Kitchen Scramble was a successful, charming, addictive cooking game that I loved working on as a Lead Designer while at Disney Interactive.
Players cook up each dish by placing the right ingredients into the right appliances. As the game progresses, the recipes become more and more complex, challenging one's memory and speed.
I developed new fictional locations based on different cuisines. I'd map out the ingredients and recipes, define new features like special appliances and customer behaviors, and then build and test all the levels.
To continually improve the game's retention and monetization, I'd re-tune the levels and the game economy as needed, ensuring that each location felt well balanced, challenging but not too frustrating.
I wrote lots of lighthearted story sequences between levels, giving personality to the characters in the game.
Having a simple storyline for each location helped keep players feeling motivated, rewarded and engaged.
I tied the storylines to the cooking gameplay. This blues singer in Molassessippi has a problem... the food you cook makes him so happy that he no longer feels sad enough to write his next blues song!