Cozy Chessu
Link: Steam
Release Date: Coming Soon
Project Length: 1.5 years
Team Size: 30 total artists, engineers, designers
*Note: As Cozy Chessu is currently under production, I cannot show any media of Cozy Chessu production that is not alloted for marketing.
What Is Cozy Chessu?
Cozy Chessu is a card chess game where players construct a deck of ability cards and play a game of chess using them. When they are tired of chess, however, the player can switch to the narrative or business tycoon side of the game. Chatting with customers opens up quests that grant rewards or unlock new features of the game. Rather than the environment just being art, Cozy Chessu allows the player to truly interact with their surroundings, portraying what it really means to be in a Japanese 'izakaya'.
My Work
I was responsible for designing and building Cozy Chessu’s business tycoon system so that players could meaningfully interact with the izakaya itself, not just the chess board. The goal was to make the restaurant feel like a living space where customers arrive, place orders, wait, react, and eventually leave based on how the player runs the shop.
I mapped out the player interactions and game state needed to support them. This meant things like order flow, timing, and customer behavior which were used that to build the first playable prototype (shown in the top video). From there, I expanded the system to include waiters and customers who dynamically enter and exit the space, driven by the underlying order and timing logic (bottom video).
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My current responsibility is implementing the narrative system, which dictates how the player’s interactions with NPCs shape their quests outside of the chess game. Instead of using traditional dialogue trees, these conversations are driven by an emotional rating that determines the semantic direction of the interaction and how NPCs should respond over time. This design choice reinforces the impact that dialogue choices have on conversation, while requiring less manual hardcoding.​
