Sandbox Demo Analysis: Khanh’s Kitchen — TXI Application
What if a cooking game was cursed? What if the choices you make will always cost you something? Those were some of the few questions in my process of brainstorming for Khanh’s Cooking, my TXI application. Khanh’s Cooking takes the form of an online cooking game, where the players get to cook Pho, a Vietnamese cuisine, accompanied by our main chef Khanh in her kitchen. However, as you get closer to completing the dish, something seems off: Why is that ingredient blurred out? Why is Khanh forcing you to put it in? Are you sure?
*The analysis below will include spoilers for the storyline of the project.
The Thought Process
In recent years, the indie horror game scene has seen a trend of games that incorporate elements of Childhood, like Five Nights of Freddy’s with the children’s pizzeria theme or Amanda The Adventurer’s Kid’s TV show aesthetic, I find these video games fascinating and am a big fan of them. A small subcategory that I was heavily inspired by was the games that marketed themselves in the form of children’s free online games, which don’t present as horror at first glance and surprise players with a horror twist later on in gameplay.
My decision for which type of game to deliver the horror was influenced by my love for cooking overall and cooking games of my childhood like Cooking Mama. With my goal to create a truly unique experience to set my application apart from the other applicants, I decided to put together two of my favorite things, cooking and horror games, thus Khanh’s Cooking was born.
To me immersive is story-telling, a chance one can have the ability to be in a different world, a different timeline, a different life, hence I wanted the storyline of the game to be authentic to my life and Vietnamese culture. I achieved them by incorporating a hidden plot and centering the game surrounding Vietnamese cuisine. Even though it’s not the primary goal, I wanted to ensure that after the experience the player would get to learn a little bit more about Vietnamese cuisine.
The story
The main character in the game, Khanh, is a representation of my perfectionism and desire to make my parents proud. Growing up in an immigrant family, I’ve always had the self-expectation to perfect and never let my parents down, in the game most clearly represented by the character’s urge for the player to complete the dish. However, the desperation for perfection can often turn destructive. As the players reach the last ingredient, they learn that the missing ingredient has been replaced by a bowl of blurred-out red mush. A glitch reviews that the bowl was Khanh’s organ, and an “Are you sure?” sign pops up when the bowl is selected giving players the choice of “Yes” or “No” to add to the ingredient and complete the dish.
If players selected “Yes”. The player is moved to a “good ending” slide, with a bloody Khanh celebrating and the background the line of text “but at what cost”. This is representative of the personal sacrifices that I, at times, have to make to maintain that perfectionism and meet the expectations I have set for myself.
If players selected “No”. The Player is moved to a “bad ending” slide, with a distorted Khanh, mad and disappointed. This is representative of the inner saboteur that is toxic and destructive that often comes from expectation. She turns into a physical portrayal of the feelings that follow failure: disgust, shame, and resentment.
The existence of a “good” ending is to satisfy a player’s intention of championing a mission. However, with closer inspection, they’ll realize that there is no fully “good” ending, and the only option left is to “Try Again” so the cycle can continue, forever stuck in a loop of sacrifice.
The Experience
While deciding which medium the game was going to be on, I needed to acknowledge that I had never created a game before and didn’t have enough coding knowledge to do so. Knowing my audience will be members and faculty of the Texas Immersive Institute, I wanted my project to be interactive, so playability became an ambitious requirement. I settled on using the Microsoft PowerPoint program to house my project, utilizing its animation, transition, and linking slide features to mimic the animation and clicking aspects of an actual game. The main interactive aspects were the ability to select in gameplay, including the “Yes” or “No” sequence, when clicking “No” I’ve added animation that makes to “No” option change sizes and move around as if the game is being manipulated or hacked prevent the player from choosing that option.
Beauty is one of the key attributes of an immersive experience’s success, so I wanted the appearance of this project to not only be accurate to the source materials — the online cooking games, but also incite emotions. By creating all the items separately in Adobe Photoshop, I was able to have control over the two aesthetics: cute and horror, and how much they need to contrast each other. From the color palette to font style, all are selected to establish no doubt from the player about the bright and innocent gameplay, which creates a more impactful horror twist. Sound is a big aspect of making a game an immersive experience as music is a great tool to influence emotions, using the audio feature in Microsoft PowerPoint, I was able to layer the soft bright music and horror audio effects to complete the experience.
Conclusion
A horror cooking game in PowerPoint isn’t something I expected myself to create. This TXI application project allowed me to not only showcase my skillset, share my passion, and be creative but also acquire new skills needed to problem-solve. The goal of Khanh’s Kitchen was never to be perfect, because it’s not, however, I hope it can be an authentic, unique, and inspirational experience for players. I’m excited for my journey along with TXI, maybe a full Khanh’s Kitchen on a real game engine the next time I “Try Again”.
Works Cited and Reference
Stalberg, A. (2023, September 29). 12 horror games that are disguised to look innocent. Game Rant. https://gamerant.com/horror-games-that-look-innocent/#eversion
Reilly, Erin. (2023). ADV 365 AUDIENCE DEVEL/ENGAGEMENT Presentation #1: Intro to Good vs. Great. [Presentation Video]. Canvas. https://tower.la.utexas.edu/app_home/video?act_key=351bf2bba6263dfffd4ae625eed8029b65b6fc90e73fa#/
