EXPLORE THE GALAXY.
COLLECT INGREDIENTS.
MAKE PIZZA.
Building An Adventure Game
Cosmo’s Pizzarama is an adventure game set in space. Building the game required project planning, deep collaboration with engineering, and a bit of creativity.
Working With Engineering To Build The Game Interface
Game design requires deep collaboration with engineering to build the interfaces that make a game work. For Cosmo’s, a core game mechanic is the ability to craft pizza pies using toppings (from mushrooms to anchovies).
Iterating Our UI With Play Testing (User Research)
Originally, our slice crafting system was a simple modal that appeared over the game. During play-testing, we found that this interrupted the gameplay experience significantly. With this feedback in mind, we developed a system that kept characters and dialogue front and center—whether you are bashing enemies or crafting new slices.
Learnings
The biggest learning from building an adventure game is just how important playtesting/user research is when custom interfaces are involved. With Cosmo’s, we were able to build a playtesters community of over 500 gamers, which has helped us filter out opinions/noise, while still getting a perspective that has challenged us to make even game UI feel like a part of the game itself. The slice-crafting panel now allows the story to continue even when you’re navigating menus.
