Week 2

This week we made a large amount of progress on shaping Critical Reaction for concept into a structured, buildable game.

We started by tightening the core pitch: a 1-4 player, top down pixel-art co-op lab time-management game where you play technicians racing overlapping timers to produce real-ish chemicals. The key idea was leaning hard into the Overcooked-but-chemistry vibe; fast, readable, team-driven, chaos; while keeping the reactions semi-realistic enough to make the player feel smart.

The biggest thing we did was simplify the campaign structure. Instead of overcomplicating with scoring or complicated success conditions, we determined a “keep it simple” rule was in order.

Each level is “make X amount of this product needed for the next thing we’re making”. You win if you have enough.

We also outlined our first campaign using benzoic acid as the end goal. The chain is broken into levels where you make intermediate products (brine, solutions, washed layers, concentrated mix) that eventually lead into the final product. The goal being to provide a simple learning path that lets us introduce tools one at a time.

We worked through the interface and controls for various parts of the game. I’ve included a couple of the sketches from my notebook:

We also wrote out the game logic and rules in a way that matches our idea: no combat, no weapons, no powerups. The main interactive pieces are the technicians, containers, stations, storage, and delivery zones. We mapped how those things work together.

On the art side, we started exploring what the lab pixel art style will look at. In the above images from my notebook, you can see what the lab might look like.

Overall, we focused on shaping our project correctly: what the game actually is, what our MVP looks like, what the game play feels like and what happens in it.