Hey, great to see you here! Welcome to Mango Leaf Games - a cozy, indie game studio run by two motivated nerds! We are on a mission to craft captivating and immersive gaming experiences that everyone can enjoy.Right now, we are hard at work on a cozy Japanese cooking game set in the heart of the spirit world. Follow our journey, from concept to finished product - through all the ups and downs that come from a small studio making their first game!

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Week 8 - Characters & Mini Game
5.6-5.12

3D Models
I worked on recoloring our starter character model - Celia. She was originally meant to be an Inky Cap Mushroom model for Vtubers/VRChat, and she makes a good starting point for our game character too! I altered her original outfit to fit the neutral body I set up earlier. Then, I did a base pass on giving her some brighter colors that match with our color scheme. I also started doing a pass on the textures, but those haven't been finished yet.

Unity Update
Leaf sent me the base version of the game for me to film a little "demo" - which is super exciting! He has been working on these mini games we plan to have as part of the preparation station(s). Of course, coding those in ended up breaking other systems in the game so he has been working on cleaning up the code and getting the whole system working together again.

Week 7 - UI + Break
4.29-5.5

UI Efforts
Worked on some more UI this week. The goal was to finish up what UI was needed for the first few recipes so that we can start recording a little "demo" of the current mechanics! This week I worked on the ingredient UI and ended up finishing the dashi and egg - which make tamagoyaki.

3D Models
Slowly starting to work on the other models for the kitchen - such as the oven and stove. Started setting up the blender file this week, tried to work on the stove a little bit but I was a little brain dead that day and started having trouble. The over and stove are going to be my goals for next week - since I took a little break from the game this week to finish up some final commissions and just rest.

Unity Update
Leaf has been working hard to integrate my Unity scene into his current code set up. He has also been talking about cleaning up the code, since the base of it is still what he started setting up for our pirate cooking game. He also started looking into lighting set up and has some fun settings for me to mess around with later. We got an asset called COZY: Stylized Weather 2, which he has just started looking into to see if it will be a good base for our cozy lighting set up.
Leaf also started integrating my UI images into the game and they look really good! Of course, we will have to see how the final version looks all together to really know if we will have to make any UI changes. For now though, I think they look amazing. Hoping to film a little "demo" soon to show off all Leaf's skills!

Week 6 - UI Efforts
4.22-4.28

UI Efforts
Did a first pass on the UI menu icons for our 3 starter recipes. I think my rather messy, sketchy style will match well with the overall vibes of the game. Even though these UI will be relatively small and not many of the details will be seen, I still wanted it to match the watercolor, brushstroke style that the game assets have at the moment. To achieve this, I did a solid background color under everything (white or light tan) and then layered on color using the Rough Wash brush in Clip Studio Paint primarily. It has been really fun to work on these during my lunch hour, and I am so happy with how well and quickly they come together. Leaf seems to like them too, and usually doesn't have too many edits - so it is nice to be on the same page with these.

Texture - Pass 2 Update
Finally finished the Substance Painter pass on the Assembly Station items. Started working on getting the scene into Unity and then promptly started panicking about lighting and ambiance. Ooof - you're never done learning new things - and it is moments like these, when all the little pieces start to feel overwhelming, that I have to remind myself that I love learning new things!

Unity Update
Leaf took a little bit of a coding break this week and started doing some asset creation. He made a pretty great looking ramen bowl with an egg, shrimp, and noodles. Leaf decided that he wanted to code a fun little ramen bowl building "game" for funzies - so he spent the weekend finishing up that little project as a reset.

Week 5 - New Programs
4.15-4.21

Character Customization
Did some thinking on character customization this week. I set up my Celia body (which is more fem already) to have blendshapes for a more masculine body (really, it's just squarer) and for a more neutral body (which is basically a flatter chest, not quite as dramatic a waist curve). The clothing designs that I have thought about (sketched out a couple) keep coming back to some main themes - baggy, cozy, and pretty gender neutral. Sure, some may read as a little more fem or masc, but overall I consider them to be fairly neutral. Having that in mind, my plan is to design all the cloths for the neutral body. I am not sure if we will add a body shape slider - even if we do the base design would be the neutral body so designing the cloths for that body type seemed the safest way to go. At the very least, they will be use, and if we do a body slider then I can add blendshapes to adjust the cloths.

Texture - Pass 2
Finally stopped putting up resistance to learning a new program and broke out Substance Painter 3D to do some texture testing. Texture A is the hand-painted version that I did in Clip Studio Paint using the Artist 21 brushes primarily. Texture B is the procedural Substance texture that I set up. I don't know why getting into Substance has always bugged me, or what weird barrier/bias the idea of using it is pushing up against, but I have to admit - it seems to be working for the style that we want.Still need to actually set up these textures in Unity and come up with the right lighting - that will be the final test.I am constantly worried that we are trying a little too hard at these textures. A simple base colors and a lighting pass would still look cute and cozy right? I just really like the painterly style, even if it ends up just having a subtle effect. It's worth at least fully testing out I think.(Inspiration: Ghibli Style Texturing, Stylized Station Substance hand painted tutorials, Chacken_)

Unity Update
Leaf's goal for the weekend was to set up the upgrade tree, which he was successful at doing (Woot!). He was also able to set up some of the upgrade effect, just the simple ones like adding a display table or a new oven. We are probably on the 3rd pass for the upgrade tree - hoping to get some more finalized soon!

Custimization Options

Texture A - Hand Done, Clip Studio

Texture B - Substance Paint 3D

Week 4 - Various updates
4.8-4.14

Scene Set Up
Sooo much has gone on this week! I think the biggest accomplishment (for me at least) is the textures! I feel like I finally have a workflow together. Another artist I like (@Chacken_ on twitter - X) has a wonderful painterly style that they translate to 3D mesh. So, I reached out and Chack shared that they use the Artist21 pack on Clip Studio. That was a game changer - I really like using the markers to create the brush strokes, and Chack encouraged me to splash around some different vibrant colors to create the brush-style layers.Leaf and I have also been discussing the base character design. He really likes the style I did for one of my old Chibi clients (an adorable squirrel human anime person with clean/basic/vibrant coloring) and it was one of my favorite models as well. We have used that model, and Celia (a chibi I designed) to see if the game layout feels good with a chibi style character. Might have to change up the body proportions, play around a little bit with the overall chibi style -but I love chibi so much and I really want to make it work for this game!
(Inspiration: Moonlight Peaks, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Lettier, Chacken_)

2D Little Buddy Designs
I also started working on our little buddy designs! Some of our final upgrades will result in giving you little spirit buddies to help with different activities - bringing ingredients from the farm to the kitchen for example. That's what these two design are for - one based on a daikon and on based on a green onion. I haven't figured out if I want to create 4 different veggie buddies or 4 different versions of one veggie buddy.(Inspiration: Ghibli Movies - Susuwatari and Kodama spirit creatures, Chacken_)

Unity Update
One of the most frustrating things - which was really unexpected - has been figuring out the correct camera angle and perspective. Unity's camera and Blender's camera don't play nice with each other - they don't seem to use the same perspective and there doesn't seem to be a good way to match them. So - we decided that I would just do my best to set up the view in blender and then we will bring the whole scene into Unity to figure out there - either try to match the view I set up in blender if we like it or try something new with the assets.On the coding side, Leaf has worked out the code for our first 3 recipes - which means setting up cooking station, assembly station, "the vats" which house rice and dashi at the moment, storage containers, and a grow systems for crops. He also has the customers set up to go to tables with clean plates only, so if there is an empty space they will ignore it and currently dirty dishes go - zip - straight into the dishwasher for the player to wash. He has done so much to lay down the basis for all our code. Can't wait to see what he does with the upgrade tree (next part of the project)!

Week 3 - Textures & NPCs
4.1-4.7

Textures
Things have been cooking this week!
Leaf has been hard at work on setting up the basis for our game. He has coded some of the initial steps - interact buttons, picking up/putting down incrediants, a basic UI system for recipes, and camera movement between rooms! We are still working out the right camera angel and the appropriate size for our assets - considering we want them to be chunky but also fully visible to the player.As for the art side, I took a first pass at texturing. We are researching how to do a subtle painterly style - so I created a group of alpha maps of different brushes for Leaf to play around with in substance painter. I also made my first attempt at a stylized wood texture map! I made 2 of the 4 designs to play around with and applied this to the tables in my blender scene. The challenge will come from figuring out this look in Unity.(Inspiration: Moonlight Peaks, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Lettier)

NPC Wip
First pass at our starting NPC. Little Alan the Poultry-Geist will be the NPC that introduces you to your restaurant and will walk you through the tutorial. His name is actually a little nerdy deep cut that maybe only Leaf and I find funny - we named him after Alan Tudyk (one of our favorite actors) as an homage to his numerous roles voicing animals in movies/shows. And not animals that talk, just purely doing actual animal noises. Hilarious, considering he is such a wonderful actor and I imagine to be a kinda expensive choice for such a "small" role.(Inspiration: Moonlight Peaks, Alan Tudyk)

Week 2 - Assets WIP
3.25-3.31

Check out the initial assets I've created for the restaurant table setup and the kitchen assembly station! My aim with these assets was to infuse them with Japanese elements while maintaining a chunky/cute style.While the assembly station is still a work in progress, the concept is to have it serve as the central hub where all ingredients come together to form a meal before being taken to a cooking station. Although we're not striving for hyper-realism in meal preparation, I wanted to incorporate visual elements that show the player that this is the place to chop, mix, and prepare ingredients.(Inspiration: Pinterest art, Avatar the Last Airbender, Isa [@Nawhie_], Lemon Cake, DMC Japan by Knt)

The Start!
3.22-3.24

In our initial week of development, we took a practical approach to understanding the game by focusing on its recipes. By defining the dishes we want to feature, we naturally determined the essential ingredients, types of cooking stations, and other gameplay elements. We also brainstormed quality-of-life upgrades that would distinguish our game from others and align with the theme of our Spirit World/Japanese restaurant. Take a look at some of our favorite upgrades on the left! We believe that these (and others) will set our game apart while also featuring things we love about Japan.(Inspiration: Avatar the Last Airbender, Overcooked 2, Moonstone Island, Lemon Cake)

Kitchen Upgrades:
Dishwasher - delivers clean plates to restaurant tables automaticallyRestaurant Upgrade
Gotchapon - Attracts customers, provides restaurant with extra money, player can collect Gotcha figures too!Farming Upgrade
Bee Hive - Little bee spirits that fly around pollinating the garden and decrease grow time for crops

Greetings! We're Axie & Leaf – two nerds who like to eat and play games! Since 2020, we've taught ourselves game development and 3D modeling, with Axie honing her skills in 3D art and Leaf focusing on game design and coding. Our journey began with a pixel art cooking game idea, but it quickly felt overwhelming at the time. However, over the years, we've honed our skills and grown more confident in our respective areas – the training arc was complete!Now, at last, we're turning our long-held dream into reality. We're passionate about food, cooking, and all things Japanese, and we're excited to share that passion with others. Step by step, we're bringing our dream game to life. See you at the finish line!