The game's art style, along with character appearance requirements.
The core gameplay, and the psychological control over players through numerical design.
Designs for various scene maps, and the expansion-based Workshop gameplay mode.
Including the experimental nature of this game regarding platform promotion.
Chen Xu didn't completely dissect all these aspects—only provided a general overview.
After all, it was just a concept draft; detailed execution would require further development work.
Moreover, everyone present—music, level design, numerical design, art, marketing and operations, and platform staff—all needed to participate, so going into excessive detail wouldn't have been helpful.
"Does anyone have any questions?" Chen Xu asked, looking around.
Ruan Ningxue and Yang Xin shook their heads.
They were responsible for art and plot design.
Based on the design concept drafts, the game's storyline was essentially a bonus—requiring minimal work.
As for the art, the concept art was already out, clearly defining the cartoonish art style.
All that remained was finalizing the details.
The others also mostly shook their heads, indicating they had nothing to add.
In truth, everyone present was quite surprised.
Although it was only a concept design draft, it had already established the embryonic form of the entire game.
Subsequent development merely required following this blueprint.
As for the final outcome, that would have to wait until the DEMO was released.
After all, it's difficult to judge a game's quality solely from design concept drafts—no matter how good the drafts are, they remain theoretical.
While the development team had no major issues, Zhang Yida from the operations side had something to say.
Zhang Yida spoke up: "Mr. Chen, are we planning to launch this game during the Spring Festival?"
Chen Xu replied: "More accurately, we're launching it on Valentine's Day."
Zhang Yida continued: "In that case, Mr. Chen, I suggest we implement a discount coupon system, allowing players to get lower prices on the Nebula Games Platform."
"Additionally, we could use 'couples' game' as a promotional selling point. According to our market research, we'd be the first, and given the game's gameplay mode, it genuinely is a cooperative game."
"Experience the sweetness of love—play Overcooked!" This could be the game's slogan.
Unlike the R&D team, Zhang Yida wouldn't directly participate in game development.
And as an experienced professional, Zhang Yida had come to understand Chen Xu fairly well during this period.
There was no room for negotiation on game-related matters, but for external promotion and operations, collective brainstorming was encouraged.
The development cycle for Overcooked was barely over two months.
Under such circumstances, finalizing promotional plans was crucial, especially since Overcooked was an experimental game meant to promote the Nebula Games Platform.
It couldn't just be quietly developed and then dumped onto the market.
If that happened, especially during the Spring Festival—a time when numerous games flood the market—it would definitely fail to make a splash.
Therefore, promotional strategies needed to be determined right now.
"For the discount, let's make it even more straightforward—buy one, get one free. Overcooked is inherently a multiplayer cooperative game. As for the slogan and promotion, don't limit it solely to couples. Although we're launching on Valentine's Day, themes like brotherhood, sisterhood, and deep friendships can all serve as promotional keywords," Chen Xu said, nodding in agreement.
…………………
With the concept draft explanation for Overcooked complete and promotional direction set, the entire team began preparing for game development.
While others were deeply analyzing the concept drafts and refining art, story, and related designs, Chen Xu wasn't idle either.
In his office, Chen Xu used a Memory Capsule to organize and record excellent level designs.
The main difficulty in developing Overcooked stemmed from level design and numerical design.
If it was too simple, the game would lose much of its charm.
Just like Souls games—difficulty isn't their only core element, but it's undoubtedly a major characteristic.
If a Souls game became a Musou game, many of its original designs would cease to be ingenious and instead become burdensome.
Although Overcooked was a regular small-scale game, the same principle applied: without proper control over the difficulty curve, the game's essence would be lost.
For instance, chopping ingredients, washing dishes, preparing meals, and cooking, including using a fire extinguisher when the kitchen catches fire—these were all gameplay elements.
But more important was the arrangement of numerical values.
If time limits and score requirements were too high, it would feel punishing to players.
Yet if the values were too lenient, these game mechanics would lose their significance.
Therefore, Chen Xu needed to carefully manage the difficulty.
As a casual game, it needed to allow players to clear the game smoothly.
But achieving the perfect three-star score would require solid coordination between two players.
Finally, there was the online system—Overcooked was also Nebula Games' first online multiplayer game.
The server infrastructure absolutely had to be solid.
After all, Overcooked was a game whose main selling point was online multiplayer.
………………
With the entire game plan finalized and under Chen Xu's leadership, the R&D department operated with high efficiency.
On the art side, Chen Xu explained the key points of Overcooked to Ruan Ningxue and the newly onboarded artists.
"The overall game style should use warm tones. Even the zombies in the background should give players a Q-style cute feeling. This is an all-ages game, a casual simulation game. We don't need it to be highly realistic or tightly integrated with the background. Instead, it must ensure that people of all ages and genders won't dislike it."
"Understood," Ruan Ningxue nodded.
As an artist, she had already participated in four game developments with Chen Xu.
She fully understood his approach. But the new artist beside her was looking bewildered.
Because she felt her task was just like an assembly line!
The style, even the character sketches and requirements—everything was detailed beyond detail.
You could hand it directly to an outsourcing company and they could immediately produce the resources.
Wasn't her job title "art designer"? Why did it feel like she only needed to perform quality control on the outsourcing resources, with no actual designing required?
The same situation occurred with Qin Yi and others.
But with prior experience from Outlast, this time no one found it particularly strange.
They all shared one feeling: effortless.
Although unavoidable overtime was expected, the key was that useless design work rarely occurred.
When revisions were needed, they were mostly due to minor detail issues, not fundamental directional mistakes.
It was simply too easy!
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