would say. What Makan Mania aims to depict is the rush at lunch you're trying to get to your table because it's so crowded, and you have limited amount of time so you don't want to be stuck at a long queue as much as possible.
Find a table, sit down, and have your meal but you also want to be able to buy drinks. My relationship with hawker food culture, I'm quite a simple person I just eat hawker food. It's kind of a cheap option with a lot of rising costs in Singapore.
Q: What were the challenges of designing a game that's played simultaneously between all players?
So I guess when you're playing simultaneous games, things are going really fast you don't have a lot of time check to each other. But I guess one thing that I didn't really like that can be present in the few simultaneous games sometimes, there's additional administrative work.
Maybe you will complete some recipe and got to refill it while the game is ongoing. It kind of lacks thought. “Why do you make me do this thing while everyone else is playing the game?”
Makan Mania doesn't have that, it specifically doesn't have it because it is something I do not want to include in these types of games.
Q: How did you come up with a different tray and table abilities? How were they balanced for replayability?
For these types of games I feel you should be able to have fun, it's a speed based game after all. I tried to make sure that whoever was a bit slower didn't lose out too much. Making sure that the more players there are the more rewarding it can be well. Of course you still want to be fast.
For tray abilities, I just thought of what would be nice in such a game. For example the black tray, where you could cut queue and jump to the first table. I thought that was pretty fun but of course, everyone else who you cut in front of they will get a dollar. The cutting queue I think a lot of players like it.
Q: Did you have the chance to explore a different scoring mechanic for the game? What decisions led you to the final points system for the game?
I was quite certain from the beginning that I wanted to leave counting of points until the end of the game, so as to keep the momentum going for players. Especially since Makan Mania is a real-time game, having any intermediate scoring would break its all important momentum.
The pairing of drinks with food for additional points also came quite naturally due to the theme of the game, which helped bring balance to the strategies that players can go for.
Q: How did you collaborate with the artist who illustrated the foods and drinks in the game? What was the process like to ensure the artwork captured the authentic look and themes of Makan Mania?
Our lovely artist was the same one who did the art for Happy Dim Sum, which was well-loved by many in our community. This time we decided to give the same treatment to the food in Makan Mania, bringing their personalities to life.
We also wanted to present the popular hawker cuisine the best we can, with recognizable dishes that can also be found and enjoyed by tourists who come to Singapore. A lot of the dishes we feature can be found in most hawker centres and are enjoyed by many locals including myself!
All in all, the artwork aimed to create a relatable and exciting experience by working in hand with the gameplay.
Q: What is one takeaway you learnt from designing Makan Mania that you'll bring into future projects?
Not all games are meant to be played by everyone but we try as much as possible to make games that are suitable for everyone to play. The thing about Makan Mania is supposed to be exciting and loud. We try to make as much noise as possible and have as much fun as we like.
Don't try too hard to design games for everyone, just make sure you know who you're designing for and go hard in that direction!
Q: Where can we find out more about Makan Mania?
Find out more about Makan Mania at our Capital Gains Website!
We also designed a set of unique Makan Mania stickers base on the art from the game. Check them out too!
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