This idea was part of the 2025 game jam ideas project.
Good taste
⭐ One of my favorite ideas from this project.
Short version
This is a puzzle, experimental, game where you are a lifeform that is building up your senses from scratch. The senses are symbolic shapes, colors and sounds, and you have a series of bars that tell you your current health status.
As you consume different shades, colors, and objects different senses activate and are visualized. Eventually you can figure out what shades, colors, and objects are linked to what health status bars. There are no labels on any visualization.
As the game goes on, the complexity of your senses increase (inputs), as do your health bars (outputs).
After we have gone through several levels of adding more complexity to the senses (inputs) and the health bars (outputs). This phase represents gaining a sense of taste of what ingredients produce certain outputs.
You get a mysterious order. The order is looking for a specific output. You need to mix the ingredients to make the specific output. If you succeed then you have made a meal for another worldly being.
Longer version
You are simple life.
You start out with a gage in the top right. It's slowly ticking down (health bar)
There are three blurs of color in front of you (new sight).
As you mouse over one of them it makes a tone. (simple hearing of the name of the ingredients)
You select one of the colors. A circle shows up on the screen. It is divided into two halves. Top and bottom. The color disappears. One side of the circle is highlighted (what it tastes like, sweet or bitter).
If you selected the sweet color your health bar goes up (some visual feedback that you selected the correct one). If you select the bitter one your health bar goes down (screen shakes violently, Red edges around the screen as if it hurts).
Every few seconds a new color object is added, the oldest color is removed.
Over a few iterations you learn that the yellow is good and green is the best. The Brown are bad and red are the worse.
Then we expand the senses. Instead of the circle only having a top and bottom, we split it into three segments. (A, B, C... More complex taste sensors)
Consuming yellow color now affects the A segment the most with a little B. Consuming the green color effects the B segment most with a little A. Etc... (learning that different colors have different taste)
Then we split the health bar into two different bars. Taste-A effects Health bar A. While taste-B effects Health bar B. Etc...
Now you need to manage both Health bars by eating different colors as needed.
The game progresses by splitting the taste circle into different segments. Adding more complex colors and shapes, and tones, etc...
Adding others senses like smell, or feel visualize in simple forms.
You are allowed to label things to help keep track but nothing comes pre labeled.
This continues for a while until we determine you got the hang of it.
Next stage (Chef)
Your health bars disappear and are replaced with a signal bar.
A mumbling voice appears that ends with a single tone. You have heard this tone a lot. You know what color and shape it represents. You select that shape. (Making the food and giving it to someone). You heard the eating noise. Then either approval (New Health bar goes up) or disapprove (Health bar goes down)