We began to narrow down our setting and what specific landmarks we would be using in our project and we started with the setting of the food landmarks. Looking at the setting of a fridge the main type of fridge that has stood out was the American style fridge, this was due to the compartments and shelf of the fridge allows the use of frozen foods alongside warm food, along with the character being American makes the setting fit with the overall outlook of the game. Another aspect we had looked had been the setting of gameplay and having a representation of clouds being used in the backdrop by using candy floss stuck upon the roof or walls of the fridge. We also looked at narrowing down the specific landmarks we would use and looked at country representations which we found worked and chose to go with Canada to America to Mexico plates of food landmarks and surroundings, which gives crossovers of the countries and will be represented in one shelf of the fridge. By narrowing down the precise landmarks to use through their respected countries allowed us to focus down on one area and represent that through food and the type of food was narrowed down as well as we found that representing the landmarks of certain countries through specific food of that country would help in awareness of that landmark. After narrowing down which country and landmarks we would use, we found that we should represent these countries into types of food such as Canada being a dessert dish, America being a more junk food dish and Mexico a spicy food dish, this way we have precise use of foods which go together instead of having a chocolate bar surrounded by salad.
Canada
For our representation of Canada we looked at presenting Canada as a dessert dish as this allows us to have precise food. The reason why we had chosen to have Canada as a dessert dish is due to the visual aspect of Canada is of a cold, winter season and we felt that showing this through frozen and sweet food such as ice cream, icing and more items of food. We looked at the story of Hansel and Gretel solely on the fact of main aspect of the story which is the house of the witch made out of food and we took away from that is ways of showing buildings in Canada as food. However though the visual representation of the house in Hansel and Gretel looks as if it is made by a talented person which is not how we want to show food landmarks in our design as we look at designing the food landmarks as if made by someone who isn't able to represent landmarks exactly to the precise detail that they are known for.
As we started to look further into Canada and after we looked at Hansel and Gretel we thought that carrying on the use of buildings as we found that we could use this in the form of cabins. So we started to look at how we should show the cabin as food and found that perhaps as the walls of a cabing logs we could use chocolate rolls as the walls and the roofs of the cabin as chocolate bars.
Then as we further looked into Canada's surroundings such as the snow, Niagra Falls, trees, fallen leaves and more. Although this shows that Canada is very limited in the range of objects but we found that depicting them through various areas will be sufficient enough for the first portion of the level. So we began to find certain dessert foods to represent the surroundings of Canada and one which stood out was the representation of Niagra Falls through a chocolate fountain but also using the chocolate founatin as the river as part of the gameplay through the use of marshmellows as stepping stones.
Another form of the environment that we had looked at was the mounatins and possibly having an actual chocolate moose in the background and having crumble cake as the mountains within the distance. Also the use of leafs and snow was decided to be shown on our Canada portion of the level as Maple Leaf candies along with either baking powder or icing as snow. We had also looked at having trees shown through biscuit versions along with chocolate covered raisins as stones.
America
The next landmark we looked at as depicting through food was the Statue of Liberty as with this landmark we were reminded of the Simpsons episode of which Homer is obsessed with wanting the Gummi Venus de Milo which to us looked like a depiction of the Statue of Liberty and we felt that using the technique of a gummi depiction of a landmark would work specifically with the Statue of Liberty. However just creating a perfect gummi bear depiction of the Statue of Liberty is not exactly what our main characteer would be able to create and we felt that we could make it so that rather than a perfect gummi Statue of Liberty, we could have small forms of gummi bears stuck together to form as close as the main character could to the Statue of Liberty.
The next landmark we looked is one of the main attractions when thinking of America, The White House. With The White House we felt including this landmark would pretty much be a clear indication of America and we also saw that this could be depicted pretty easy as food form. We began to look at the type of foods to depict as The White House as there weren't many white foods but we found that as the posts of The White House we could use white sausages, alongside white bread as the walls with the top of a bun for the top of The White House.
We felt that alongside two landmarks we should look at the surroundings of America to use around the landmarks in food form. Looking at the Mississippi River as a continous source of water from the previous dish of Canada which we felt could be used as gravy. Also when looking at the surroundings of America such as roads, lamp posts and sewer crates we felt would be sufficient enough to be used as multiple objects within the American portion of our level. Depicted as food we looked at having the roads as bacon strips, sewer crates as waffles, lamp posts as french fries, jacket potatoes as boulders or stones and along with the gravy as the Mississippi River we looked at possibly having barbecued ribs as the bridge between America and Mexico.
Mexico
For our landmark of Mexico we basically focused on Chichen Itza as it allowed us to revolve around the landmark for much of the portion of the area of the level as we felt that because Chichen Itza is basically multiple steps we could use that to our advantage and make the main character have to work up to the next shelf in the fridge. As Chichen Itza will fit with our level we started to look at what type of food to use and felt we should go along the lines of the type of food Mexico has such as the spicy food and we looked at having tacos, fajitas and burritos as the outer steps of Chichen Itza and the top of Chichen Itza as quasadillas.
Then we began to look at the surroundings of Mexico and saw that it is more of greenery and ocean with the land and felt that those were areas that could be easily depicted as salad and continuing the gravy from the American stage through to Mexico which makes the stages flow and we also looked at having Mexican jumping beans as the stones or ground.
Once we knew what type of art direction and layout the level we would take we started to look at games which had essences of food in their game and found Rayman and The Simpsons Games. Both these games have areas of food that we took away such as the Rayaman game having a simple spread of food with a cake being the platform or having large versions of lollipos and ice cream in the background. The main game that had benefited us would be The Simpsons Game as not only was there the whole level of chocolate which could be used to the creation of the Canada stage of our level but the gameplay such as burping, rolling and other elements of gameplay which allow the usage of the foods which we felt would help in our own production.
