Yatai Master: A Cozy Food Simulator
I experimented with Japanese-inspired textures to give Yatai Master a cozier feel. For gameplay, I tried to make dish quality depend on ingredients, cooking, and player choices—hoping small decisions would feel meaningful in this little street food simulator.
Posted by oht on May 4th, 2025
Redesigning Yatai Master’s aesthetic and quality system
Visual Redesign
During the early stages of development, the game's interface used solid, smooth colors, following a functional but somewhat cold aesthetic. That was the effect I was aiming for—something simple, minimal, and austere. However, as the project progressed, I felt the need to add a warmer, more inviting touch, something that evoked the texture and ambiance of physical materials.
That's when I began experimenting with a visual dithering pattern subtly inspired by traditional Japanese designs known as "wagara"—decorative motifs used in fabrics and garments like kimonos.
Interestingly, this change wasn't the result of deliberate planning but rather a series of casual experiments while exploring the new features of Pinta 3.0, a free, cross-platform image editor that aspires to be the "Paint.NET" for all operating systems.
This version of the software introduced dithering tools, which allow applying halftone patterns to colored surfaces. While playing with this feature, I discovered a texture that vaguely resembled fabric or burlap, offering a softer, more artisanal feel—perfect for the spirit of the Yatai.
I believe this dithering adds some "visual personality" and helps break the rigidity of flat colors, creating a more intimate and less virtual atmosphere. I hope this change better represents the idea of a small street stall, typically made with humble materials yet full of character.
Rethinking Quality
When I started developing my game, one of the first mechanics I defined was dish preparation. I envisioned that ingredients would have a "quality" rating, and customers would evaluate the food based on that. At first, it seemed like a straightforward decision: assign a value from 1 to 10 and calculate an average. Done. How hard could it be? Turns out, quite a bit…
Many Variables
As I integrated more elements—proper cooking, features like Fast Cooking, ingredients with different attributes—the quality scoring system stopped being a simple sum and became a small decision-making machine. What if a player uses only excellent ingredients? How to penalize poor cooking without being unfair? And how to prevent dishes with more ingredients from having an unfair advantage simply due to more components?
I soon realized that a good scoring system not only has to work, but also must balance the game and clearly communicate to the player what’s happening. It’s not just about numbers but what those numbers represent: effort, choices, mistakes, and improvements.
After several adjustments, I ended up building a system that considers:
The ingredient’s base quality.
Whether it was cooked correctly.
A special adjustment if the player uses fast cooking.
And a final mapping that converts the technical score into a comprehensible evaluation: Poor, Good, Excellent, etc.
Markets and Quality
One of the elements I was most excited to design was the market system. Just like in real life, not all ingredients come from the same place, nor do they have the same quality or price.
In Yatai Master, each market offers different ingredients with variations in their base quality, which directly impacts the final dish’s score.
Buying a higher-quality ingredient usually means paying more, but that doesn’t guarantee success—it also needs to be cooked well, have sufficient stock, and require budget management with cunning.
On the other hand, opting for cheaper ingredients may allow for more dishes to be prepared but with a lower quality score… and that can affect customer satisfaction.
With this mechanic, I aimed to simulate the daily decisions of a small food business owner. And this, without fully planning it at first, helped me more deeply connect gameplay with the experience of running aYatai.
You may never see all these calculations as a player, but they’re there, making every decision matter. The most interesting part is that I never imagined how complex designing something as seemingly simple as a score could be.
Is it worth all this effort for a number? I think so.
Thanks for reading this far.
#yatai #master #cozy #food #simulator
Yatai Master: A Cozy Food Simulator
I experimented with Japanese-inspired textures to give Yatai Master a cozier feel. For gameplay, I tried to make dish quality depend on ingredients, cooking, and player choices—hoping small decisions would feel meaningful in this little street food simulator.
Posted by oht on May 4th, 2025
Redesigning Yatai Master’s aesthetic and quality system
Visual Redesign
During the early stages of development, the game's interface used solid, smooth colors, following a functional but somewhat cold aesthetic. That was the effect I was aiming for—something simple, minimal, and austere. However, as the project progressed, I felt the need to add a warmer, more inviting touch, something that evoked the texture and ambiance of physical materials.
That's when I began experimenting with a visual dithering pattern subtly inspired by traditional Japanese designs known as "wagara"—decorative motifs used in fabrics and garments like kimonos.
Interestingly, this change wasn't the result of deliberate planning but rather a series of casual experiments while exploring the new features of Pinta 3.0, a free, cross-platform image editor that aspires to be the "Paint.NET" for all operating systems.
This version of the software introduced dithering tools, which allow applying halftone patterns to colored surfaces. While playing with this feature, I discovered a texture that vaguely resembled fabric or burlap, offering a softer, more artisanal feel—perfect for the spirit of the Yatai.
I believe this dithering adds some "visual personality" and helps break the rigidity of flat colors, creating a more intimate and less virtual atmosphere. I hope this change better represents the idea of a small street stall, typically made with humble materials yet full of character.
Rethinking Quality
When I started developing my game, one of the first mechanics I defined was dish preparation. I envisioned that ingredients would have a "quality" rating, and customers would evaluate the food based on that. At first, it seemed like a straightforward decision: assign a value from 1 to 10 and calculate an average. Done. How hard could it be? Turns out, quite a bit…
Many Variables
As I integrated more elements—proper cooking, features like Fast Cooking, ingredients with different attributes—the quality scoring system stopped being a simple sum and became a small decision-making machine. What if a player uses only excellent ingredients? How to penalize poor cooking without being unfair? And how to prevent dishes with more ingredients from having an unfair advantage simply due to more components?
I soon realized that a good scoring system not only has to work, but also must balance the game and clearly communicate to the player what’s happening. It’s not just about numbers but what those numbers represent: effort, choices, mistakes, and improvements.
After several adjustments, I ended up building a system that considers:
The ingredient’s base quality.
Whether it was cooked correctly.
A special adjustment if the player uses fast cooking.
And a final mapping that converts the technical score into a comprehensible evaluation: Poor, Good, Excellent, etc.
Markets and Quality
One of the elements I was most excited to design was the market system. Just like in real life, not all ingredients come from the same place, nor do they have the same quality or price.
In Yatai Master, each market offers different ingredients with variations in their base quality, which directly impacts the final dish’s score.
Buying a higher-quality ingredient usually means paying more, but that doesn’t guarantee success—it also needs to be cooked well, have sufficient stock, and require budget management with cunning.
On the other hand, opting for cheaper ingredients may allow for more dishes to be prepared but with a lower quality score… and that can affect customer satisfaction.
With this mechanic, I aimed to simulate the daily decisions of a small food business owner. And this, without fully planning it at first, helped me more deeply connect gameplay with the experience of running aYatai.
You may never see all these calculations as a player, but they’re there, making every decision matter. The most interesting part is that I never imagined how complex designing something as seemingly simple as a score could be.
Is it worth all this effort for a number? I think so.
Thanks for reading this far.
#yatai #master #cozy #food #simulator
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