The Secret Recipe

Overview

The Secret Recipe is an immersive food-themed interactive experience where I worked on core interaction, spatial flow and visual experience design. The project turns cooking into a playable sequence of observation, collection and preparation, building a warm Chinese restaurant environment where visual details, spatial layout and ingredient interactions guide the player through a recipe-driven story.

Cooking is presented as a sequence of movement and action: exploring the restaurant, locating ingredients, reading environmental cues and completing steps through direct object interaction. The result is a compact but polished experience that carries cultural atmosphere through accessible gameplay.

Design and technical route

The design process focused on a clear player journey from orientation to task completion, while treating the restaurant as a fully produced 3D environment. I began with visual references and style direction, then moved through Photoshop paint studies, Maya modelling, UV mapping and texture preparation before assembling the space in Unity. Ingredient stations, signage, lighting and circulation were arranged as part of the interaction flow, so the environment could act as both a narrative setting and a functional game interface.

Technically, the project combines a 3D DCC pipeline, PBR texturing in Substance Painter, Unity scene layout, light baking, C# interaction scripting, recipe-state logic, UI prompts and responsive audiovisual feedback. I also built the sound layer through original recording, editing and post-production in Reaper, FMOD and Audacity, shaping environmental ambience and action feedback around the cooking process. The final route keeps the interaction readable while preserving the warmth and density of the restaurant atmosphere.