The Brick House

Role

Programmer
Producer

Date

Mar 2025

Engine

Unity
Perforce

The Brick House is a cooperative 3D cooking game inspired by Overcooked, created as a group project in Unity. Two players control pig chefs running a high-end restaurant that serves the richest wolves of Wall Street, while a third pig (NPC) helps deliver dishes to customers. Under the guise of comedy and chaos, the game tells a twisted version of The Three Little Pigs: after losing their homes and businesses to greedy wolves, the pigs use this restaurant both to survive and to secretly take revenge.

The project focuses on teamwork, communication, and time management in a busy kitchen, with an extra layer of dark humor through a hidden “back alley” hunting phase that connects directly to the ingredients used in the restaurant.

Inspiration

The core narrative and characters are based on “The Three Little Pigs”, but shifted into a modern, satirical setting. Instead of a single big bad wolf blowing down houses, we reference “wolves of Wall Street” as predatory, rich elites who foreclose the pigs’ properties and push them out of their own homes and businesses. The new story asks what happens when the victims learn to play inside the same system—and twist it.

Mechanically and visually, the game draws inspiration from Overcooked: top-down or 3D kitchen layouts, real-time cooperative cooking, clear station-based tasks, and fast order management. Our design goal is to keep the controls simple but force players to communicate and coordinate roles under time pressure.

Story

In our version of the fable, the three pigs once owned small, honest businesses. The wolves of Wall Street used their power and money to foreclose those places and take the pigs’ homes. With nothing left, the pigs regroup and open a new restaurant in the wolves’ own financial district, called “The Brick House”, as both a survival plan and a quiet revenge.

By day, the pigs run a professional, high-class restaurant serving wolf customers. The front stage looks clean: polished counters, well-organized stations, and an efficient service window where an NPC pig handles delivery. The pigs must meet daily profit goals to pay rent and slowly save money to buy back what was taken from them. This links performance (orders completed, accuracy, speed) directly to the story goal.

By night or during breaks, the tone shifts. In a back alley behind the restaurant, wolves gather to talk about stocks and business. Here, the pigs get a chance to strike back. In a short “killing wolf” mini-game, players can secretly take down these wolves and turn them into meat, which is then reused as the same ingredient models in the kitchen. The game never states this directly in text, but the shared assets make the implication clear. This creates a dark comedy loop: the wolves fund the restaurant with their money and, sometimes, with their lives.

The main win condition is to earn enough money to buy back their house, turning the twisted restaurant into a tool of justice in an unfair system.

Co-op Kitchen Gameplay

Two players control pig chefs in a shared 3D kitchen. They move, pick up and drop ingredients, use stations (chop, fry, boil, grill, etc.), assemble dishes, and place finished plates on the serving window. A third pig (NPC) picks up plates from the window and automatically serves the customers, keeping players focused on the kitchen.

Orders appear with timers. Players must choose tasks, avoid blocking each other, and cook correctly to earn money and keep their grade high. Correct dish earns money, and late orders will only get a certain percentage of profit depending on how late the order is completed. Failed orders get zero profit.

At the end of each day/level, total profit is compared against a target needed to “pay rent” and continue progress toward buying back the pigs’ properties. Players could go to the next level by passing the rent baseline, but they will need to earn enough “extra money” at the end of the game to buy their houses back successfully. This directly ties mechanical success to the narrative goal.

Back Alley Competition Minigame

Between kitchen sessions (on the main menu), players enter the back alley where wolves talk about stocks and relax. By a short interaction (“Press button to kill”), pigs can secretly kill a wolf and convert it into meat.

The meat assets are the same generic ingredient for the kitchen scene, giving players a subtle but clear clue about what they are serving to the wolves without changing gameplay complexity.

We also added a competition element in this minigame, where we keep track of the number of "successful kills" and whoever achieves the count wins.

Level

The game is structured as a small set of kitchen levels that increase in complexity.

Level 1: Steak & Salad

Level 1 only has two dishes: steak and salad, both very simple recipes with few ingredients. Teaches players basic movement, picking up ingredients, chopping, cooking, plating, and using the serving window.

Level 2: Burger & Salad

Level 2 adds extra preparation steps (buns) for a slightly more complicated recipe. Requires more communication as orders mix multiple dish types and timings.

Level 3: Stew + Salad + Steak

Level 3 has the highest complexity: with more things that need to be fried, increasing order cooking time. Forces players to prioritize, queue tasks, and utilize all stations efficiently.

Technical Design

For this project, I mainly implemented recipe-related features, the dynamic order system, food state visual feedback UI, and the game flow.

Data-Driven Recipes

(RequestBase)

All dishes are defined as RequestBase ScriptableObjects, which store the recipe name, required ingredients, time limit, price, and icon. The rest of the game reads from these assets, so adding or tuning dishes is done in the editor without changing code, keeping the system flexible and easy to extend.

Dynamic Order System

(OrderManager, OrderTimer)

OrderManager uses the RequestBase list and level settings to spawn orders over time, create the matching UI panels, and track active orders. Each order has an OrderTimerScript that drives its countdown bar, color changes, and expiration, so timing, visuals, and order cleanup are all handled in a consistent, modular way.

Food State & Visual Feedback UI

(IngredientBubble, FoodProgressSlider)

Ingredient and plate states are shown through small, dynamic UI elements. IngredientBubble and SingleBubble generate icon “bubbles” to display what is on a plate or required by an order, while FoodProgressSlider is attached to stations to show chopping/cooking progress as a simple bar. Together they give players quick visual feedback on raw/chopped/cooked/assembled states.

Money, Game Flow

(MoneyScript, GameManger, OrderManager)

GameManager and MoneyScript track money earned each day and update on-screen values in real time, while OrderManager handles end-of-day logic: stopping orders, showing the summary UI, checking rent, and deciding whether to restart the level, move to the next one, or trigger a win/lose scene.