Creating a new vibrant website that fits the demographic, alongside forming a marketing plan and creating many graphics for social media and company documents.
Project Overview
CookCook Arena is a concept for a social, over-the-top cooking game that brings people together through food, creativity, and a bit of healthy competition. Combining tactile card mechanics with fun, cartoonish design, the game challenges players to cook imaginative meals based on the ingredients they randomly draw, earning points through difficulty, execution, and peer voting.
CookCook Arena
Different angles of the final packaging to the card game
The Design Goal
I wanted to create a fictional game product that felt ready for market, complete with:
A unique visual identity and strong brand tone, that would allow for easy development of extra card decks
Distinct, bright colours to separate it from other card/board games
A high-energy, arcade-style presentation style fit for families
A simple set of text that gives a clear idea of what the game entails
2d net used to print out the final product
Some model cards I made to test the different styles of gameplay, and designs.
Concept Development
Chaos – A high-energy environment full of intense cooking, family enjoyment, good food and competitive gameplay.
Family Orientation – The idea is to bring family's and friends together and get them doing something productive and fun.
Style-First – Visually loud but legible, the colours are meant to make it obvious what cards you are pulling out.
I created a food journal template that I had many people complete to gather what food items people generally eat in turn finding out
How It Works
Draw Cards – Each round, players draw random ingredient cards (some helpful, some silly).
Plan & Cook – Players cook real or improvised meals using those ingredients.
Rate the Results – Everyone tastes and votes on difficulty, creativity, and execution.
Score – Points are tracked each round; the weekly winner is crowned “Top Chef of the Arena.”
What I would do to improve the design
Its been a while since I designed this game, and frankly what kind of designer would I be if I didn't have some idea of what I would want to improve on, everyday I wake up and think of new things I hate about my designs. So for starters:
The gameplay whilst its fun, the length of period it takes to create several meals for a week is a lengthy time, so ideally the game would be shortened.
The design lends well to being over the top and colourful but I feel it could do a better job of conveying cooking and the overall theme of the game.
The packaging system of slotting into the bottom with a small flap will not stand the test of time so ideally it would be replaced with something better.
The ingredients list was minimal and if I redid the design from scratch, I'd make it a lot more extensive so it's got better replayability.