How to make a good computer game ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by Quintin Parker of Gilbert the Hamster Software quintin@digibank.demon.co.uk. -*- A game.... ....is like a cake... 1. Make sure your cake is original. Although a Black Forest Gateau is nice, everybody's eaten one, and certainly nobody wants to see another fruitcake. Put brand new things in your cake, like slices of orange marzipan, or line it with marshmallows. Make it surprising, but still tasty. Even better, base your cake on a theme, such as the countryside. Put a few pink icing pigs on it, but bits of turnip in it are pretty much out. Make it so that if somebody copies your cake, it's obvious. The first person who cooked a sponge thought it up - it was a good idea at the time, but nowadays you can't move for sponge cakes. 2. The people who eat it don't care if the cake was hard to make, they're just concerned about whether it tastes good. Unless the people are cooks themselves they couldn't care less about the science of cake-making or that you calculated to ten decimal places the number of currants you put in the mix. If they find it unfulfilling they're going to leave slices left on the plate. It's brutal, but it's hard being a chef. 3. So people don't care, but nevertheless baking a cake isn't easy. So don't be afraid to take tips from top restauranteurs. (A recommended place to go for advice is the Berty restaurant on the second floor of the Stevenage Hilton, where the cakes are absolutely delicious, and some of them are even free. However the head chef have stopped cookery for normal people because not enough money was being made, and has since started to design cakes for slavering genetic mutants.) Follow well-known recipes, but do remember the first point about your cake being individual. All the same, don't be too inventive in the way you make the cake because if you are, it simply won't rise in the oven. 4. Decorate your cake. Everybody likes picking off the decorations first before they tuck in. Don't make it too gaudy, it'll make them sick, or too bland, it'll make them lose interest. And make sure all the decorations are edible, all of us at some time have picked a `Happy Birthday' off a cake, bit into it and found it was a bit of plastic. 5. Make sure you get the texture of the cake right. Don't make it too hard on the outside, else they'll try to eat bits of it, break their teeth and give up. If you make it too soft, however, they'll gobble it up and want more. Like most cakes, yours should be soft on the outside but increasingly chewy in the middle. Often the chef tries the cake and he finds it easy to eat, because he knows the ins and outs of it. The chef often has to get customers into the kitchen to try and see if they are able to eat it as well. (See also point 9.) 6. A good trick is, when cutting the cake, to divide it into lots of slices. People will eat more of the slices and think they are getting further with the cake, this makes them eat more of it. Your cakes will become more popular this way. 7. Give your cake the right balance of icing and sponge. Sponge cake tends to get very dry without icing, and just looks boring if you present your pleasured guests with a yellow lump with bubbly holes in. Although being generous with icing is nice, the cake can be quite bulky with it, and too much icing and too little cake is a bit gritty and sweet. A good balance is more icing than is actually needed, so you look like a generous and artistic cook, but don't be over generous. 8. Tell people about your cake beforehand, and make them hungry for it. You can't serve a cake to somebody while they're full, no matter how nice it is. Of course, quite a few people as a rule don't eat cake, as either they don't have the time, or it's unhealthy and gives them spots, or if they ate one bit of cake they knew they'd pig out on all of them. Respect the phases of people's stomachs. (See next point.) 9. When you tell people about your cake, don't shove it in their faces. Let them find out about it for themselves. (The people who work in the Arm'd & Dangerous motorway service station are particularly guilty of this, placing large ad-lorries parked sideways across all three lanes saying `TRY AN ARM'D & DANGEROUS CAKE!' which force people into their cafe, where they surgically open people's stomachs to pump digested cake in. Avoid doing this to make people eat your cakes, people find it very annoying.) If your cake is good, people will recommend it to their friends, and you'll get lots of praise. If the person who first tastes your cake finds your cake bitter or too thick or uninteresting, that person will get a chance to tell you and you can change the recipe before it gets out of your canteen. This is why it's important to have cake testers. 10. Finally, and most importantly don't forget to put in that very special ingredient that makes your cake addictive. :-) Don't forget to visit the Gilbert the Hamster Software greasy spoon sometime, where a whole diverse range of different cakes are being served totally for free! Have a taste - they're thwogging brilliant! Don't go mad, Quintin :-)