Toxicity is a point and click cooking assassination game. Players take on the role of Maximillian, a 322 year old chef running a New York diner. Maximillian is especially long lived because he made a contract with Death. When someone eats Maximillian's cooking he gains half of the life span they lost by eating it, whether that be a few minutes to a few years. Death will release Maximillian from his contract on one condition, he earns 10,000 years of life. Until he completes this he must take at least one year of life per day or suffer crippling migraines. After sometime resisting his fate Maximillian resigns to cook meals so incredible that even though it shaves years off their lives his diners will die happy.
Players operate from behind the counter, making observations about their customers through direction observation and conversations with the waiters and waitresses. Any information gathered is noted in Maximillian's diary for later use, the more a customer comes the better the player can suit a dish to their tastes.
Dishes are comprised of three values, cost, taste and toxicity. The menu only has one item on it the "chefs special" which is always the same price to the customer (though the player can put this up or down at their whimsy) but naturally varies in cost to the player. Costs too high will run the diner out of business and a toxicity too high will drive off customers while a taste too high will likely stop the player earning years fast enough. Players have to mix values to keep customers coming back and earning their loyalty/trust allowing them to up toxicity and price.
Players make dishes by combing various ingredients in their kitchen to create meals, each ingredient has flavor keywords to indicate the effect it has and values for taste, cost and toxicity. Players aim to match keywords to a customer's tastes while balancing the other values.
Naturally this is an eatery so the longer the player takes to produce the meal the more irate the customer becomes affecting the customers view of the restaurant.
As time progresses the restaurant may become more or less popular changing the number of clientele coming in, in response players can hire more staff or change their staff as well as changing what they pay the staff.
Toxicity is a basic resource management game with a dark twist. Players will naturally need to have the cold calculating mind-set needed to manage the numbers however players also need to manage both their staff and customers while quickly creating meals that will please their customers while draining their life expectancy. Players should ideally become attached to staff over time, potentially even sharing their secret with them. Players should also have a variety of relationships with their different customer, enjoying the company of some despite the soft drain on their life, while outright sucking the less tolerable ones dry, potentially even trying to get them to die at their seat. The odd dichotomy of friendly relationships overlaying subtle murder should strike a strange dissonance in the emotional feedback of the game which will be emphasized by a unique musical style.
●Bizarre humor
●Intense resource management
●Unique array of interactions with NPCs
●Bittersweet story line
