Blake Ellevsen - BabyCarbonaraProjectPage

Baby Carbonara is a fully developed VR Cooking Simulator initially developed for the Epic Games Megagrant. I spent the majority of my time in the project doing gameplay programming - placing an emphasis on developing a smooth and interactable game environment.

Gabe Newell, president of Valve, defines fun as "the degrees to which the game recognizes and responds to the player's choices and actions". This was the core design philosophy behind the creation of Baby Carbonara; as the game takes place in a very small environment.

Never has this philosophy felt more true than in a VR environment, where the player was truly placed within the world. Everything had to respond to the player - sound effects on the food items, visual effects for when food is being processed, but most importantly, The Baby.

In Baby Carbonara, you cook meals for The Baby - an inexplicably swollen, mutated mass of soviet dictator that judges your every move.

A lot of care was put into characterising The Baby, and thus, almost all actions the player makes encourage reactions from the baby.

Grinding meat, picking up eggs, cooking food, burning food - these are just some of the events that prompt The Baby to say a unique voiceline.

Programmatically, all of these events are tied into a central observer inside of Unreal Engine's Gamemode blueprint. This allowed for interfacing between effectively all of the tools on the map, but also removed dependencies.

Gaben's philosophy extended beyond just The Baby - but into Baby Carbonara's main level as well, but development in VR definitely made this a feat of attrition!

Every minor bug had to be physically tested - and in a game where the crux of the player interaction is about twisting knobs, cranking handles, pulling levers - this could become tiring!

But I am definitely proud of where we ended up. Every small detail in the Baby Carbonara level truly elevates the experience. Here is a small list of interactions in the environment that I think elevate the game:

A cassette player with 12 unique cassettes that can spawn from the food chute.
Being able to skip the tutorial by hanging up the phone, or tearing it off the wall.
The swinging ladles in the corner that react to being punched.
Buttons placed on the console in the menu that play different sound effects to test audio.
The procedural nature of the grinder spitting out a sausage.
The lightable cigarettes that can be found around the level.

If you've read any of my other game pages - you'll know I love audio. Of course - this matters even more in Baby Carbonara; especially in such a small environment.

Directional, natural audio is fairly easy to harness in Unreal - blending together to create a dynamic soundscape that really makes the room feel alive and lived in.

I took my previous experience with making binaural environments to the next level in Baby Carbonara. Practically every mechanical prop in the room emits an ambient noise that has been rigorously fine-tuned to ensure it both blends well with other sources, but is also noticeable when investigated by the player.

Baby Carbonara is currently in the process of being added to steam, so keep an eye out!

National Carbonara Day is on April the 6th after all...