Last week we talked about how our prototype led us to pivoting to a new art style based on anime and yokai. This pivot actually went beyond just anime, as we started researching Japanese folk lore. One great resource we found was Yokai.com, the illustrated database of Japanese folklore, which has a wealth of information and some really gorgeous visuals. If you want to spend some time just going down a yokai rabbit hole, go there and click on random yokai to start your journey!
Having unique ingredients wasn't just an aesthetic choice. We continued to tinker with our prototype, trying new ideas to move beyond the original Yoshi design of clearing the screen. We kept the bad apple corruption, but experimented with other ideas, at one point even adding a rhythm mechanic (which was a bit too difficult coupled with matching and stacking, but we did make the drum an unlockable item).
We really liked our ingredients and thought, ok maybe Granny isn't just making pies for the fun of it, maybe customers are ordering different flavored pies. But... how can we make specific pies if ingredients destroy each other when they match? This was the major turning point that led to our new gameplay; we needed a neutral ingredient - sugar!
We went back and forth on what the sugar should look like: clear jar, stone jar, sugar tin, wax paper bag, etc... We decided Granny was an old school baker, and would keep her sugar in a large burlap sack. When it came to giving the sugar a personality, we wanted it to be saccharine cute. It even sneezes kompeitō! Once we stumbled on that cute face and burlap "robe" we realized this was the way.
Our strawberry was probably the easiest visually. The shape of a strawberry is already sort of pointed and foxy, so it wasn't a stretch to make her a kitsune of sorts. Instead of simply making our strawberry a fox, we opted to give her a kitsune mask painted with colorful designs.
The peach felt like a scruffy old man, which after a yokai dive, we landed on a sort of bushy-browed monk aesthetic. But he's got a little bit of a sassy personality, just like most old men in anime - so you might catch him making the face where you pull your eyelid down and stick out your tongue.
The apple doesn't pull from anything specific, other than the shape language of the Bakezōri. Overall he just contains a few visual elements we enjoyed: a conical straw hat, a big ole single eye and a nice wiggly tongue turn our "good" apple into a mischievous little spirit.
The bad apple was a lot of fun to create - we wanted to stay away from gross, so instead we went "creepy-cute," adding a bruised look and a little centipede escaping the top. One of the most distressing trends we'd seen in anime baddies is giving the monster a big square human-like grin, so naturally our bad apple had to have a nice set of chompers. Why is this so unsettling? Not sure, but it definitely gave our bad apple that nice blend of creepy and cute.
Once all the ingredients had personalities, we realized we couldn't just leave the pie crusts as inanimate objects. We really liked the Kashira from Spirited Away, and when we began looking into the lore behind the three bouncing heads, we found they were heavily inspired by Daruma, which are decorative dolls that are believed to grant a wishes. The dolls are sold with the eyes blank, and the person who buys the doll paints the left eye when they make a wish, and then paint the right eye once that wish comes true. Our daruma pie top's "stage left" eye is painted since Granny wishes to become a successful spirit baker!
As our ingredients started coming to life we also took another look at our game loop. If the game revolves around customers ordering specific pies, should we try to capture that in the design? Looks like we'll need to expand our scope by building a shop simulator!
Tune in next week to learn how we designed the bakery for Senpie!