Blender, Unity, Github, Photoshop
Tippy’s Diner
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Tippy’s Diner is a prototype two-player game about cooking and serving food to rat customers, as a rat waiter. Inspired by Overcooked and Ratatouille, Tippy’s is one of my first times working on a large group project.
Created by myself and four classmates, it’s meant to illustrate the potential benefits and detriments of fixed-rate and tip-based wages in the restaurant business. It’s available to play online here!
I’m really proud of my team and I, and what we were able to accomplish in such a little amount of time. This project introduced me to just how fun and challenging game creation can be, and I’m excited to create more games in the future!
The project got it’s start after listening to Rebecca McInroy’s podcast, called “The Secret Ingredient.” In it, she interviews several restaurants in Austin, Texas that have switched from the traditional tip-based form of payment to a fixed-rate wage. She explains that although it was initially more difficult to make money (as they had to increase prices), by marketing their changed payment methods, they could stay afloat or improve business.
She also explains that there was increased morale and connections between the waiting staff and the kitchen as a result. Waiters no longer suffer tip lose based on poor food.
Originally in charge of asset creation, I was responsible for the general aesthetic and vibe of the diner. We wanted to simulate both types of payment, and so based Tippy’s off of an old-school, Waffle House-esque establishment.
The three foods we chose to implement were soup, cheeseburgers, and hotdogs. We felt they each had a unique outline, making them easily visible in the chaos of gameplay.
This is the original layout of Tippy’s I created in Blender. We chose to create every asset in Blender because of it’s ease of use in making simple yet aesthetically pleasing models. We didn’t have a lot of time to work with, so simplicity is best.
I worked with my teammates to pull these assets into Unity, a task more difficult than I initially thought, and although I didn’t do any of the coding myself, I learned quite a bit about how the game creation pipe-line works.