Of all the games I’ve designed, these two quirky adventure games were my favorite: Avenue Flo and its sequel, Avenue Flo Special Delivery.
I had already helped PlayFirst turn Diner Dash and Wedding Dash into successful franchises with multiple sequels and spinoffs. With Avenue Flo, I got to take all the beloved characters from these games, and bring them together into one big story adventure set in DinerTown.
In the first adventure, someone is trying to sabotage the biggest wedding in DinerTown history. Flo runs all over town to get a new wedding cake, dress, rings and other items needed to save the wedding from disaster.
I designed over 45 interactive scenes and 16 unique puzzles, and wrote over 3000 lines of dialog.
This was the first DinerTown game to feature voiceover, and I helped direct the audio recording sessions for all characters.
I injected plenty of humor into each scene, like the Baby Craze Superstore, where Flo must navigate a ridiculously enormous maze of aisles.
And Big Corp Tower, where Flo navigates cubicle mazes and the absurd bureaucracy of a gigantic corporation.
I designed all puzzles to be elegantly woven into the storyline.
For example, Flo needs fruit and veggies to make baby food, but the produce baskets at the market have spilled.
So the player solves word scrambles to get the produce, and visual grouping puzzles to work the baby food machine.
All sorts of seemingly simple tasks, like getting items out of a fridge, or decorating some cookies, become challenging, engaging puzzles to solve.