Neither Justice nor I had played a tabletop game before, so coming up with this game was a challenge. Initially, we were going to create a game that was investigation-themed. We came up with an idea where the players engaged with a world where God had been killed— consequently, there was no longer a balance between the number of people in heaven and hell. Players were demons, and they had to engage with clues to get from hell to a highway to heaven and finally to heaven. Over the course of the game, we were envisioning having a few twists that players would encounter. Some of these twists included: one of the demons that players would be trying to find/talk to had gone missing; learning that God has been killed; learning that, although players had believed their characters were Demons, each of the characters was actually an Angel placed in hell by God; and that there was a conspiracy from a group of Angels to kill god.
In this first iteration of the game, we were trying to follow GUMSHOE, and we were planning to allow characters to allocate points to a variety of “skills”. These categories were under three umbrella categories: investigative, interpersonal, and physical. In this version of our tabletop game, we thought it would be good to create three “scenes” that players would engage with over the course of the game. In the first scene, characters would have realized that something in the balance of heaven and hell was off, and they were going to have to break out of hell. We came up with a narrative for this first scene and thought of a few clues that players could engage with, but we eventually decided that this iteration was getting too complicated. And since neither of us had any experience or knowledge for how this game was supposed to look, we decided to scrap the idea and follow a much more simple iteration of a tabletop game.
This led us to Honey Heist, Goblin with a Fat Ass and All Outta Bubblegum. Following this structure proved to be much more straightforward and we were able to be a lot more productive by starting fresh. Trying to parallel games like Honey Heist, we came up with the idea for Woof Chef (Yes Chef) where dogs are in a kitchen and must break into a peanut butter factory to find the best peanut butter for a pb+j. We decided that this version was too similar to Honey Heist, so we eventually modified the game to have an ultimate goal of creating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (by acquiring all of the needed materials). From there, we were able to keep some of what we had already come up with, but we modified/added until we reached our current iteration of Woof Chef.
UPDATE, Week 2: Following our play testing, we had a lot of notes to work with. Most importantly, we realized that, because the game is so driven by the Kitchen Manager (KM), we should provide more guidance and allow for more complete world building. To this end, we also wanted to make sure that it was clearer how players engage with the world that Woof Chef exists in. One of the components we were considering was making a map to establish a clear sense of directionality within the world. We thought about creating this map ourselves, but we ultimately felt that doing so might limit how players engage with the game (and limit the reproducibility of novel game experiences). To find a balance, we decided to have the KM create the map at the start of each game. Furthermore, we updated the rules to allow the KM or players to modify pre-established locations which we felt could further encourage player engagement (by having agency over introducing locations while still maintaining the structure of establishing a world).
Another question that came up from our play testing was how players most fully embrace their characters. Part of this was the questions of what the descriptors actually contributed to players, and if they contributed anything. To flesh out this aspect of character building, we decided to have the descriptors associated with brief characteristics that players can adopt. More generally, we decided to more explicitly encourage player engagement at the start of the game by having players go around and introduce themselves to each other. To allow characters to further customize their gameplay, we also introduced the ability for players to propose/decide on a secret ingredient to pursue. Additionally, we added actions that players can undertake so as to provide a starting point if players are struggling to come up with ideas for things their character might do.
Although our play testing was limited and we were unable to complete gameplay in either session, we also realized that we should include more explicit avenues for players to win and lose; in doing so, we also made the game more compact. Whereas before, we imagined that players would return to the kitchen to assemble the sandwich upon gathering the ingredients, we realized that this took us away from having a central goal of the game. We decided to make assembling the sandwich in the kitchen— the final stage of the game— optional. This also has the effect of creating variety in gameplay difficulty (this final stage is another obstacle for players to overcome).
Potentially our biggest change is for the KM and their structure to build the world. We included a list of questions for the KM to consider before beginning gameplay that would help establish a coherent world. The questions we provide are guidelines, and the KM is able to include/add however they wish. By providing the KM tools to create the world (these prompts, creating the map, generally guiding the story) we felt the game would be stronger since it wouldn’t become mundane with multiple plays.
