Comments Off

By Flipline Matt, December 5, 2024 3:09 pm

 
Today, we’re taking a look back at the development of our first game made exclusively for mobile: Papa’s Mocharia To Go! With Flash Player coming to an end in 2020, this would be the first app we created that didn’t also have a web version. Read on to learn about the unique challenges we faced while adapting coffee into a Gameria!
 

Reviving the Coffee Concept

 
Back in 2011, after the launch of Papa’s Taco Mia, we initially planned our next project to be coffee-themed. We began brainstorming and creating artwork, but regular coffee drinks, with their simple brown appearance, felt uninspiring and boring. The idea was eventually shelved in favor of the bright and colorful Papa’s Freezeria. However, we kept the coffee concept in the back of our minds, hoping one day we could find a way to make it visually exciting. Nearly a decade later, fueled by fan requests, we decided it was finally time to bring coffee into the Papa Louie universe.
 

 

Finding the Perfect Coffee Drink

 
We spent a lot of time researching different coffee drinks and the preparation for each, trying to find something we could distill into a cohesive game with classic Gameria mechanics. We explored drinks like cappuccinos, lattes, macchiatos, drip and pour-over coffee, frappes, and cold brews. At one point we considered a game where you could make ALL of these drinks, but it seemed overwhelming to try to tackle so many different build processes in the same game. We needed something both visually and mechanically interesting, and that’s when we chose the layered latte (or latte macchiato) as the perfect focus for our game, now branded as a Papaccino!
 

Making Layered Lattes

 
Once we chose the layered latte, we had to figure out how to translate its preparation into game mechanics and stations.
 

 
An early idea started with a Prep Station where you’d prepare an empty cup, add flavor pumps, and choose a milk to froth later. Later on we scrapped this idea, and considered a Brew Station just for espresso and a separate Moo Station for steaming and frothing milk as two separate steps. We also experimented with various ways to add espresso and milk to the cup at the Build Station, including an early concept where you would drag and slowly tip the ingredients into the cup, similar to the molten metal in Jacksmith. Ultimately, we opted for changing the controls of the Pour Button for the espresso and milk, where you hold it down and carefully watch the meter as you pour.
 
We spent a lot of time fine-tuning how the lattes should look, particularly the visual effects of milk and coffee mixing together. We also wanted to highlight colorful syrups and powders, experimenting with how they would look when mixing with the liquids. This stage involved far more iterations than usual, as we worked to find the right look, and then had to actually make it function in the game!
 

 
One of our main goals was ensuring the lattes didn’t resemble the Freezeria concrete sundaes too much. Instead of piling on whipped cream, we decided on dropping a dollop of cream instead. We also avoided heavy toppings that could sink into the liquid, opting instead for drizzles and light shakers that could be expected to float on the foam of the drinks. Once we decided to craft cannoli as well, this worked perfectly to keep the same creams and shakers for filling and decorating the cannoli.
 

Last-Minute Changes to the Build Station

 
In the early stages of development, the Build Station worked a bit differently for selecting the coffee and milk for each drink. You’d first see the espressos you’d prepared, with only the left slot on the station open. You would place the coffee in the left slot, and then the right slot would open and the prepared milks would appear separately, allowing you to place the milk on the right. It remained this way for months, until we started early playtesting and were getting confused with how the station related to the order tickets.

The order tickets for Mocharia showed the first ingredient to add (either espresso or milk) in the left column, and the other in the right column. This created a confusing situation when customers ordered milk first: The milk was on the left side of the ticket, but on the right side of the Build Station, making the process feel backwards.

Despite being deep into development, we decided to overhaul the Build Station. We combined the espresso and milk tumblers into one single group, allowing players to freely drag either ingredient into the left or right slots based on what the ticket showed. This change made it easier to keep track of the orders and align the gameplay with the tickets.
 

 

Working From Home

 
The COVID-19 pandemic struck just as we were finishing Papa’s Sushiria To Go, which sent us both home to work separately while finishing the app. Thankfully we had already finished planning Papa’s Pastaria To Go and had most of the assets ready before the shutdown, so it was still manageable to follow up with that app from our homes.

With Mocharia though, this would be our first time developing a game where we weren’t working side-by-side in the office together. On top of the stress and uncertainty in the early days of the pandemic, this brought a lot of new challenges to the process. All of the planning and brainstorming was done by email and shared documents, sending ideas and mockups back and forth while trying to find a new groove with work and with our lives in general. Thankfully we adapted and found a new rhythm, ultimately bringing coffee into the world of Papa Louie’s restaurants.
 

Score Details Finally Added

 
One of the most frustrating aspects of the Gamerias has always been making a mistake with an order and receiving a low score, only to be left clueless about what went wrong. Did you accidentally serve someone the wrong order, or did you mess up an ingredient? We had long wanted to add a feature that would explain why you received a poor score, but the task seemed so overwhelming that we kept putting it off. However, with this brand-new game, we felt it was finally time to tackle it.

The games have always known when you made an error, but explaining it in a way that’s clear to the player was the real challenge. We experimented with several methods to summarize mistakes and figured out how to prioritize the information in the Score Details. Every scoring system in the game had to be revamped to support the generation of these player-friendly explanations, but after much effort, the system finally came together. Now that Score Details are a part of newer games, it’s hard to imagine how we managed without them for so long!
 

 

Conclusion

 
The development of Papa’s Mocharia To Go presented many unique challenges. As the first app without an existing web game and fan base, we weren’t sure if it would succeed or attract an audience. Fortunately, the game became a hit, demonstrating that Papa’s Gamerias could thrive even in a world without Flash Player.

Papa’s Mocharia To Go! is available on iOS and Android!
 
                

Comments Off

By Flipline Matt, June 28, 2024 10:58 am

 
We hope everyone has been enjoying Papa’s Paleteria To Go!

We usually don’t have many drawings from the development of our games, but for Paleteria, we created a lot of sketches while planning how the game would work. We thought it would be fun to do a special edition of Flipline Rewind, sharing some of these early sketches to give everyone a small peek into what goes into the game development process. Click each of the sketches below to see a larger version!
 

Build Station

 
Initially, we thought the paleta molds would be upside-down, meaning you’d add the top layer first, then the middle, and finally the bottom, which is how real ice pop molds are usually set up. Many of our sketches show the paletas and molds this way. One of our main concerns was how what you see on the ticket matches what the customer holds in the end. If you were adding fillings upside-down, they would need to appear upside-down on the ticket too, so everything would be flipped when the customer held it! Ultimately, we decided it was more important for the paleta to stay right-side-up at the Build Station, so Papa Louie has specially-made molds with tubes and channels for the fillings.

Layering Paletas

 
We also had to decide how we wanted the paletas to look once they were made, as this would guide the design of the layering system and all the components needed to achieve the final appearance. You’ll see in these sketches that the paletas are still shown upside-down, as we hadn’t yet rotated the molds. Early on, we decided to always have three fillings, rather than keeping it open-ended like Bakeria’s pies.

Topping Station

 
We wanted to do something different with the toppings for Paleteria: Instead of just adding shakers and drizzles across the entire pop, we wanted players to be able to change the angle of the toppings being added. We had seen some great examples of fancy paletas decorated this way, and we wanted to capture that look for this game. This, of course, introduced new challenges, especially regarding the hands-on experience. Instead of dragging food left and right to pour toppings evenly, the “precision” part of the gameplay would involve dragging the paleta to the correct angle before adding the topping. Some initial sketches had the paleta suspended above, where you would dunk it into a bin below. When we decided to move the paleta into a falling “waterfall” of toppings instead, we needed to come up with a way to choose the topping first.

Drizzles

 
Drizzles were tricky to figure out, especially when we were thinking of dunking the paleta into round bins below. We brainstormed a bunch of ideas for nozzles and revolving sprayers, but streams drizzling downwards made the most sense. We sketched out how the drizzles might interact with the top edge of the paleta, and ultimately wanted it to ribbon across the whole surface.

Tickets and Rotations

 
We spent a lot of time thinking about how to make topping angles and rotations clear on the ticket. Originally the paleta was upside-down in the Build Station, and upside-down on the Topping Station if we were dunking it into bins. Should we make the rotation symbols relate to how the paleta looks right-side-up when the customer is holding it? Or also make them upside-down since the paleta is built that way? When we decided the paleta on the Topping Station would be sideways, we had the symbols relate to that position, and also made them look a bit like arrows so it was clear how to angle them. We also needed a natural way for molds to transition to this sideways rotation so players could keep track of what they were working on, so we had the molds turn sideways on the Chill Station once you add them to the freezer.

There were many other adjustments made as we worked on the game, but this provides just a glimpse into the planning stages before we begin programming or designing the final assets used in the game!
  
Papa’s Paleteria To Go! is available on iOS and Android!
 
                

Comments Off

By Flipline_Tony, May 8, 2019 10:29 am

Hey Everyone!

To celebrate OnionFest, we have an extra-special Flipline Rewind for all of you!

It was January 2007 when we decided to start work on a sequel/spin-off of Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack! We wanted to focus on Papa Louie’s main antagonist, Sergeant Crushida Pepper. We now simply refer to him as Sarge.

We wanted the player to see things from the perspective of Sarge immediately after the biggest defeat of his career by Papa Louie. Sarge was demoted in the Onion Army and put on recruitment duty by the Army General.

In order to rise through the ranks and bring glory back to his name, Sarge needed to rebuild the Onion Army one recruit at a time.

This puzzle-platformer was going to be structured around picking up and throwing things. He would recruit new onions by pulling them out of the ground, and use them in battle by tossing them around. Along his journey, he would come across a wide variety of onions. One such group of onions were Rocket Onions. You may have seen them in a past holiday post. Fun fact: our customer, Boomer, was created based off of our old designs for the Rocket Onion.

Some old friends and fresh enemies were to also set to make appearances in the game. Radley Madish was originally created for this game, and was to be the mad scientist who created Rocket Onions.  Ever wonder why Jellybacks seem a little out-of-place in our games? That’s because they were designed for Sarge’s game, and at the time, we had planned out a world that wasn’t entirely made up of food-based baddies.

At the time, Flash games were still at their infancy and they were still a few years from reaching their peek. During that time, many companies and portals were experimenting with different ways to monetize Flash games. While ad-revenue was just starting to pick up for Flash games, the emerging concept of Microtrans for free games were being beta tested in the form of Kongregate’s Kreds and Mochi Media’s Mochi-Coins.

By the end of planning, we had decided on an episodic style for the game. As Papa Louie’s ad revenue was not sustainable at the time, we decided that Sarge’s game would be divided into many Episodes. Each episode would then have three chapters. The first chapter was free, while the remaining two would be unlocked by our favorite salesman, Big Pauly. He would sell you a key to unlock the rest of the map via a small in-game purchase.

Being episodic, the gameplay would be very story and character driven. Lots of NPCs and story based goals for each of the levels. Looking back at the plans, it sounds like a pretty fun game.

So What Happened??

Well, after an intense round of development that lasted a few months, we had a working demo of the game engine. Unfortunately we had bills to pay, so we had to get back to work doing not-so-fun stuff like making websites for consulting firms. Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack, although very popular, was not bringing in enough money on ad revenue alone. In order to make this Sarge game a reality, we needed to find funding for it.

We were also worried that by the time we could finish a game of this size, people would forget about the world of Papa Louie. So we started brainstorming about a different game, that we could feasibly create, and give our small fan base something to do until the next big game. That game would eventually become Papa’s Pizzeria!

In the meantime, we pitched the Sarge game to several companies. One of those companies was Kongregate. They were looking for games to fund as part of their Premium Development Program. After a quick phone pitch about the Sarge game, we understood that they needed something much larger that incorporated multiplayer and a more robust micro-payment system. We were a little down that the Sarge game would be put on the back burner, but the idea of landing a game on Kongregate’s Premium Development Program was a dream scenario. So we ended up pitching them several other games that would better fit into the program. One of them was a large, island hopping adventure game, and the other game which ended up getting green-lit was Remnants of Skystone.

With Remnants of Skystone, we were able to build off of the platformer engine that we created for the Sarge game. We even incorporated enemies and mission ideas from Sarge’s game, albeit in a much more edgy/grittier fashion. Wrangling cute cow-like Mooners back to their mother became guiding explosive Embermites to their targets, and fuzzy Slender-Foots became creepy Stiltskins, just to name a few.

Papa Louie 2 & 3 were also based off of Sarge’s game engine, and revisited a lot of characters, animations, and game ideas from that original planning session of Sarge’s game.

Ultimately, we would spend the next three years working on Remnants of Skystone. After that game was released and sadly proved to be unsustainable, we had to quickly find other ways to pay the bills. Unfortunately, at that time, making Sarge’s game without funding was just way too risky. But for a game that was never fully realized, it has had a lasting impression throughout our entire gaming career.