KITCHEN FRENZY

Overview
For the first time in history, take part in the biggest cook-off ever done! Kitchen Frenzy is a Party Game that mix Mario Party, Street Fighter and Mario Kart. It's a PC student project done in six month (feb to july 2004) at the French Master of Art in Video Game and I was the Creative Director.

My work
I've done what a Creative Director do in a development team :

• defining the overall vision, the look & feel of the game.
  
• I've work on the game design and managed the team.
  
• I've also made all the character animations
  
• Because of the small team size, I've also done a little bit more: help out on the screen menu and made the entire website.
  

Development
It was my last year as a student and I known that it was the last time I could do what I want before working in the industry. So it was my last chance to make a great project with full of originality.

Also, I've learn a lot of things of my past student works:

• A demo works well when it's finished. It's easier to show why your concept is fun with a fully playable demo than trying to explain that with powerpoint slides.
  
• We are students, so we have still a lot to learn. Let's make a simple original game than trying to change the video game industry for ever with a project bigger than us.
  
• We don't have much time to do this demo, so it's better to choose a concept that can be explain with a short demo. It's not a good thing to choose an adventure game that need at least a 15min demo to show the gameplay, the story, the atmosphere, ...
  

So after a lot of thinking, we decided to make a game about kooking. We were (and still are) big arcade game fans, and we have seen in this setting a good opportunity to make a crazy game about a big contest between the biggest chief on earth. Street Fighter meet Mario Kart Bonuses and Mario Party minigames.
For this project we were 7: 3 designers, 2 programmers, 1 artist and 1 sound designer/musician.

Links

Video: Kitchen Frenzy trailer

Video: Kitchen Frenzy gameplay

• The "Making of" article: I've wrote the story of the making of this project.
  
• The official website: http://www.cedricbarthez.fr/kitchenfrenzy: It's in flash and all made by me.
  
• The playable demo: PC playable Demo (50 Mo): I don't know if it's already working on actual computers. Try it.
  
• Documentation: The Game Concept High (pdf)
  
• The Credits: who made what!
  

The press talked about us
Epok - oct 2005
Joypad #147 dec 2004
Joypad n°147 dec 2004
JeuxVideo Magazine #48 - nov 2004
Canard PC n°39 sept
Kitchen Frenzy visual used on a book



Game features

• More than 40 mini-games and one hundred recipes: Gameplay is based on a quick succession of simple mini-games allowing to do the most difficult recipes by cutting, mixing, tenderize, ...
  
• Almost ten crazy bonuses: Get Mario Kart-style bonuses and use them against your opponent: to fire him use th chilli, to reverse the commands use the sticky octopus, ...
  
• Lots of solo and multiplayer modes for 1 to 4 players: Alone or lots of mates, Kitchen Frenzy is made for you ! Take part to the story mode or the Cook Cup mode, or face your friends in the versus and online mode.
  
• More than 20 chiefs coming from every world's corner: They're almost here ! The twins indou, the african mama, the english chief, the frenchy Robert Bové, ... They're all coming with their specific technics and own special moves.
  
• A crazy atmosphere never seen in a video game: Each fight pushing further the video game world in anything crazy. Absolute fun, it's what Kitchen Frenzy is. Just see the wild audience to realize this game is not like the others.