Challenge Accepted: LiquidJ throws his hat into the Restaurant Game Design Challenge

I've never met a challenge that I couldn't walk my ego away from and this was just too tempting to do. Some people do Sudoku on the train. I like to work the mind out a little bit more. Please let me know what you think.

The Rules: http://gamecareerguide.com/features/706/gamecareerguides_game_design_.php

The Submission:

Game Name:
Fork and Spoon

Synopsis:

Fork and Spoon challenges would-be-restauranteurs to design and manage a full fledged restaurant far beyond their wildest dreams. The game tries to simulate this challenge in an accurate yet fun way that will appeal to gamers and non-gamers. Through its isometric perspective and use of proven gaming concepts Fork and Spoon teaches, drills, and assesses the player's ability to do 3 important tasks: identify profitable niches in a competitive market, manage a competent team, and keep the ship on course. The player enters the ruthless restaurant business naive and cash-poor with only their dreams of yachts and a posh lifestyle to comfort them. They leave the business with some fulfilled dreams, a sense of accomplishment, and a new mantra, "Time is money people!"

Objective:
Obtain the top spot on a leaderboard that rates players based on how well they were able to use the business to fulfill their dreams.

Detailed Description:

"identify profitable niches in a competitive market"

• There are many restaurants in the area and players will have to adopt a strategy that allows them to stand out amongst them. They do this by looking at what the competition is doing, and the changes they have made over time, and adjusting their plan accordingly. Does their new outlook require them to stand out based on their food, their prices, their atmosphere, or all of the above? Players will be asked to make this decision at the beginning of every level through easy to use sliders that represent how they will budget their available funds.

"manage a competent team"

• Now that they have poured their money into the appropriate buckets, users must spend what's left over from their cost of materials (food, rent, improvements, and utilities) on employees. After adjusting their identity, players are given the chance to hire and fire employees in 3 areas of their restaurant: the kitchen, the dining area, and the bar.
  
• Based on a system borrowed from strategy-role-playing games, the game will present players with a large list of candidates to choose from. The list will contain information concerning their personalities, backgrounds, performance, desired salary range (players bid within the range and hope that a competing restaurant does not offer more). In addition to the list of what's known about applicants is the list of what's unknown. Each employee also has a list of performance affecting traits that can only be discovered while they are on the job. These traits can be strictly positive, strictly negative, or both. Here are two examples:

1. Trait: flirtateous - This employee's customers of the opposite sex will be more forgiving, but all coworkers of the opposite sex in their area will perform worse.
   
2. Trait: smoker - This employee takes a break more often than normal and, if they work in the dining room, will make guests less forgiving.
   

"Keep the ship on course"

• The player will be responsible for escorting patrons to and from their seats and filling in wherever their system breaks down. This gives them the power to micromanage and puts them in charge of the most important part of a restaurant - the customers. When a customer appears at the register it means that they must be seated as soon as possible. When a paper check appears over a customers head then they must be escorted to the register as soon as possible. It is at this exit stage where the user will find out if the customer had a satisfactory or an unsatisfactory experience. There are also 7 things that can pop up over time taking the player away from their primary job.

1. Kitchen Breakdown - The dishes are piling up. The glasses need to be washed and brought to the bar.
   
2. Dining Room Breakdown - A table needs to be cleaned and the dirty dishes should be brought to the kitchen sink.
   
3. Bar Breakdown - A keg needs to be brought from kitchen to the bar.
   
4. Kitchen Slowdown - The pickup window is full and the platters need to be brought to the appropriate table.
   
5. Dining Room Slowdown - A tray dropped in an aisle needs to be cleaned up and brought to kitchen.
   
6. Bar Slowdown - Drinks are piling up at the bar and needs to be brought to appropriate table.
   
7. Emergency - Bathroom is out of order. Call the plumber and wait until it's fixed!

The gameplay revolves around a Time is Money system that rewards players for planning and time management without penalizing users for mistakes. It also cleanly addresses the difficulty problem that exists by containing it within the restaurant's struggle to live up to their previous expectations.

Players start each level as a restaurant rated between 1 and 5 Stars. The more stars the player has the faster people come in. Every level can be completed with as little as a 1 Star rating, but a higher rating also affects other things like the forgiveness levels of patrons, the chance of seeing a critic, and the amount of money spent by customers. Patrons enter the restaurant with a forgiveness level that is random but one that generally starts within the same range. Their forgiveness level is negatively affected by time passed, visible breakdowns, and their waiter's performance and traits. If it is empty when they get up to leave then they are considered unsatisfactory. Otherwise, it was a satisfactory visit. A critic is a special customer that dines infrequently at the restaurant and their satisfaction will increase or descrease your rating by one level. A 0 rating will end the game.

The game is split up into levels based on a block of time. At the end of each level the player would have the ability to spend some of their profit, if any, on varying items of their dreams (a new phone, new computer, vacation, new car, house, college tuition, yacht, IRA contributions, etc...). The remainder would get put back into the business in the next round. When players start the next level, they will notice that their competition will have adjusted to increase their competitive edge, the restaurant's costs for materials will go up and its current employees' salaries will increase across the board. Only money spent on dream items is tallied for a leaderboard* entry at the end of a game.

* The leaderboard is meant for bragging rights as well as an educational tool. It should be detailed enough to simply display the type of business each entry had, the highest level they achieved, the average rating of their restaurant across that game session, and the number of profitable levels vs unprofitable levels.