An idea to write about Compton’s cook came to me instantly while I was reviewing a draft of my colleague Holly’s introductory post for Cooking Week here at Game Developer. One phrase popped up: “cooking and performance anxiety” – it immediately targeted my gray line, evoking memories of playing Psychonauts 2 a level in which the player guides anthropomorphized audience members/ingredients (bear with me here) through a wild death trap in the kitchen to please the cruel reality show food judges and them… fight them.
If that sounds wild, it should be! Psychonauts games are literally jumping into the jumbled mess of characters’ brains, helping them deal with psychological problems. There’s a good dose of humor here, and a lot of heart and empathy for every character in the world. Each level is a magical cartoon vision of a character’s mind, and Compton is a traumatized former psychonaut who has shut himself down for fear of hurting someone again. He’s almost eaten alive by his own anxieties, which immediately drew me in (my own OCD welcomes it).
Indeed, what better way to introduce this in an adventure platformer like Psychonauts than a nightmare kitchen with an obstacle course that requires players to simultaneously complete cooking tasks in different parts of the arena: a huge blender, a monstrous stove, a monstrous slicer – the subject of a particularly sharp joke, given the fun nature of the ingredients. This is strong level design on both a pure gameplay level and a narrative level. Success requires a combination of platforming fantasy with an element of multitasking (most recipes require you to have multiple ingredients in various stages of preparation at the same time), with a countdown clock constantly running in the back of your head. Each section has an element of risk versus reward: slower and safer ways to solve problems and faster and riskier strategies that can pay off big: or result in precious seconds being lost. The pressure is on in all respects.
The framing of the story complements this perfectly. We’re filming a reality competition with these horrible judges (who also happen to be goats and hand puppets: again, just put up with it) who look for any excuse to ramp up the drama and make things harder for their poor contestants. A lot can and will go wrong! In between level-up rounds, players battle through “ad breaks” where they must shoot down waves of enemies, and boss battles with the judges themselves wreaking havoc on the battlefield. That’s a lot, yes! But it’s funny, very strange, and incredibly memorable.
A novice cook in Psychonauts 2 kitchen
I really wanted to remember Compton’s Cookoff, without even knowing the context of how it appeared: my colleague Bryant showed me the relevant episodes Double Fine PsychodysseyA 25+ hour documentary from Player 2 Productions Psychonauts 2a very long journey. The milestone was actually a smaller project led by one of the documentary filmmakers in his first foray into game development.
In one of the episodes, studio director Tim Shafer talks about how monumental the task is to create the “brain” of Psychonauts: “The things you have to achieve to be at the level of Psychonauts [are] like, all this good platforming and stuff, but also, like, try to make it something that people haven’t seen in games before,” he says. – It completely shows someone’s emotional journey in the landscape, you know? Let it feel right storytelling. Let it be really amazing and fresh. It’s a lot of pressure to be original at that level.”
It’s exciting to watch the documentary and see director Asif Siddiqui pitching the idea of an epic cooking challenge, going through a wild trial by fire to create a functional prototype (with a professional team helping him every step of the way). Later, he is invited to work as a level designer and create prototypes for this full-fledged stage of the game – something so memorable and noticeable that my own mind threw it straight from the proverbial toaster after reading a simple sentence three years later.
Honestly, it’s inspiring. The Psychonauts series holds a special place in my heart for a few reasons – the quality of the level design (and level design as character design), the storytelling, the overall weird and wonderful worldview that is displayed in every little element. Knowing that this particular exercise in anxiety and overcoming grief was born from the new designer’s own brain gives me serious hope.