Crazy Mama Trucker

🚚 Core Idea

This project was a game jam prototype with the theme 'Unexpected Mashup':
My inspirations were Crazy Taxi and Cooking Mama.

I had 2 weeks - I did not end up submitting this build as I could not complete work during the jam dates, but the time spent on the project was within the 2 weeks.

You’re driving a colourful ice-cream truck across town, weaving through traffic to deliver ice-creams — but every order comes with a mini kitchen burst. The truck can't stop, so while you’re scooping ice cream, the road physics still jostle your kitchen.

Driving and cooking are tightly integrated: crash too much and your quality score drops, rush deliveries and tips go up, miss too many steps and the order fails.

🛠 Development Journey

• Driving Physics:

  I built a kinematic arcade truck controller from scratch. It supports mirrored forward/reverse handling, handbrake drifting, and outward body lean. The driving feel needed to be exaggerated and fun, so I used CharacterController with force-style acceleration, plus skid and crash feedback systems.

• Kitchen Integration:

  The kitchen is actually a rigged object mounted to the truck model. Using Unity’s transform hierarchy, it tilts, rolls, and slides dynamically with the vehicle’s G-forces. This way, the QTEs always feel alive and chaotic.

• State Management:

  GameDirector runs the show with a clean state machine: Driving → CookingBurst → Delivering → Results. It coordinates order spawning, burst timing, and transitions.

• QTE System:

  All quick-time events implement a simple IQTEHandler interface. That lets me drop in new tasks (scooping, pouring, sprinkling, etc.) without rewriting the manager. Each burst has a timeout fallback so orders can’t stall forever — fail them and you take a penalty.

• Scoring & Rewards:

  Deliveries pay a base fee. Tips scale with speed and QTE quality. Crash penalties reduce score. This keeps tension high: do you drift like a maniac for time, or keep it clean for bigger tips?

🎨 Game Feel & Juice

• Cinemachine 3 cameras for smooth driving and kitchen cut-ins.

• Model lean when cornering for arcade immersion.

• Random order spawner by navmesh so always reachable.

• ice-cream truck jingle remixed by myself.

• Trail renderer for skid marks.

• Matching sounds and music to the game tone.

🎯 What’s Next

Right now the game is a working prototype with full loop: drive → cook → deliver → score.

Future polish could include:

• Pickups for speed boosts and drift grip modifiers.

• More recipe variety (banana boats, sundaes).

• Extra “juice” like VO packs and stylized VFX.

💡 Reflections

This project has been a fun challenge in blending two genres. The biggest technical hurdle was getting the split-screen kitchen bursts to feel connected to the truck’s physics, while still being playable. It’s quirky, chaotic, and surprisingly fun — exactly what I wanted for a jam-to-portfolio piece.